15th
I woke up and blinked myself in to a bleary semi-consciousness, sitting on the corner of the bed, rocking slowly back and forth as I convinced enough of my synapses to fire up for me to stand. Finally, gaining control of my senses I shook my head and stood up and stretched. I yawned, lips cracking, my mouth an arid wasteland tasting of burning death. My, I thought to myself, what wonderful side effects there are from so many years of chain smoking cigarettes. I reached for the open bottle of Scotch on the nightstand and took a generous swig, replacing the foul, bleak smokiness with a sweet, lively one. I harvested the remains of a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of my trench coat and lit one, inhaling deeply, drawing in the day’s first jolt of nicotine deep in to my lungs.
As I tugged on my trousers, I surveyed the room a bit: an unanswered pile of bills on the desk, and the remains of a take-out Chinese dinner sitting on the coffee table. Not a woman’s touch anywhere in here, just the way a private dick’s office should be. Out the window God was pissing on us from up in heaven, mocking us as ever with a cloudy sky and watching us soaking in his urine. I sighed and wandered over to my warn brown leather office chair behind the faded oak desk, maintaining a death grip on the bottle of scotch as I carried it with me. As I settled in to the chair I withdrew a pristine Colt Anaconda from the top right drawer, and began cleaning and oiling it thoroughly, taking a draw on the scotch every now and then to wake me up and keep me focused. Satisfied with the fruits of my effort, I swung out the cylinder and loaded a single bullet. I spun the cylinder and slammed it home, pulled back the hammer, and held it to my head.
“Well Sam,” I said out loud to myself, “let’s see if today is finally the day.” I pulled the trigger.
*click*
“”Damn.”
