It seemed like a damn futile business to keep on
living. No more tutors - high school next
September which would probably be a devilish bore,
since one couldn't be as free and easy as one had
been during brief snatches at the neighbourly
Slater Avenue school...Oh hell! Why not slough off
consciousness altogether?...The whole life of man
was a mere cosmic second -so I couldn't be missing
much. The method was the only trouble. I didn't
like messy exits, and dignified ones were hard to
find. Really good poisons were hard to get -those
in my chemical laboratory (I reestablished this
institution in the basement of the new place) were
crude and painful. Bullets were spattery and
unreliable. Hanging was ignominious. Daggers were
messy unless one could arrange to open a wrist in
a bowl of warm water -and even that had its
drawbacks despite good Roman precedent. Falls from
a cliff were positively vulgar in view of the
probable state of the remains. Well what tempted
me most was the warm, shallow reed-grown
Barrington River down the east shore of the bay. I
used to go there on my bicycle and look
speculatively at it. (That summer I was always on
my bicycle wishing to be away from home as much as
possible since my abode reminded me of the home I
had lost). How easy it would be to wade among the
bushes and lie face down in the warm water till
oblivion came. There would be a certain gurgling
or choking unpleasantness at first, but it would
soon be over. Then, the long, peaceful night of
non-existence... What I had enjoyed from the
mythical start of eternity till the 20th of August
1890. More and more I looked at the river on
drowsy sun-golden summer afternoons. I liked to
think of the beauty of the sun and blue river and
green shores and distant white steeple as
enfolding me at the last -it would be as if the
element of mystical cosmic beauty were dissolving
me, and yet certain elements -notably scientific
curiosity and a sense of world drama- held me
back. Much in the universe baffled me, yet I knew
I could pry the answers out of books if I lived
and studied longer.
Things have learned to walk
that ought to crawl.
