Well, this is as high as I could find. Goodbye to my only time in the penthouse …

Watching windows whizzing by. This is one hell of a buzz, but hopefully I won’t have a chance to try it again. Hundredth floor, 90th floor, 80th floor, 70thfloor, 60thfloor50th40th302010

* * *

Unflustered termite hurries across floor.

* * *

Searing sirens.

* * *

Sirens closer now. If I can hear them, I have failed.

* * *

- F.S. Take him away.

- Evvez? What’s that?

- Eff. Ess. Failed suicide. Modern endo-skeletons can cope with the shock, even from that high. Let’s get him fixed up with a new one. He might have to be domesticated too.

Poor too-tough buggers don't have a chance here, ever since that Hundred-Storey Act.

- But he wants to die? Can't we just let him?

- Surely you’re not advocating euthanasia? murder? do we have any right to decide that he should die?

- Oh, no, no, of course not, I suppose.

- Just remember that he owes everything, and it’s not his right to throw away the life we’ve all invested so much in. Besides, why should he want to die? – just do your job.

* * *

I looked around. I could see the benevolent life-giving life-taking machine to my left and swung at it. No effect.

Bip. Bip. Bip. So that’s what that noise was. I’ve been having dreams about being chased by pacman.

Back feels stiff. Gutted.

Even as a kid, I used to have nightmares about being locked in a padded cell. That’s all London is. Living in a straitjacket on a treadmill; we get force-fed and so we owe them our lives, and consequently our happiness. Lucky for the “high priests” of the Gaolvernment that few share my sense of irony.

The door swung open.

- Good morning. Are you feeling better?

- Too well, thank you.

- Don't worry. You’re going to be just fine.

- Fine. Fine? I want to be sick, dying, terminally ill, a goner. I want to be gone.

- Yes. Yes, we’ll need to know the reason, attempted method and damage caused, for the confession. I’ll leave the form on the table.

Confession? Guilty of exercising my only right, now too atrophied to respond. Over-utilitarianism: they don't understand that too much of a good thing is awful. Apparently man is possessed of certain inalienable rights; including liberty and life. I’ve lost one, but the other is being forced upon me, supposedly as part of the ‘pursuit of happiness’ – whose happiness? The one true inalienable right is not life, but not-life. For a believer in the god of humanity, heaven is not being able to feel the flames.

For one pitiable second, I hated my parents, whoever they were, they sure fucked me up, Dear God the very houses seem asleep, the vicious vicissitudes of virtue, unlike the Murphy’s, oh shit, I'm getting delirious again. I take a pill. As the anaesthetic kicks in, I feel sweet nothing for a moment. I take comfort from the fact that at least I fit wholly into one category; although the clique of insanity may not be very exclusive, it’s still nice to belong.

I'm not advocating mandatory masochism. Freedom is the freedom to say, ‘Fuck freedom’.

* * *

Bip ... Bip ... Bip. My heart rate’s slowed to normal. My recovery’s all but assured now. Caught by the smiling iron-shod pacman as a sacrifice. Painstakingly, I can see life ebbing grudgingly closer, step by high-pitched step.

Bip … Boom … clang of a heavy door, the heavenly gates closing.

I imagine they’ll have given me extra-tough re-inforcements. No chance for me now … unless maybe I can somehow melt myself. Hmmm, finding a fire that hot won’t be easy … but I'll be damned if I'm going to live not trying.

I am the Greatest Good.

* * *