gomiboy

Louis tried to kill himself this afternoon. He didn't die, and now everything is even weirder than before. For as long as he could remember, people had told him that life was a gift. His minister, his mother, that hippie chick he used to bang because she always had great X. "Life," they told him, "is a miracle, our only clue to the existence of god."

Louis had used an Xacto knife on his wrist. It started as a kind of internal dare, an extension of the junior high macho game of carving your girlfriend's initials in your arm. At first, he slid the tip of the blade lightly down his wrist, almost to his elbow. The white line the Xacto left behind swelled up in a hair-thin channel of bright blood. He touched his tongue to the first drops. The taste was salty and metallic. He cut deeper, making two long surgical incisions that gushed blood like cherry Kool-Aid. At the end of each gash, near his elbow, his blade struck something. It didn't hurt, but it didn't feel right, either. Curious, Louis made a cut across his wrist, up near his hand. The sliced flesh flopped open like wet clay. Inside his arm was a dull metal armature, like the kind they used in art class. When he moved his hand, the armature squeaked, as if it needed oil.