"’Lo, sir," I said to the man running the bed and breakfast, "do you have the keys for those drawers in the desk up in the room?"

"Why do you need it?" he responded gruffly.

"Well, I have some valuables I’d like to lock up."

He looked rather offended at this statement and brushed it off by saying, "then lock your door," as he turned to go back to the papers he was rifling through.

I interrupted him once more, "Sir, do you or don’t you have the keys?" The key was crucial to the night’s activities.

"It’s gonna be five quid. You’ll get two back when I get the key."

"Now was that so hard?" I said as I dug into my pocket. The money wasn’t important. I smiled as I extended the note. He snatched it greedily, just as I had predicted. He tossed me the key.

"What exactly do you have to store in there?"

"Valuables. Are all my bills squared away?"

"Yes," he looked into his book, "you paid for tonight and three more."

"Wonderful," I said, and spun on my heel, walking out into the cold Edinburgh air. Item one, the key, was in my possession. I was on my way for the second item. It does not seem that it should be hard to acquire a bottle of scotch in Scotland, but I was disoriented. I had arrived only the night before and I still wasn’t sure where all the shops were around the bed and breakfast. I didn’t mind it though; it was a nice walk through a beautiful city. The air was chilly and it cut into my cheeks, that cold feeling that lets you know you’re alive. It was brilliant.

I purchased a bottle of Teacher’s Highland Cream, 35cl. A fine scotch at six pound ninety-nine. So far, the bill for the evening was up to around twelve pounds and the night hadn’t even begun. This was typical of me though. Hard currency in my pocket had a tendency to burn a hole, and I always figured that the sooner I got it out, the less likely it would be to ignite the whole of my pants on fire and eventually burn off my balls.

Item two, the Scotch, had been acquired. It was then on to the third and final part of the equation, so into a Boots I went. I walked up to a pretty clerk in the store, "Excuse me miss, do you have any straight razor blades?" This saved me having to wander through the store like an idiot, as straight razor blades were surprisingly hard to find these days. With the advent of disposable razors, and blades like Gillette’s Sensor and Mach 3, there’s very little reason to get a straight razor. I don’t think anyone uses them. Except barbers. ‘Damnit’, I thought as I cursed my own stupidity, ‘Why hadn’t I gone to a barber’s?’ I contemplated this for a second, but then reasoned that they probably wouldn’t have sold them to me anyhow.

I followed the clerk in my own little world, "Excuse me, sir? Sir? Are these what you’re looking for?" Who knows how long she had been talking to me.

"Oh, uh, yeah, cheers," I said smiling weakly. I had to stop zoning out, it made me look like a fool. I had found the blades, but I was not too fond of the price. A box of one hundred for about fifty pounds, I couldn’t understand the exorbitant cost, so I tracked down the clerk again.

I was a little harsher than I needed to be when I found her. It wasn’t her fault for the high price of the product. All the same though, I still acted like a dick, "Why are these worth more than my life? Do they shave your face for you so you can do something else at the same time?"

She chuckled to herself a little bit, "Those are premium professional razor blades, the type that barbers use," she noticed the look of agitation on my face, "Sorry, but that’s all we have."

‘Fuck it, I got the money. I don’t really need it, so might as well,’ I thought. I picked up the box and shelled out the cash. Item number three could now be checked off the list. Three for three is a good day. I felt like celebrating, so I decided a hamburger was in order.

When I came over to live in the UK, I swore off beef, but the craving was getting to me; it had been three months and I hadn’t eaten anything resembling cow. My body was in withdrawal from lack of red meat, I was sure of it. I bet if I had gone to a doctor he would have recognized my problem right away and given me a special prescription for American beef with only e. coli, not Mad Cow, to be shipped over immediately. I don’t care how safe they say the beef is at this present time, I still don’t trust it. They said it was safe for twenty years, and look what happened there.

Still, America could be adopting the same policy: we’ll all be dead before we know it anyhow, life moves so quickly. Double cheeseburger and fries, coke to drink, and Mad Cow Disease be damned, I’m doing things my way tonight.

Back to my room. Everything is all set, so I lay the items out on the desk in front of me. Drawer key, bottle of Teacher’s, one hundred count box of razor blades, only one of which I needed. Everything else that I need comes out of the personal stash. Pen, paper, laptop with lots of music. The garbage can gets moved a little closer to where I’m sitting. All items are gathered. Preparation phase complete. Now, on to

Phase 2, The set-up:

This was an ingenious little device that I had come up with on my own quite some time ago. I’m a little bothered by the fact that I have decided to use it, but sometimes you just can’t think of anything better to do with your night. I take out one of the razor blades and remove the protective covering. It should be sharp, but it needs to be tested all the same. I’m going to leave my mark on this world somehow, so I carve, "Danny’s way" into the desk. It’s a sharp little bugger. Smooth cut. Very fine. But now it’s been used, so back into the box it goes. Out comes a fresh one. The box of ninety-nine razors goes into the drawer, along with a new unwrapped one. The drawer is a little sticky, but it slides shut and I turn the key in the lock.

A normal skeleton key. My lips press it in appreciation. I crack the bottle of Teacher’s and take a sip so that not too much of the liquor will be displaced when I drop the key in.

It’s a decent Scotch. It tastes smooth, but it’s heady enough to have that strong quality that all whiskies do. I watch as the key takes a short trip to the bottom of the bottle.

The plan was beautiful in its simplicity. My life had been going fairly shitty, and for a while suicide seemed like an interesting option, but I never could bring myself to do it. I tried to convince people that I should die when I was drunk, so it all came together in the middle of a class one day. I don’t know what got me thinking it, but this whole process came into my mind. Buy a razor blade, get a drawer with a key, and a bottle of Scotch. Place the key in the Scotch, so the drawer could not be opened before the proper time. Only when the bottle of Scotch is drunk and access to the key is gained would I be allowed to open the drawer. Then I would make the ultimate decision; I would either grant my sad self a reprieve, or, as judge, jury and executioner, take my life.

The problem was that in the past I had always granted myself a reprieve. I used to look in the mirror and scream at myself. I’d run my nails down my arms in hopes that they’d magically turn into claws and destroy my veins. After a while, I tried convincing myself that I’d be leaving too many people hanging if I checked out of this world. But I wasn’t really convinced. The only logical thing to do was to give myself a proper trial.

The trial is set to take place soon, on the sheet of paper in front of me. On one half the good I’ve done in my life is going to be recorded. On the other half, the bad would be recorded. The jury would make a decision, the judge would hand down a sentence, and, if need be, the executioner would carry it out. Although there may be some disagreement amongst the parties involved, I’m not too concerned. It’s going to be a good trial. Hopefully some good closing statements, and not too many objections.

It’s quarter past five. A little early for serious drinking, but under the circumstances, I’m not going to object. No time like the present as they say. And so begins

Phase 3, Action:

My shot glass bears the label, "Danny Boy". It was a gift from a good friend of mine, given to me on the condition that I use it to drink heavily. What was I going to do, let him down? The first shot was taken.

Only a fraction of my heritage is Irish, and I joke that it’s all concentrated in my liver. The whisky wasn’t Irish, but it was Scottish, and the two races share a similar history of English oppression, so I figured that everything would work just as well. I figured that my glass wouldn’t mind what was in it, so long as it was alcoholic, and so long it was doing its job.

The techno starts pumping from my computer and I realize that I’d never done drugs in my life. Strangely, with my life possibly coming to a close, I wish I had. Not like really wishing, but just kind of wondering what I had missed, if anything

That’s one point to the good. I’d already started marking out my life’s achievements and accomplishments, versus everything else in my waste of time here on earth. So far on the good I have, "Didn’t take drugs". Of course, to the bad side I attribute, while knocking back another shot, "Drank too much." I continue on in this fashion, stopping the "shot per remark action" when I realize that I might pass out before the conclusion of the trial, until the paper looked a little something like this:

Good Bad

Didn’t take drugs Drank too much

Got good grades Didn’t do anything with them

Worked out, kept fit Was never good at any sports

Loving friends and family Too much hatred in my heart

Gave back a bike I stole Stole the bike in the first place

Community Service Shoplifting

Fell in love Got my heart broke

Fell in love again Broke her heart

Gave to beggars Never did anything noteworthy

Never could sing, nor dance

Never cared

Never pretended to

Never tried

Used too much cologne

Made fun of other people that did

I stop after that one and stare at the list. I’m beginning to get nit-picky. I take another shot to decide if that was the right thing to be doing in such a situation as this. Sure I’m only establishing my character, but does this constant onslaught need to continue? I’m sure if I think about things a little more, there are a million little good things I’ve done to outweigh the million little bad things. I just have a tendency to refuse to see the good in me.

None of them will equal the time I broke her heart though. The eighth thing to the bad on my list. Go back and look at it. Lily. Lilian. Lil. Whatever you wanted to call her, that was her name. She was so easy going and carefree. I gave her a reason to give up on me. I don’t want to relive the experience; all I want to remember is that her and I were deeply in love. Then she heard a rumor about my past, about the way I used to be. She asked me, I told her all the truths. When the smoke cleared, I was still hopelessly in love, and she was gone.

I don’t want to remember this. I don’t want to relive this. I’ve spent so much time moving on from it. I’ve worked so hard to overcome, "No, please don’t make me…"

"I’m sorry. I have to, if you want a proper trial, we must examine our entire life."

Two years it’s been since it all happened. Two years and some change. Not that I ever got over it or anything, ever moved on. I’ll tell you I did. I just did say that I did, but I didn’t really. You don’t move on from a love like Lilian’s love. I kept trying to get back together with her, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Fuck it, I’ll dwell on the past, only through confessing our sins are we forgiven.

Before I met Lilian I had a bit of a wild streak in me.

Let me start at the beginning. Time for

Phase 4, Flashback:

There was once a girl named Michelle. She was the first girl I ever really loved. There’s puppy love and there’s real love, and then there’s the first love. She was my first love. I loved her with everything I had. I loved her until it hurt. I gave her everything I could. My time, my love, I turned my back on a lot of people to make it work with her. She slept with a guy I once would have considered my best friend.

I always hated when people said that. Referring to their best friend and their significant other sleeping together. If your best friend sleeps with your girl, or guy, then they aren’t your best friend. If that’s the best friend you got, there is some serious re-thinking of friendships that needs to go on.

Anyhow, everything with Michelle took place in the course of five months. Not a lot of time, I know, but I didn’t care. My first love had abandoned me, for someone who didn’t last a week. I was distraught. I slept with as many women as I could.

It was awful, no love involved whatsoever. I was just letting my body go through the motions so that in the mornings I had a reason to hate myself. It was pathetic. For a year I hated myself.

I’d go out with my friends, they’d bring extra girls along. I’d buy drinks, listen to what they had to say, then wait for whichever girl was willing to drag me up to their apartment at the end of the night.

One night I brought a girl back to my place. My roommate was away. She was drunk and telling me everything she would do. I’m not going to repeat it. Some of this stuff I’d never even heard of. Needless to say, I was intrigued. I brought her back to the apartment, got her on my bed, and started kissing her.

Clothes began flying, and I remember distinctly what I said:

"Wait, let me go turn on my video camera."

"Why?" She managed to slur out.

I gave her a drunken grin back, "If you really do what you say you’re gonna do, I wanna have this recorded for posterity." What the fuck was I thinking that night? I have no idea. I couldn’t tell you now if you asked me, but there was definitely a voice in my head telling me that I had made the right call.

The camera went on, the lights went on. We went at it. At one point, she passed out. I didn’t stop. I kept going, doing things I shouldn’t have done, but did them anyway, for one reason or another. If you asked me now, I’d say it was the alcohol. If you asked me then, I don’t know what I would have said. Probably something to the extent of, "Get out of the fucking room."

So morning came, the girl took the walk of shame. I didn’t even know her name. She didn’t know mine. We both preferred it that way. We both knew what happened the night before probably shouldn’t have, but we let it go. She walked out while I pretended to be asleep and we both managed to salvage the tiniest bit of dignity.

My friends saw the tape by accident: They didn’t care the girl was just lying there, I went forever. They thought I was a stud. They were proud of their boy. I almost vomited as my buddies sat around watching it and whooping it up. I threw the tape out as soon as I could.

A month later I met Lilian. After a year of having meaningless sex with as many women as possible, I was smitten. Lilian made me wait. Not until marriage, but she told me that there was no way we were sleeping together on the first date. I was with her three months before we sealed the deal, and it was worth every second of the wait. It was great, there was a love there I could never have imagined.

There’s first love, then there’s true love. This was true love. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind. Two years of bliss without a single problem. Lil knew all about my past, she didn’t condone it, but she didn’t hold it over my head. I never told her about my time behind the camera.

Then after two years, she had been talking to her friend Rita. Apparently Rita related a story of how a lecherous bastard got her drunk one night, took advantage of her, and videotaped the whole thing. His friends saw it and she was subject to ridicule every day afterwards. She had attempted suicide, she had been in therapy, and her life had been ruined. If it weren’t for friends like Lil that she could talk to, she would have never survived. She started hanging out at Lilian’s as much as she could, it was the only place she felt safe.

She saw my picture on Lilian’s mantle. Two years worth of repressed emotions and anger came out in a well of tears that could have flooded the earth. The connection was made, and I never could have known.

"Did you?" Lilian had asked me.

"Yes," I said. What else could I say?

She left. I called her repeatedly. She never called me back. I went into despair. I dropped out of school, re-entered another academic institution, and two years later woke up in London in a study abroad program. I know I had to make the conscious decision to go there, and that there was probably a lot of paper work involved, but I just wasn’t even sure how I had ended up there. That was a fun trip down memory lane, I guess what’s left is

Phase 5, Verdict:

My life had amounted to nothing. I have a lot of good that I refuse to write down, but it doesn’t matter. The single greatest sin of my life caused me to lose the greatest gift I would ever receive. Nothing I do can change the past, it’s a cross I have to bear. My sin, my burden. I hadn’t been forgiven by anyone. Not by Rita, not by Lilian, not by myself. Without another’s forgiveness, I wasn’t about to try and do it for myself. All my other sins could possibly be overtaken by the virtues I have, but not this one. This sin was just too much to overcome.

But what about my friends and family that cared about me? Everyone who loved me, what will they do when I they find out I’m dead? I knock another shot back and realize that there’s about one left in the bottle. ‘Fuck it. They’re all thick skinned. They’ll be fine. It’ll be better without me dragging them down all the time. I’m ready to check out.’

So that’s that. My mind’s made up. The last shot gets poured out and the key plops into the shot glass. The only thing that’s left undone is

Phase 6, Doing it:

The drawer won’t open. It’s stuck. "Shit." I say in a low speaking voice. I try it again and the damn thing won’t move. I don’t have time for this. The jury had ruled the right way. The judge gave the sentence, now all I need is for the third musketeer to show up and complete the party. If ever I had voices in my head, they were speaking as a single voice. It was a momentous occasion. Everyone finally saying, "Danny boy, it’s time to die."

Something isn’t right though. The music. I can’t die to techno. I’d be thrashing myself around the room trying to dance with my dying breath. I couldn’t picture that, I just wanted to fold up into a ball holding my cut arm as I cried to a poetic song.

I put on the song I had brought for just such an occasion: Weezer’s "Butterfly". Poetic lyrics, soft beat, sadness that I think relates to a girl. The music was flowing, it was my farewell song. It’s time to go.

I pull on the drawer again. Stuck. I close my eyes and see in my mind a picture of myself opening the drawer, willing it to unlatch. It had to. I’d come so far. I planned this all out, I had finally worked up the balls to do this, and now, at the moment of my triumph, I was going to come up short? Fuck that. I’ll break the desk open if that’s what it comes to.

"Open, you piece of shit," I say and hit it hard on the top of the desk. Predictably, nothing happened. I hit it again.

"I said open up, motherfucker!" I yell from the top of my lungs.

"Keep it down, boy-o," I hear muffled from another room.

"Go fuck yourself old-timer!" I scream and kick the desk again. I miss and hit my shin on one of the legs. Jumping around on one foot and screaming expletives I decide that I’ll open that drawer even if it kills me. Sit down, block out the pain, do what needs to be done.

"Come on you fucker!" I scream at the top of my lungs, pulling as hard as I can, "Fucking open!" The Goddamn thing won’t budge an inch. Pulling, kicking, hitting, screaming as the pain of physical contact runs through my body with every brush.

Then I remember that I hadn’t drank the last shot yet, meaning the key was still in the glass. I stumble through a haze over to it and raise the little thing it to my lips, careful to take the key out first, "Cheers mate," I say to the glass, "You’ve always been there for me."

It goes down the hatch while the key turns in the lock. Click. The drawer is open and there’s a blade in my hand.

Phase 7, Doing it for real:

It is time.

Blackness.

Pain.

Loss of consciousness…

Phase 8, afterlife:

"Where am I?" I moan. I didn’t need a response, there was nurse standing over me. Check that last phase, make it

Phase 8 redux, Present life:

"What happened?" I asked.

"I’ll fucking tell you what happened," a man spoke off to my left side. I turned my head and I saw the man who ran the bed and breakfast. I barely had time to think expletives to myself before he jumped out of his chair and started yelling.

"Sometime around midnight you were making a hell of a noise. The other guests complained that you were going crazy, yelling, throwing furniture around. I came up there with a cricket bat to sort you out, and what do I find? An empty bottle of whisky and you passed out on the floor, bleeding from your head!

"Now sorting out an unruly patron is one thing, but having some stupid American kid die in MY bed and breakfast because he couldn’t handle his whisky is too much. You must have hit your skull as you went down because you were bleeding-"

"It may have been the razor blade," I said interrupting him.

"Oh, aye, there were razor blades all over the floor. What the fuck were you doing in there, son? Mailing letters for the IRA? Fuckin’ kids these days. You’re lucky I don’t send the bobbies over here right now. Only reason I’m not is because it’d be a poor thing to throw on top of you in your condition. And besides, you owe me a little extra for this, and I’m seeing to it I collect!"

"So, does this mean I’m not dead?"

"No, you’re alright, you just had a bit of alcohol poisoning," the nurse said, "You owe your life to that man. If he hadn’t got you here you probably would have died and no one would ever have known it. We had to pump your stomach because you weren’t throwing up; your body had simply shut down. It wasn’t capable of doing anything."

I owed my life to that man. Yipee. I couldn’t even fucking kill myself correctly. I really am a failure. The hang over from this even is not going to be good for the following week. I suppose I should thank the old man for saving me, or give him a card, or buy him dinner, or something, but I don’t see the point. I finally made the decision, then someone else had to go and make the decision for me to live without consulting me first. I was a little put out by the fact he simply assumed I wanted to be on this earth.

But then again, maybe that was something I had to see for myself. A stranger wanted to save me. Someone who didn’t even know me. My mother would have just cried and been hysterical, Lilian would have kicked me and watched me bleed, but this old man did what had to be done, what you’d do for any other human being.

I coughed. It didn’t feel quite right, but at the same time it felt perfect. It really had been a while since I coughed, it was kind of scary and at the same time interesting to think that if everything had gone as planned, I wouldn’t have ever coughed again.

The thought passed quickly as I realized that I had experienced a true brush with death. I almost took my own life. If it wasn’t for that man, I would have died. What the fuck was I thinking? I’m twenty-four. I got fucked up once or twice, but I still have a long time, right? Maybe, just maybe.

An empty bottle of Scotch, a hundred razor blades across the room, and the guy thinks I’m a terrorist? I blame the media for this. An old geezer should know a suicidal man when he sees one.

He got up to leave, "I’ll see you when you get out, you have a day and a half here as I understand it, and you have a few more days in your room. I’ll tidy up a bit for you."

"Thanks," I said meekly, and he left. I turned to the nurse, "I was trying to kill myself you know." She immediately stopped what she was doing.

"By drinking yourself to death?" she asked.

"No, I was going to cut myself. Forget it. It’s kind of a long story."

She looked genuinely concerned. I was genuinely touched, "Do you want me to get someone for you to speak to? A counselor? I mean, are you going to try this again?"

I thought about these questions for a second, "Yes, I’d like to speak to someone if you could arrange that. But no, I’m not trying this again."

"Are you sure of that?" She said. I looked at her hard and realized I was developing a crush, I think I just needed someone to love me again.

"Yeah. This was too much hassle and planning to have to go through again," I said. For a reason I’ll never be able to explain, I threw up all over myself and smiled. It was good to feel pain. I was alive.