Chương 21: [That Time I Learned that Asprin Poisoning is Actually Very Treatable]

"Hey can you give me a second? The suicide hotline finally took me off hold." The pharmacist on the other side of the table offered me an understanding smile, which I pocketed with my free hand while pinching my phone between my ear and my shoulder.

"Hi! Hi hi hi! No I swear it's no problem you must be super swamped these days." I nod into the receiver while wandering away from the line so the person behind me can take my place and rob the cashier. He probably wouldn't get much considering the guy in front of me also robbed the cashier but who knows? Maybe if he waved the gun around a little more and screamed a little louder he could at least have a good time before the cops showed up to arrest an unrelated minority.

"Yeah so I'm at the pharmacy and I was wondering which aspirin to get. Is there a difference?" I hold up two separate bottles as if to compare them, the amateur enthusiast that I am.

"Like, I don't want to bankrupt myself here but I also don't want to have to swallow three whole bottles only to get a damaged liver out of the attempt." The voice on the other end of the phone kindly assured me that there was no real difference between the brands: as long as I could keep enough pills down I would die easily enough.

"Really? It's that simple? Thank you- sorry, I'm getting another call from the anti-suicide hotline. No, no, it's fine. I promise I won't change my mind this time! Kisses." With a grunt, I hang up one call and transition seamlessly to the next.

"Hey Sasha! Exciting news! I'm finally going to kill myself!"

"That's expressly the reason I'm calling I would like you to not do that."

"Y'know the people on the suicide hotline are a lot more supportive of this," I lean against the countertop while the robber pockets a few boxes of Codeine for his trouble.

"One guy even offered to let me use his shotgun. Which was cool, but you know he offered that to other people so it'd be all dirty and I'm not really licensed to handle a firearm anyway so I guess it's a moot point."

"If the legality of the situation is any deterrent I would remind you that suicide was illegal in the UK for many, many years," Sarah urged.

"Mhm. And when did it stop being illegal?"

"1961, but that's not important."

"And are we not in America?"

"That's equally unimportant. Look, Jake — mind if I call you Jake?"

"Kind of, my name's Mauriece."

"Yeah but I refuse to respect your parents wishes and you shouldn't either. Jake, as you know but I'm going to repeat anyway, I've tried every trick in the book to keep you from doing this.

I've appealed to your nonexistent spirituality, I've tried to gaslight you into thinking you have future prospects, I insulted the very concept of romance by suggesting you might be worthy of it one day, I urged you to exist in spite of your family's continued cyberbullying campaign to 'free up a space at our thanksgiving table'."

"That was exceptionally smooth exposition," I say as I casually pop a couple hundred milligrams of aspirin into my mouth. Y'know, to get the engine revved up. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"All of this is to say that I'm running out of ideas. So I'm going to ask you what you think, Jake. If you were me, how would you talk you out of killing yourself?"

"I'd probably kill myself so badly that I get second-hand embarrassment out of the whole thing and decide to wait until people stopped making fun of me online."

"There are exactly seven real people still using the internet and they're so starved for content they'd latch onto that video like a leech overdosing on lisdexamfetamine." I pull the phone away from my ear and shout over to the cashier.

"Hey what's lisdexamfetamine?"

"It's used to improve focus for people with attention disorders," they answered without looking away from the woman they were checking out or the other woman they were ringing up or the third woman they were accepting legal tender from in exchange for goods and services.

"Did you call me with that joke prepared or was that off the cuff?" I ask Sasha after pushing the phone back to my ear.

"I assumed you were at a pharmacy it's a very safe bet. But see? This is the kind of madcap humor you can only get when you're alive in this world. Think of all the funny drug names! Like Ida... Ida-rue-cis-uma-b? Idarucizumab! And, uh… Eszop... piclone! They won't even have the commercial pharmaceutical industry when you get Isekai'd. If. I mean if you get Isekai'd. If."

"Oh, about that," I smirk.

"As it so happens, not more than three minutes ago a narrator started narrating everything I've been doing. I'm a protagonist, Sasha. Not only am I going to die, I'm gonna go somewhere really cool and fun and do all kinds of shinanigans."

"Seriously?"

"Why can't you be happy for me, Sasha? I spent years — nearly a decade — being a shut-in loser pretending to like anime and video games and shit on the faint hope that, one day, I'd be the kind of social reject that always stars in one of these stupid things. And now I've finally done it. And I didn't even have to crack into Homestuck or Neon Genesis Evangelion."

"You have an Asuka and a Rei figurine! I've seen it in our video calls!"

"They're basically the price of admission!" I shout back before popping a few more pills.

"It was all for this moment, Sasha! And now that it's here I just want you to wish me well or something. Or maybe you can die around the same time so you can be the chosen hero who kicks me out of your party."

"I have no intention of wishing you well and less intention of dying myself. Why do you have to rush this? Why not die from climate change in fifteen years like the rest of us?"

"My therapist once told me that I can't wait for life to stop happening. I had to stop it myself. Well that's not exactly what they said but I'm paraphrasing. Point is, this is just me taking initiative. Now is there anything you'd like to say before I die? These aspirin are surprisingly good. Once you pop you just can't stop."

"I'm calling you an ambulance."

"Comeon Sasha don't be like that."

"Too late."

"Ugh, fine. Cya in the next life Sasha. If you want to stop being a jerk about the preservation of life or whatever." I hang up as I polish off the bottle with a lick of the lips. I thought Sasha and I had something special. She had a name and jaunty quips and everything, unlike the guy at the suicide hotline. Surely that was supposed to be a sign she was going to play an important role in my story, right? That's just competent storytelling, surely my narrator wouldn't be shit at their job… right? … riiiight?

Failing to elicit any kind of answer from the narrator, I slapped what was left of my cash onto the counter and stumbled outside. I was already starting to sweat profusely and suffer intense vertigo as the aspirin started turning my blood into sludge or whatever it was going to do to me. I dunno, I probably should have looked up how this stuff kills you before I choked it down. It couldn't be that bad, though.