Dope on a Rope (705 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesLabels: fiction
Rating: 1.79 on 30 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Flash Harry (View user info) at 2008-05-07 06:50:39 EDT
When I think back, those four years merge into one another in my memory. Snippets stick out, clear as day, but I struggle with anything longer than a mental snapshot. The time I had drunken sex with the dyspraxic howler from across the hall is a particular low point that throbs gently to mind. Or the occasion I wrestled my friend for the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World, in the middle of the pub, at lunch time.
My first deep-throat...the time I vomited blood...the drinking game we developed using an electric shock toy and a wet penny...happy memories, every one of them. I can't remember precisely when they happened though. I might be able to pin it down to a semester, roughly, but not much closer. In fact, in four years of being a student, only one date sticks out: September 13th, 2004. I can remember it as though it were yesterday...
It was a Monday. The weather was dull but dry. I nursed a hangover following a particularly drunken night out, the events of which have long since dulled into lore. It was the morning after the first night back, when the entire student population had descended upon the Union for cheap drinks, swapping summer stories and renewing drunken acquaintances.
In first year, I had lived in the halls of residence, sharing a kitchen with about sixteen others, but for second year I had agreed to move in with two guys I had become close with. We were a tight bunch, each subtly different but fundamentally similar, and we had been looking forward to moving in together all summer. The night was full of drunken handshakes, sweaty cuddles and ill-advised, flaming cocktails known as 'Alabama Slammers'.
Our other friends from first year, the group we had come to call 'the Girls,' had also moved in together. They were a good bunch of sweethearts, slags, drama-queens and flirts, and although we no longer lived together we still wanted to hang out and catch up.
Since we hadn't seen them for a few months, we tried to arrange to meet them on the first night back. They agreed in principle, but were sidetracked by a Welsh rugby team, and never made it to the Union that night. No matter, we had the whole of Fresher's week to party with them.
On the next day, the Monday, I was hungover like a dog. I crawled out of bed, showered, and collapsed to play Tiger Woods on the X-Box for a few hours. We were going out again soon and I needed some time to relax and calm my pounding head.
The phone rang. It was my mate, Baxter, one of the guys I lived with. I hadn't seen him that morning; he had gone into town early.
"Hello?" I answered, in a small voice.
"Alright man," he said. "How you feeling?"
"Awful."
"Me too...listen, has Mildred phoned you?"
Mildred was one of the Girls, but I hadn't heard from her, and I told him so.
"She just called me..." Baxter tailed off.
"What did she want?"
"It's about Laurie."
We had lived with two girls of this name, and they were distinguished by their hair colour. Blonde Laurie was a pretty, studious, quiet little thing, and Brown Laurie took drugs, drank impressively and brought countless guys back to her room.
"Which one?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Brown-haired."
"Oh aye. What's the wee slapper done now?"
I heard Baxter swallow a lump in his throat. "Mate, she's dead."
I paused Tiger Woods. "What? ...How?"
"She killed herself, last night. The Girls found her this morning."
I didn't know what to say. What can you say?
"Where are you?" I asked.
"In Topman. In the changing rooms."
"You coming back to the flat?"
"Yeah. I'll be there soon."
"Okay. Hurry back. See you then."
I tried to play some more X-Box, but my heart wasn't in it. A knock sounded on my door, and Chester, the third flat mate, wandered in wearing just his boxers, hair array.
"Jesus. How you feeling?" he asked.
"Awful," I replied. "Has Baxter phoned you?"
"Nah. Where is he?"
"Heard from Mildred?"
"Nope."
"Shit. Its...um...its Laurie. She killed herself."
He stared at me, astonished. "Blonde or brown?"
"Brown."
"Fuck..."
"I know."
When Baxter got home we had a few hours to sit around and talk things over. The afternoon was so surreal. Could we have helped? What if we had met up with them the night before? Too many questions, and not one we could answer to our satisfaction. I pitied her. I was angry with her, for doing this to us all.
The Girls were especially devastated. They had to move out of their flat, just a day after moving in. They couldn't bare to stay there. Luckily the landlord found them another place pretty sharpish, and all their parents came through, to help them move.
Chester, Baxter and I went round that night. We took them salty chips and bottles of beer, and hugged them as they spoke. The recounted the night nervously. We listened, and tried to find words that might lift the gloom for a moment.
They were in a terrible mess. Apparently, they had woken up during the night and heard Laurie playing loud music, and then the CD had begun skipping. When she didn't fix it they realised something must be wrong, but the bedroom door was blocked from the inside. One of the Girls, a blonde little sweetheart called Maisy, had managed to squeeze her hand through the gap, and felt the rope...
The police and ambulance were called, but it was too late. She was dead, leaving behind her a trail of depression, misery, confusion and blame.
We later learned that Laurie had been planning this for some time. She had brought the rope with her from her parents' house. Apparently she was full of valium and vodka when she died. They were taken, I have no doubt, to numb her to the pain. Her suicide was as premeditated as the intricate designs that used to adorn her long fingernails.
The words she scrawled on her leg as she died were illegible; nobody ever read her last words, or managed to understand what had gone on behind those glazed, brown eyes.
User Reviews
Submitted by matnotharry (user info) at 2008-05-11 19:53:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was really well written.
Submitted by Val (user info) at 2008-05-11 18:51:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Replen (user info) at 2008-05-11 16:07:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TheBrad (user info) at 2008-05-07 18:43:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm just glad she got the job done. I'm sick of these whiny bitches who scratch at their arms with knives and cry about how bad their life is. If you want to kill yourself, friggin do it, and do a good job because noone wants to take care of your vegatable body.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-05-07 17:53:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I agree, she was a cunt who did it to punish her flatmates.
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Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:27:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well of course it matters! If she was a small, plain, chubby little thing then we can all nod sagely and go "aaah, well then" but if she was a pretty girl who loved to suck cock, drop pills and dance then we'll be able to better recognise it as a tradgedy.
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Jesus, Berty. I still can't believe you look like an emo fag with big ears http://www.ubersite.com/m/116520 . Reading your posts, I've pictured you looking more like Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens would never misspell tragedy though.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-05-07 14:57:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sad
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-05-07 12:32:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Banjo (user info) at 2008-05-07 12:03:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I think most people know somebody whose attempted or succeeded...
http://www.ubersite.com/m/115765
This was my cousin a few weeks ago... She left x2 kids. They were both staying with my mum for awhile. They're now staying with my auntie on camp beds because she doesn't have enough room for them. Its so sad. All I thought was she was my favourite cousin and I'd been meaning to go and see her since I moved here in December. She only lived 30 miles away and I couldn't find the time to jump on a bus... Probably couldn't have helped but you never know what could have been...
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2008-05-07 10:04:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-05-07 09:56:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I meant the first time I received deep-throat.
But, yes, I do love the cock.
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I would have spelled that out.
I also wouldn't have followed up that thought with the first time you vomitted blood.
Other than that good story.
Submitted by DrogoRoch (user info) at 2008-05-07 10:00:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2008-05-07 09:56:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
We later learned that Laurie had been planning this for some time. She had brought the rope with her from her parents' house.
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Any chance she was just into choking herself? I mean hangiung as a form of suicide is pretty tough, of course given the choice between death from playing with yourself while choking yourself and just killing yourself, most afamilies will probably go with suicide.
--
Diddle whilst you die, sounds Frui-TAY!
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-05-07 09:56:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I meant the first time I received deep-throat.
But, yes, I do love the cock.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2008-05-07 09:56:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
We later learned that Laurie had been planning this for some time. She had brought the rope with her from her parents' house.
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Any chance she was just into choking herself? I mean hangiung as a form of suicide is pretty tough, of course given the choice between death from playing with yourself while choking yourself and just killing yourself, most afamilies will probably go with suicide.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2008-05-07 09:53:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
So does deep throat mean something else in the UK or do you love the cock?
Either way that line combined witht he title reminded of me this.
http://www.smokes-spirits.com/productdetails.aspx/Candy/opt/store/18/product/7556
There is a jar of it sitting on one of my co-workers desk. I think Kentucky food must be based on a dare.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-05-07 09:19:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DrogoRoch (user info) at 2008-05-07 09:08:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hehehehe You looked forward to moving in with Boys hehehehehe
oh wait a minute.
Umm? This was tragic mate, real tragic, sorry! (Like my sorry helps in some way)
Submitted by Maddog (user info) at 2008-05-07 09:02:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well written and a good story--true or not.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:56:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'd say so, Flash. Either that or she was seriously into auto-erotic asphxyiation and terrible planning.
Obviously I didn't know her but it's a slow afternoon so my first wild speculation is that university was too much for her, she was convinced that she was a failiure and couldn't see anyway of realising her dreams. The stream of boys didn't love her so she wasn't able to prop up her self esteem that way. THe only thing that gets me is that people who do away with themselves typically feel isolated.
Hence the question about whether she was a horrid bitch, which I will now ask now.
Was she a horrid bitch, Flash?
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:47:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
No, she was pretty. She was a great laugh. I suppose she just had demons she couldn't cope with.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:45:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
*shrug*
Some people aren't cut out for life. Physically or mentally or both. We live in a free, structured, society so there's a framework for such people to exist without too much unpleasentness, but they don't really live you know? The point is that this girl wanted to die and, for whatever reason, didn't feel like she was getting the support she needed from others.
Now if she's a fat, ugly, person who may even have been a nasty, vindictive, piece of work then I can understand why she did it. Lonliness and despair have been bedmates since life crawled out of the ocean. Otherwise though it's more mysterious and therefore interesting.
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:29:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Berty the compassionate.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:27:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well of course it matters! If she was a small, plain, chubby little thing then we can all nod sagely and go "aaah, well then" but if she was a pretty girl who loved to suck cock, drop pills and dance then we'll be able to better recognise it as a tradgedy.
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:24:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Aahaa...does it matter?
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:23:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Was she hot?
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:21:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I don't know. Probably isn't something I want to go into too much detail about on here.
I guess everyone will react differently.
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:18:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
The anger wasn't necessarily for the act she committed...it was more the manner in which she did it.
I wasn't angry for the pain she caused me, but the pain she caused her flatmates.
She knew that her friends, a group of girls, would have to find her and alert the authorities and deal with her body. They were (and still are, if conversation ever turns to it) distraught. They had to move out. Some of them deferred their studies. One of them left Uni completely.
If she really didn't want to live, I'd rather it happened in a way that wasn't going to adversely affect so many people she was supposed to be close with.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:12:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I never understand why people say they feel angry over stuff like this. I mean surely you'd either feel sad that they're gone or just indifferent. Why would you feel angry? I mean if they were sad and you did nothing because, lets be honest here, people who're sad are rubbish and then they die then well...
I mean to say, joking aside, I could understand someone feeling guilty for not doing enough or something but to feel angry just strikes me as rather selfish. Like, "You killed yourself? Did you stop to think how this will inconvenience ME?" sort of thing.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:11:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
The title seems a wee bitty flippant.
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:03:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck FJ. That's harsh.
:(
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-07 07:00:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What a sad story.
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2008-05-07 06:53:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i liked