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First thing the next morning I drug myself from the bed and downed two beers. I refused to eat. I was too angry to eat. The strands of the cloth I called life were being pulled apart, one by one. It wouldn't be long until the last string was taken and I fell into the endless pit I was hovering over. After intoxicating myself I announced that I was going to take a bath.

10 MINUTES LATER

I thought of the water, warm and pleasant. As good a place as any. A painful way to go. But I deserved the pain it would bring to me. I could slip down and breathe just as I usually did. Except my lungs would find not oxygen, but bath water, to fill them. Water contaminated with my sweat and the dirt I had collected from throughout the day. My brain would automatically panic and force my lungs to search for the precious oxygen by taking in another disappointing breath. And finding no air there, it would force the pain of breathing on me again and again, until my lungs filled and my brain collapsed from the abrupt lack of the needed element.

At least I would be clean for the funeral.

I said a silent goodbye to the world and got into the bath tub. I laid back into the water and took a couple deep breaths to prepare myself. Then I pulled myself under the water. Just as I went under I saw the door open. My mission was compromised. I didn't mean to, but I gasped and shot up out of the water. I tried to breath, but I couldn't I couldn't even cough. My mind raced. I looked out at who had opened the door.

There in the doorway smiling at me was little Ami. She thought I was playing a game. Ami clapped her hands and laughed. I became lightheaded, I was drowning. I couldn't drown in front of my daughter. But how could I undo what was already done? Then I remembered a CPR class I'd taken in school once. I fumbled for the side of the bath tub. I tried to make my body limp and straitened my arms enough to create adequate force. My chest convulsed trying to take in the air it knew was just above the water. I pulled my arms from under myself. My trunk slammed into the siding. Pain shot through me. I tried to cough. Nothing. I tried to pull myself up again. My sight was failing. I had to hurry. I pushed myself up as best I could. But I was disoriented and I kept forgetting what my goal was. I slipped on the wet siding, I hit it with my jaw instead. I was quickly up again. I tried once more. This time when the pain came a stream of bloody water spouted out of my gagging mouth. There was still more in me I knew. I tried to cough, I was successful. I tried to speak. I failed. I tried to cough as loud as I could. I prayed that Sam would hear me. I tried to breath. I still failed. I was almost gone. I needed to get Sam's attention.

I grabbed the scrub brush with the wooden handle from the wall and hammered on the door, weakly. All the while coughing and convulsing violently. Ami-- I noticed-- was gone. She must have been frightened when I started harming myself to expel the liquid from my lungs.

"What on earth are you doing!?" Sam yelled as she entered the bathroom. I became too weak to hold up my extremity. I dropped the scrub brush as Sam squealed in terror and ran to my side. I looked at her and my world turned to darkness. I vaguely remember hitting the water again. Still coughing. And I remember my chest lurching. And then I remember feeling nothing.

According to Samantha I blacked out and fell back into the water before she could catch me. When I coughed I breathed in more water. She pulled me from the tub and performed CPR as best she could. She wasn't strong enough though. She reportedly bolted from the bathroom and to the hall phone. She dialed 911 and gave them the needed information. She laid the phone down and drug me out of the bathroom to the hall where the phone was. She knew it was dangerous to move me. But she couldn't leave me in there and stay on the line like the EMTs wanted her too. She tried her absolute best to push all the water from my lungs. But my organs refused to let it out.