Zoe is eighteen years old and says she has nothing to live for. No job, no money, no boyfriend, no friends.
What is her life? There’s a home, parents who love her, but that’s not enough for her.
So, a bottle of red wine and a bucket for the vomit dulls her loneliness.
That’s still not enough. Then, a trip to the chemist for two bottles of paracetamol.
Now, in her bedroom and mum and dad downstairs watching television. Zoe opens the first bottle. She’s seen this done on television and read about it in books. She knows how this will end.
She opens bottle no. 1, shakes the pills, tilts back her head and away they go, down her throat with ease. She looks at bottle no. 2 and leaves it on her dressing table. She lays on her bed among cuddly toys, stares at the boy-band on the wall and waits.
A suicide attempt? Does she want to die? A cry for help, then? Certainly, a cry for attention.
As Zoe wanted, Mum finds her and calls an ambulance.
Next day in hospital, stomach pumped, Zoe sits up in bed. Mum and Dad by her bedside, besides themselves.
It was a cry for attention and now she has it. Her life can get better.
Then the doctor delivers the news. Paracetamol damages the liver. A whole bottle kills it stone dead. So, the liver will die and so will Zoe and there’s nothing they can do about it.
Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 