Topic: It's a typical final battle between the forces of good and evil, except in this instance it's quite obvious that the narrator has wagered a large amount on evil.


He sits and looks at all of the items arranged on the table, the assorted items might look to the casual observer like they had nothing to do with one another. However he had arranged them for a very specific purpose, tonight there was to be a death. His death.
Glancing over at a bottle of whiskey at the edge of the table, he grabs it and takes a long pull. He winces as the liquor slides down his throat, the burning feeling being both comforting and bringing further sadness to the man.

His attention is drawn back to the assorted items laid out before him. The half of the table nearest to him is over a dozen photographs, the half of the table farthest from him has a variety of methods for suicide laid out. A rusty revolver left to him by his father, a coiled length of strong rope, some rubber hose just the right size to fit over the tailpipe of his car, and a bottle of expired pain killers from the back surgery he had a few years a go.

The half of the table that contains all of the photographs continues to draw his attention. He had struggled for so long; but the only thing that had kept him grounded were the people in the photographs. Friends and family stared back at him from the photos, frozen in time from various moments throughout the past several decades. Each and every one of them were important to him in their own way, he felt that he owed so much to all of them, but he feared that his strength had finally run out.

Another pull from the bottle of whiskey, he looks at the label as he set it back on the table. Cheap shit, this whiskey. The least he could have done for himself was buy the most expensive bottle he could find. But in a way he figured it was fitting, it always felt like he fucked up most things. Why not this?

The crying begins; quiet weeping at first, but eventually they broke down in to harsh sobs. He had always felt like he let people down, but he felt a mixture of relief as well as deep sadness that he was about to let his friends and family down in the worst way possible. He knew it was wrong, but he wanted it so bad. All he wanted was for the pain he felt on a daily basis to stop, its the only thing that drove him anymore.

Bringing the bottle of whiskey to his lips he drains the last of it, he knows his mind is finally made up. He grabs the length of rope and held it in his hand, looking at it for several minutes. With one last ragged sob he fashioned the rope on to a noose, carefully following the instructions he found online. Looking up to the rafters of his tiny studio apartment, he found a suitable place to hang the newly fashioned noose. Grabbing a chair he climbed up and fastened it securely to one of the exposed beams.

Looking at the photographs one final time, he grabs one of the few photographs of himself and hastily scrawled a note on to the back of hit, then tucked in in to his shirt pocket. He looked up at the noose and took a deep breath, knowing the time had finally come.
Stepping on to the chair he secures the noose around his neck, taking one last glance around the apartment. So little to show for almost four decades, maybe that's part of why he was standing on this chair with a noose around his neck. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he double checked to make sure the noose was fitted properly around his neck, this was the one time he planned to not be a complete fuck up.

Taking one last deep breath and kicks the chair out from under his neck, instantly dropping a foot. He felt the noose tighten around his neck, cutting off his ability to breathe properly. He struggled at first, trying to get his fingers under the noose to he could breathe again, but he had indeed not fucked up the fit of the noose around his neck, it held fast.
As the last bit of life drained from his body, the arms that had fought so hard to prevent the now inevitable conclusion fell to his sides, in the process dislodging the picture tucked in to his pocket. The picture glided down to the ground face down, leaving the note he had scrawled face up. Written in his sloppy handwriting was his last note. "I am truly sorry; not all battles between good and evil are epic ones."