El Scorcho Online Article

wasteland by Matilda Vaugier
whenever she entered room, the smell of mahogany and myrrh followed her, like pixie dust. she would alight near you for a moment for you to be engulfed in her glory and then she was gone, leaving wanting and despair behind. she was like an addictive drug too fleeting and unsatisfying. that is because she was a hollow person, a wasteland. i should know, i sat there watching her bleed to death.
i won't lie or confuse you. she committed suicide, it's true. the cold evident facts exist. she existed with a name, but she became too fragile to even withstand the pressure of such a burden, so i won’t grace her with one even now. let me also assure you that i am not sorry she died. everyone cries out that suicide is wrong blah blah blah. people want others to stay alive so they don't have to withstand their own guilt. people don't deserve each other's pressure. all we do is push weight onto one another. from the moment we are conceived we are given a weight from our parents. expectations to be something. then the government places us in school to teach us and sort out those who will be worthwhile and those who don't. they expect us to become viable citizens. i'm not anti-altruism, i'm not a narcissist but it's true. it's true isn't?
but i imagine you’re not interested in philosophy today. perhaps more intrigued by the suicide. yes, it occurred approximately 3:42 AM, May 14. the person in question slit her throat and the veins on the inside of her thighs. she was probably dead in 30 seconds. there you go. facts, the stats. but that doesn’t make her a real person. and i wouldn’t want you to think of her as one. near the end of her life she existed as a ghost. the drip of heroin in her veins, there was no one close, she had driven everyone away with her lies, her kleptomania, her schizophrenia. i was the only person she saw for months before she died. if she hadn’t been 22, she would have been a hospice patient. she lived in agony, every moment. and when she finally did the deed, her family, her former friends sighed in relief. really, i've never seen a happier funeral. and i don’t blame them. she was almost as dead inside as terrie schivo. you can say what you will. it was a blessing she recognized her inability to change. she had been in rehab since age 13. she was hooked so physically her mental soul was eaten under the weight. i can’t imagine her now being anything but content to be severed from the drip. she was such a wasteland.

Original Release: October 2006, Version II
Section: Mind-Fuck & Hive