The Suicide Park, Self Surgery And Brutalised By Affection (1/2) By Christopher Skolik

(1/2), (2/2),

Dennison followed Snaith from the road, through trees, to a wire fence. Snaith slipped through. Beyond the skeletal trees, Dennison could see a smoky illumination. Snaith and Dennison walked around as if inspecting a gallery. It looked like a derelict industrial estate from a distance. Only when he got closer could Dennison hear the sound of 22 engines humming. Pipes from the exhausts led to the windows, fumes escaping twisted in the frozen night. Dennison could see sluggish movement within the cloudy interiors of the cars.

Half constructed framework of a five storey building, its pre-fabricated structure a mass of beams from which hang bodies, slowly twisting, ropes creaking. Its base was littered with smashed bodies of fall victims. Pools, fountains, filled with ex-sanguinated forms, pale as statues, and the constantly filtering pool getting a fainter pink.

One pool had 30 bodies floating in it, turning slowly in the currents from the filtering system, like slow motion synchronised swimming. Under trees, self-inflicted gun shot wounds laid amidst a bed of dead leaves. In the grass blood sparkled like crushed rubies under the floodlights. "What the fuck is this?" "Research and entertainment." "Whose?" "The modern world’s."

All over were the prone figures, surrounded by empty pill bottles, razor blades, syringes. The broken bodies of velocity and impact victims. The abstract poses of the electrocuted. Snaith led the way through this landscape.

"You make two serious suicide attempts then they tell you next time to call them." "They all seem fresh, recent." "Probably got themselves a waiting list. And I bet it's a long one too. I believe they clear them away every morning, make room." To Dennison it seemed the most obvious place in the world. "Of course the really wild ones never get here." "No. They go to you."

"No. I am talking about suicidal massacres, guys flying light aircraft into houses and football stadiums, school killing sprees, stuff like that. No doubt they will cater for it, warehouses that look like American Schools, willing victims, a couple of pissed off teenagers with the right automatic weaponry."

"You said 'research and entertainment' didn't you?" "They do not have to be mutually exclusive." The hum of cars filling with carbon monoxide added a hypnotic effect. "What kind of research?" "All kinds, behavioural maybe, like the most common poses for people who cut their wrists, stuff like that." "Is that so they can make suicide easier or harder?"

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Continued... Next Page (2/2)

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