He's only two years old; that's too young to be fighting the ennui of immortality already. Without the fear of the inevitability of death, what is there to live for? He's young enough to be able to think of enough reasons to stick around. Instead, he's passing through that phase where the reality of it starts to sink in -- that there are things he is never going to be able to do, maybe not for a few years, but maybe also never. He knows this, he's very self-aware, and he's already tired of it. It's not like it really has anything to do with being dead -- it's more about what he's lost. A feeling like something's been stolen from him.

He'll be out at the mall, tentatively looking at things, the kind of stuff that he likes -- Hot Topic, JC Penney, Forever 21, where once he used to shop at Barney's, Bloomingdales, paid cash for shiny bits of metal that must have gone to the pawn shop or else some NYPD evidence locker -- and out of the corner of his eye he'll see them. Small groups of teenagers, laughing, shoving each other, their in-jokes, off-kilter humour, even their posturing, their sense of entitlement. His attention will be arrested by their presence until they walk out of his sight, and then he has to stop. He buys nothing. He goes back to the hotel and doesn't speak to anyone for the rest of the night.

It's been over a year since he tried to end it, and the feeling's never gone away. He's just come up with more why nots.

There are, of course, other stages of new immortality most dead people go through -- the oh god I'm a monster one. Sometimes it comes quicker than others, but only rarely never at all. In theory, it doesn't bother him -- it's just the reality of having a dead body leaking at his feet, dead eyes staring up at him and him imagining an accusing ring in them... But what else is there to do? Would the world really be any better if he weren't in it? Who measures the good versus the bad, who decides? It's why he doesn't bother trying to justify who he kills, because he is no judge, he knows well enough that he's not qualified to make an objective determination of whether or not anyone deserves to die. It's unfortunate for all of them, but how can he know how much good they've done in their lives as opposed to all the bad things -- how could he make that call?

So he doesn't. Nobody deserves it. It just happens. Life's unfair.

Lately, though -- lately a thought's occurred to him. Another way.

( kiss my gentle burning bruise [tw: suicidal ideation, graphic violence] )