by Dan Merais

(Warning: this story involves suicide as a topic and may cause reactions in the emotionally challenged. It is recommended that in the event such emotions are triggered, please click here for the National Center for Mental Health crisis hotline of the Philippines.)

When Philip woke up this morning, he said to himself, I want to die now. 

So that’s what he did. 

But before that, he had a small celebration for his last day on Earth. First, he had sunny side-ups. Then, he bought fried chicken and beer. Also razor blades.

Back at home, he watched Groundhog Day, his favorite film. It gave him time to think about whether he still wanted to die. When he was done watching it, he grabbed the razor blades and proceeded to his bathroom.

In the past few weeks, he read about different ways to commit suicide. In the end, he decided to kill himself in his bathtub since it seemed to be the most comfortable way to die. After filling his bathtub with warm water, he sat in it, slit his wrists, watched his blood spread in the water, and waited to finally lose consciousness.

This was where it should have ended.

If it wasn’t for Life Corp. 

Life Corp offered life insurance policies. In the year 2052, “life insurance” did not guarantee that a person’s family will get money if that person dies. Instead, that person’s consciousness would get wirelessly transferred to a new artificial body made in one of the facilities of Life Corp, thus ensuring the continuance of that person’s life.

That’s what happened to him. Just a few minutes later, he woke up in a new wound-free body in a chamber in the Life Corp branch that was nearest to his residence, the one in Madrigal Business Park in Alabang. At first, he did not understand what happened. He thought he was in some kind of limbo, as if he was waiting for someone who would orient him regarding how things work in the afterlife. He expected to see some of his dead relatives, one of the archangels, or even Bathala himself for there was an uprise of pagan religions at that time. 

He realized what happened only after seeing Life Corp’s logo on the wall. That’s right—I paid for an insurance policy thirty years ago.

After putting on the clothes that he took from the small, white storage bin on the corner of the room, he went out of the room and into the hallway where he saw an infographic informing him that he had just died. I guess some people might need to be informed about this. It also provided information on what he could do next or where he could go. That was where he got directions to the Customer Service department where he met Steven.

“Good morning, Sir!” Steven greeted him with a wide smile on his face. “What can I do for you?”

“You see, I killed myself a while ago, but I forgot that I still had a life insurance policy with you guys. Now, what I want is to get rid of it.”

“Oh… I will do everything I can to help you,” Steven said with a bright smile, but Philip thought he saw Steven drop this smile for just a few microseconds before beaming again. “We just have to follow the process for ending an insurance policy. I have some papers here for you to sign, and we also need the password.”

“What password?”

“The password that you set when you signed up for this insurance policy.”

“I did that?”

“Yes. Everyone is required to set a password before they can acquire a life insurance policy.”

“Hm… now that you said it, I think I remember setting the password, but I can’t remember what the password is. It’s from way too long ago.”

“Oh… but we need the password, sir.”

“I’ve had this policy for decades now. You can’t expect me to still remember the password.”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot do anything to help you progress through this process if you do not have the password. You know how many psionics nowadays use mind control on other people. We just want to prevent them from manipulating policy holders into cancelling their policies.”

“I can tell you for sure that no one is controlling my mind,” he said, shaking his head. 

“But we can’t know that for sure. A psionic might be controlling you to say that.”

“Don’t we have tools to determine whether a person is being controlled psionically?” he asked, his voice louder than before. 

“Not to our knowledge, no. And even if we have something like that, we still can’t grant your request because our company is strict in its policy about the password. This helps us avoid scams of any kind.”

Philip sighed. 

“When you signed up with us, we gave you a copy of your policy details. That document contains your password. If you can find that, we can continue with the termination process.”

***

Upon arriving at his apartment, he started to look for his copy of the policy details, or any piece of paper where he could have written the password. Going through dusty envelopes, notebooks, and sheets of paper was not the way he envisioned the last day of his life. 

But it had to be done, so he just did it mindlessly, until he had finished reading the last piece of paper that he found in his apartment. It did not contain the password, meaning that he couldn’t die, which was fucked up anyway you looked at it. 

He looked at his own corpse sitting with its mouth open in his bathtub. 

Lucky you, he thought.

Later that day, he was surprised to see Steven at his front door. Behind him stood two men with the white and blue uniforms of Life Corp.

“Hi! Sorry to drop by unannounced, but I heard these two guys were on their way to pick up your old body for you, so I decided to accompany them,” Steven said.

“You’ll take care of my corpse?”

“Yes! Free of charge. It’s in the policy. You pay for this, after all.”

He let them into his apartment and pointed the two uniformed men towards the bathroom, where they brought their MagLev stretcher. When he came back to his living room, he saw Steven looking at his notebooks, books, and whiteboards.

“I have to admit something,” he said. “I’m a big fan.”

For most of his life, Philip was a novelist. Right after getting a job that paid well and provided enough free time, he started writing one story after another, until he wrote his first novel Infinite Worlds. It was about a man whose personal life was made complicated by the fact that he regularly visited alternate realities. It was a minor hit. His bestselling and most critically praised novel was his fifth one: Bound in Time was about a time travelling secret agent trying to keep a girl away from evil time travelers. 

“I couldn’t say anything back at the office. They might accuse me of using company time for my personal business. But I wanted to say that I really liked your work. I’ve read them all.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry that you had to meet me this way.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m sad about it, but I guess you probably have a good reason.”

The two uniformed men came out of the bathroom and started to walk out of the apartment with his corpse. 

“Steven, we’re going now. Are you coming?”

“You go ahead. I’ll go home on my own.”

The man who had just spoken to Steven closed the door behind him upon stepping out of his apartment.

“If it’s alright, can I ask you what happened? Why did you decide to do this?” Steven muttered.

“It started when my wife decided that she wanted to die. She realized one day that all our close friends and family members had died. She asked me to join her, but I didn’t want to. As a writer, I desired something that takes time—recognition. 

My theory was that after a few decades, my books might gain more recognition, like when a book becomes required reading in schools. You’ve probably read some of those, like the stories of Poe and Hemingway. Many artists were already dead by the time their artworks became recognized as masterpieces. Many novelists were not alive to watch great movie adaptations of their work. 

I didn’t want to be like them. I wanted to remain alive so that I could see my work getting recognized.”

“So you didn’t join her?”

Philip shook his head. “She respected my wish to stay alive. We were on good terms during her last days. I took her on a week-long date before she terminated her life insurance and had a suicide cocktail. After that, I just kept on writing and enjoying things that I liked—books, movies, anything that had a good story in it. Then, my books indeed got recognized, which was probably why you got to read them.”

“Yes. I actually got a copy of Infinite Worlds because it got reprinted.”

“They reprinted it because United Pictures produced its movie adaptation.”

“I watched that with my brother.”

“I was on top of the world because of all the reviews for the books and the movie adaptations. Even before I got the reviews, I was already as happy as I could be. I was the first Filipino to have my work adapted by United Pictures, and you know how that studio is—they won’t even touch a European book, let alone an Asian one. But they chose to adapt my novel. 

But I soon got tired of all the acclaim. I could no longer write new stories. I was not motivated—I already got awards and all. And now I no longer find happiness in the things that I like. I ran out of books to read and things to watch. All these new stories do not appeal to me. 

Most of all, I miss Alicia, and I don’t just miss being with her. I miss all of the things that I had to do for her. I miss making myself look good for her on our date nights. I miss the thrill of finding the perfect gift for her. I miss having to think of new ways to surprise her for our anniversary. It felt good to make her smile.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Steven said.

Phillip went to his desk to get a bottle of scotch from his desk drawer, took out two glasses, “You want?” 

“Yes, thank you.”

He poured for the two of them, and they drank slowly.

“I actually intended to convince you to stay, but after hearing that, I understand now,” Steven said.

“Thanks. But I can’t really do anything about it now. I spent hours looking for my password in this dump, but I can’t find it. It must have gotten thrown out. Do I really not have any other options to terminate the policy?”

Steven sighed. “I can go ask higher-ups if we can do something about your case, but I guess I should tell you about case 412599. Before I do that, I want you to promise to never tell this to anyone. I’m only telling you this because I support you, and I understand your case. I don’t want to get fired because of this.”

“I promise not to tell anyone.”

Steven looked at Philip for a few seconds, as if Steven was using his retinal scanner to determine whether Philip was lying. 

“Case 412599 is an anomaly. It is the only instance when a client died even though his policy is still active.”

“How did that happen?”

“We don’t know. When it happened, the higher-ups just panicked. They quickly did everything they could to prevent employees and the public from hearing about this case. Only a handful of employees know this case. They also disposed of every piece of evidence that they could find. As a result, they were not able to analyze the policy holder’s body. They did not get enough information. They just knew that the policy holder was a 39-year-old male.”

“What’s the cause of death?” Philip asked.

“I don’t know. They did not make any formal reports for his death. He was just brought to the warehouse in a body bag. They did not want doctors, scientists, or any of our other employees to become involved. The only thing that I know is it’s neither a suicide cocktail nor a suicide booth.”

“So you’re saying that I may find a way to die without terminating my policy?”

“Yes. That’s the only option I can see now. I’ll still try to talk the higher-ups into making an exception to the password policy for you, but I cannot promise anything.”

“I think I can work with that for now.”

***

After Steven left, Philip headed to the nearest appliance store and got a shiny-looking toaster. Then, he went home. Since he liked pastries, he decided to have two slices of bread with margarine on it. Before dropping the toaster in the bathtub while he was sitting in it. 

He immediately felt the tingling sensation of the electric shock, and all of his muscles tensed up. Then he woke up in the Life Corp branch. 

He had theorized that the electrocution would prevent his body from sending a copy of his consciousness to a new body in Life Corp’s chamber, but that’s obviously wrong. He set out to test his next theory. 

His next theory involved firearms. He thought that quickly shooting the center of his brain would prevent the transfer of his consciousness to a new body. He hired his drug dealer to get him a handgun and a shotgun from the black market. He shot himself between the eyes using the handgun. And when he still ended up in Life Corp’s chamber, he went home and shot himself using a shotgun. Which didn’t do the job at all. It just caused bits and pieces of meat to splatter all over the apartment. 

Frustrated at these botched attempts, he decided to go big. He scoured the internet for any news of a volcano that was in the process of spewing lava. As luck would have it, he found one already spewing ash and lava in Batangas. 

After traveling to Batangas, he started his search for a pilot who could fly near the volcano. This proved to be difficult since most of them did not want to go against the local executive order that prohibited air travel near the volcano. It also did not help that all of them did not want to help another person kill himself. Luckily, he found a pilot who had a gambling problem. The pilot needed money fast, and Philip had a lot of it. 

After finishing the necessary preparations, which included the orientation for first-time jumpers and the planning of the jump, they rode his private plane and flew close to the volcano. Philip waited for them to reach the desired altitude before struggling to open the parachute plane door and finally jumping out. 

He gazed at the lava as he fell from the sky. For some reason, he started to appreciate the view despite seeing lava many times in films and TV shows before. Something about its red glow made him tremble. To him, it’s the Earth’s way of brandishing its immense power. Then he felt the temperature rising as he approached the surface of the lava. Knowing he only had a few seconds, he closed his eyes and hoped that the lava would stop the transmission of his consciousness to a new—

HHHIIIIIISSSSSSSSS. 

***

Philip woke up again in Life Corp’s chamber grasping his chest, breathing quickly, deeply. 

His body was safe, and it was in no pain whatsoever. But his brain still remembered how it felt falling towards the lava. The air coming from the volcano left no area in his body untouched. His skin felt prickly as flames danced around on his clothes, and the hot gusts of air felt as if they were knives cutting his skin open. This was not the worst part. The pain crescendoed as he got closer to the lava, and it concluded with a blow, making him feel like he was punched or hit by something on the chest so hard that all the air in his lungs was pushed out of him. Hell, he even felt like puking his guts out. 

Later that day, he watched the news and discovered that a local news team had taken a video of him falling towards the lava. His body didn’t sink at all. 

That’s fascinating. 

His head buzzed with newfound curiosity. Before this, he never thought he could still encounter new information that could interest him. He thought that he had known all of the things that he would like to know about the world. He realized how wrong he was. 

He lay down on a car crusher and had his whole body crushed into a flat mess of hair, flesh, bones, and other body tissues.

He jumped into an antique coal furnace and felt his skin burn in a sea of blistering and stinging sensation that intensified until he felt numb. 

His whole body endured prickling pain, stiffness, and discomfort as he died due to frostbite after he trapped himself in a meat freezer. 

He tied his feet to a ball and chain and watched the depths of the sea as he struggled for air, instinctively kicking and pushing to get back above the surface but eventually failing and ending up with seawater in his lungs.  

He lied down on the floor with his head inside a microwave oven and suffered intense burns and headache as he waited for his brain to pop. 

He used a time-activated guillotine, made by a carpenter who was paid enough money to keep quiet, on himself and experienced firsthand how it felt to be a head separated from its body. It was a quick phenomenon, but he remembered each second of it. He clearly remembered seeing his own separated body and instinctively trying to move it but failing to do so and instead being consumed by existential dread, it was followed by being lightheaded and losing consciousness. 

He set out to do more. 

***

Three months later, Steven visited him at his apartment.

“I have good news for you. I recently talked to one of the senior vice presidents. I told him about your case, and I got through to him. He’s agreed to let you terminate your policy. We can start the process in the office now.”

“Thank you for that, Steven, but I don’t want to terminate my policy anymore.”

“Huh? Why?”

“At first, I really wanted to find a way to kill myself for good without terminating my policy, but now, I don’t want to.”

“What do you mean? According to our file, you’ve tried to kill yourself everyday for the past 83 days.”

“Yeah. And I like it. Don’t get me wrong. I hate the pain of it, and I don’t get any sexual satisfaction from it. It’s as if I found a new TV show, and each episode is so unpredictable. Next week, I plan to get sucked out of an airlock in outer space.” 

Steven just stood there, looking at him and trying to force a smile.  “Well, I’m happy that you decided to stay.” 

“Thank you for helping me, Steven,” Philip replied. “Hey, if it’s okay with you, you can try coming with me one of these days. I assume you also have life insurance?”

“Yeah. I have.”

“Great. Just call me when you want to try dying for fun, too.”

About the Author. Dan Merais is a Cavite-based fiction writer. In 2020, he graduated with the degree of MA in Psychology Major in Clinical Psychology in De La Salle University- Dasmariñas. He worked as a writing consultant for 8 years, but he is now working as a psychology professor in De La Salle University – Dasmariñas. He has published two science-fiction short stories (“The Teleporting Man” and “A Nightmare on RPS Obsidian”) in Pinoy Sci-Fi anthologies. He aims to make science fiction more popular in the Philippines. Dan is also a mental health advocate, which is why he wrote the novel entitled Lana that was launched during the last Manila International Book Fair.