Jekyll, Jr.

JEKYLL, JR.
         My death was ruled a suicide. They think just because I left a suicide note, and the autopsy disclosed a combination of several chemicals in my system that shouldn’t be there, that I bumped myself off. I understand why they came to that conclusion. But I’ll forever be fourteen, not because I wanted to be, but because I was stupid. I’m the only one who knows what really happened, and I’m happy to share with you the particulars.
         Since Mom died three years ago, my dad and I hardly if ever talk. He blames me that she’s dead. In his mind, it’s my fault she tripped and fell down the basement stairs and broke her neck. My fault, because it was my laundry she was carrying when she fell.
         The other day I asked Dad if he cared if I lived or died; he said either was fine with him. His flippant response left me in tears. As I lie in bed that night, the thought of doing myself in began to creep into my brain. I wrote a sappy suicide note and pinned it to my chest. I was going to dive from the roof head first to make him sorry for what he said, but I got hungry and fixed myself something to eat instead.
         As I sat on the sofa eating and surfing the channels, I stopped to watch the old classic, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As I watched the good doctor transform himself into the evil Mr. Hyde, the idea popped into my brain about how great it would be to change myself into someone else. A person my father could and would love.
         Unfortunately, the magic potion I mixed to transform me into the son my father would love and be proud of, left me but another in a long list of teenage suicides.

WC: 310