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Suicide Jack · (03-02-2017)

June 6, 1918
0445 hours
Bouresches, France

Dear Mr. Tidbits

An incomplete man just rolled past my feet, and it made me think of you.

I hope this letter finds you well. I woke up today in a French forest with a helmet on, and I knew immediately that THIS was where you needed a souvenir from. So, greetings from Belleau Wood, Mr. Tidbits.

I’ll get this mailed to my PO Box. I got smart and started maintaining one of those about 12 years ago. Best way to get souvenirs from time. Hinsdale, New Hampshire. Oldest in the United States. Did you know that? Of course you did, you see like a man who knows his history and loves America.

I wanted to tell you about time. I consider myself a bit of an expert. Did I tell you of the first time I travelled time? The plane? I can’t remember if that’s before or after this, forgive me. The point being there that I know it took about five minutes for the plane to hit the mountain, and for the explosion to kill me. Time happened. But when I woke up, scared shitless, in my teenaged bed, it was exactly the same time on the clock as when I’d fallen asleep. No time went by.

Well, that’s a dream, obviously. That’s what you think, right? But did you dream this letter in your hand?

I couldn’t go back to sleep that night. I was fucked. Eventually, though, sometime the next day I became exhausted and I fell asleep on the couch playing video games. I was right in the middle of a jump, but I passed out.

When I woke up, Tidbits, I was falling off of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The thing is, it didn’t work. I didn’t die. I broke my neck, fractured my skull, nearly drowned, and then spend 18 months in a coma. 18 months. I want you to let that sink in. I was trapped in someone else’s coma for 18 months. Have you ever been comatose? It isn’t like a dream. Time passes. You sense, you know. I was counting days, hours, minutes, inside a mind that wasn’t entirely mine while the body it was stuck inside of slowly died.

18 months later someone made the decision to pull the plug. I died for the second time. Then I woke up, and I saw the man on my television screen finish his jump.

18 months in a split second, tidbits. Just like that, I became a year and a half older than myself. Do you comprehend that? Do you understand that what you know as time is like a baby learning to walk in my eyes? It isn’t linear. It isn’t a wave or a sheet. Time is a cloud where every point touches every other point.

When we finally meet each other face to face, you will see a body that is just over 33 years old. A body that, yes, has been through some issues and had a few scars along the way. But my mind, Tidbits? My mind is older. I’m not even sure how long I’ve lived. If I chose to, I could spend years elsewhere and die, then wake up in my body mere moments later. The result is a man who has experienced lifetimes while he’s asleep, and a body that is eternally sleep deprived.

In those other times, I’ve broken my neck. I’ve blown my brains out. I’ve drowned. I’ve burned. I’ve fallen. I’ve overdosed. I’ve frozen. I’ve wasted away on life support. So ask yourself…

What can you possibly do to me?

Nothing.

Nothing you will do can hurt any worse than anything I’ve already done to myself.

No position you put me in can make me worry for my well-being.

If you knock me unconscious, which I am sure you will try to do, I’ll live another life and then die. Then I’ll return with another set of experiences before you can blink your eyes, having just felt something ten times worse than anything you’ve ever seen.

So when you fall later this week, Tidbits, know that you did not fall to one man, or one lifetime. You were overcome by thousands. An army of deaths. A brigade of pain. A cavalry tireless horses digging their hooves into the fabric of what you don’t, can’t, and will never know.

It’s not your fault. You never had a chance.

One last thought before I go, Mister Tidbits. The forest is getting hotter and the men’s screams are getting weaker. This would be a wonderful time to die, but alas, I must mail you this letter.

To think, I am going to be one day older just for you.

Always remember -

Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.

Sincerely,

Jack

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