It was Saturday, December 25, 2010.
Christmas Day.
I woke up at 4 in the morning and looked out the window of my five-star hotel room in Mumbai, India. It was nice and dark...and silent. I looked left and right and found not a solitary sole lurking about. Then, I turned and looked at the thermostat on the wall near the the window. The temperature was a balmy 80 degrees. And, according to the local news station, it slated to be a hot day, with a high of 90 degrees.
Smiling, I turned and walked into the bathroom. I turned on the shower, stripped myself down to my birthday suit, opened the glass door and walked in. I then proceeded to thoroughly clean myself for my day's event. Once I was absolutely certain that my whole body was 100% clean and dried, I returned to the bedroom and dressed myself in a pair of clean white boxer shorts. I then walked over to the closet and took out my clothing of the day...a white long-sleeved shirt and black mid-thigh dress shorts. Perfect!
I put the shirt and shorts on and went over to my bureau and extracted the best socks that would go well with the clothing...black knee-length dress socks. I sat down upon the bed and pulled the socks onto my legs all the way up to my knees. Then, I put on the jacket which best suited this ensemble, finishing with my shiny black dress shoes. Standing before the mirror, I admired my reflection and looked especially at my naked lower thighs and knees...and smiled once again.
Then, I approached the desk, sat down and proceeded to write a note on the door hanger for the housekeeper...in Hindi. When I had finished, I rose, walked to the door, opened it and put the hanger on the outside knob, locking the door from the inside. The note read:
"I will be out of town until next Wednesday. The suite has already been cleaned. Do not enter until Thursday morning. Thank you".
Once I was satisfied with all the preparations for the day's event, I opened my suitcase and took out the final ingredient...a hangman's noose, complete with the traditional thirteen loops. I looked up at the ceiling and smiled again. There was the main reason why I requested a top-floor suite...a rafter of solid oak. I threw the noose over the rafter, then took the remainder of the rope and, opening the closet door, anchored the rope to the cement pole within. Making certain the rope was tight, I situated a stool beneath the noose. Then, before I would proceed with the day's event, I sat down at the desk once again and wrote a second note. This one was addressed to the hotel's manager. I propped it up against the desk's mirror before standing up.
I climbed the stool, stood on tiptoes and put the noose around my neck. When I lowered myself, the noose was tightened perfectly. I reached into the pocket of my shorts and removed a pair of handcuffs. I put one on my right wrist, placed my hands behind my back and placed the other cuff on my left wrist. I then smiled a smile of finality before tipping the stool over.
When the housekeeper saw the note on the door-hanger, she proceeded to do every other suite on the floor, unaware of the sight she would have been greeted with when she opened the door next.
And what greeted her on Thursday morning?
The housekeeper opened the door and was greeted with the sight of my naked thighs and kneebacks as they were being attacked by maggots which always covered rotting meat. She frantically called the manager on her cellphone.
The manager and the hotel's security team came up to my suite, followed by Mumbai's finest and the prefect's medical examiner. While my body still hung in the center of the suite, the M.E. snapped pictures of my five-day old corpse, mostly of the maggots eating away at my thighs and kneebacks and my face, with a sardonic grin upon it...a grin of the decomposing. As he was doing this, the manager saw the note I had left for his eyes only. It read:
"I leave it to your auspices to dispose of my remains in the fashion of your country".
After several hours, the police lowered my body and, with my hands still cuffed behind my back, placed it face down upon a gurney, covering it from just below the knees to the head...undoubtedly to keep the other guests from seeing my rotting thighs and kneebacks and possibly retching their heads off...and removed it to the prefect's morgue, where, according to my wishes, it was placed in the furnace and cremated.
One thing still puzzled me as I roamed in heaven, attired in an all-white version of my death clothes: if I hanged myself facing the suite's door, why was it my thighs and kneebacks which greeted the eyes of the housekeeper, manager, security, police and the M.E.? I could only think that, somehow, the action of my hanging forced my body to turn and face the window.
 |
| "Adieu to my handsome meat!" |