Trembling in fear and anger, Susan stood in front of the bathroom mirror biting her lip so hard that blood filled her mouth. She was done. There were no options left. No one to run to, no one to help her. She slammed the mirror with her fist and more blood spattered the sink.

Choices. She was sick of being wrong. Sick of being hurt. Just sick of life and all the ugliness in it.

She sat on the toilet lid, hugging herself, rocking back and forth, sobbing with guttural, heart-wrenching cries, her mind blank with self-loathing and terror. In all the world, not one other human being cared if she lived or died and now it was time to say good-bye. To the world and to herself.

Nerve pills, sleeping pills, there were plenty. She sprinkled them across the counter-top and looked at the apparition in the faded mirror one more time. Who would miss her? Who would care? No one. She absent-mindedly ran her fingers through her hair. It was thin and scraggly now, anxiety was a killer.

She had never been a beauty, but was attractive enough. Just enough to be used, and tossed aside; not good enough to be a wife or girlfriend. Only used, abused, and thrown away.

She flung the hairbrush on the floor and took the pile of pills to the kitchen. Diet Pepsi washed them down and she sat at the table, contemplating where to go. The river. She laughed inside at the idea of maggots eating her guts out. And flies sipping the juice from her eyeballs. Who gives a damn? The devil himself probably didn't even care.

Suddenly, she felt dizzy and extremely tired. It was time. Her old truck started right up, faithful and true. Susan grimaced. How ironic that the pick-up would outlast her. Memories of her father loving Ford trucks tried to poke through her foggy mind, but dissipated in the haze of the overdose.

Weaving in and out of traffic, she pulled onto a side road that wound down to the banks of the mighty Ohio and parked next to a huge birch that was at least three hundred years old. Rain had turned the clay dirt into a silty mud, slick and slimy, it was impossible to walk across.

Susan collapsed before she made it to the water. Time stood still as she tried in vain to remember what she was doing. Everything was sideways and she saw small things crawling in the dirt next to her face as her eyesight blurred in and out.

Tears streamed as she thought of chances missed, love's lost, and all the pain in the world flooded across her soul as she thought the word "good-bye".

Clammy mud and the chill of death racked her body, and Susan lightly coughed, almost choking, as her vital organs began to shut down. It was only then, that she saw the beauty that was hope; after it was too late, she knew where she'd gone wrong. And as her light faded away, the flies and little creatures began their quest in nature's bidding.

Above the shaded river banks, out on the major thoroughfare, motorists zipped by, unwittingly ignoring the empty shell; the thing that used to be full of life and love. The thing that now, was already blue in death.

Almost afraid to look, the sun peeked around the springtime clouds as a small boy peddled his bicycle down the dirt road, following his dog to the place where Susan went.