The Suicide Pact

The story told itself, or so he thought. The two women were sitting on a blanket, leaning against a tree. There was a picnic basket next to the older one. They appeared to be asleep, bottles between them suggested they drank themselves into a blissful slumber. He could see as he got closer however, why the hiker had called, knickers all a-twist, they weren’t sleeping. It didn’t help that they looked so peaceful, it really did seem as though at any moment they’d wake up, shake the astral plane from their locks, pack up their picnic and go home, after all, a storm was brewing.

Captain Falkirk was first to see the note in the picnic basket, which still had a half eaten apple in it. The sinking feeling he got as he read it wordlessly called his men to his side.

“To whom it may concern,

You were hard to find while we were still here, anyone concerned, that is.

We weren’t even people to you; we were just homeless, not homeless people.

We were your worst fear, a reminder that this could happen to anyone.

The world is unforgiving enough without people being that way too

and no one could ever forgive us for being comfortable being poor.

For being more content than them though they had more.

For being more generous than them though we had less.

For being more balanced than them despite surviving things that based on what I’ve seen, most people couldn’t endure. These are our offences; our sentence has been carried out.

Our parting thought to you; consider how you treat people. Strangers as well as friends and family, and make sure that when your time comes, you can go knowing you’ve done the right thing. Knowing you were a good person. Identify as that, then DO it.

When there are humane humans around no one should be dehumanized.

But that’s not the world we live in. Financially, this is our best choice, things are only going to get worse for our caste. We go now as free as we lived.

Forever,

Lucy & Lilly Brewer”

The Captain placed the letter in an evidence bag and made sure the scene was properly secured, but he was in a fog for the rest of the day. It wasn’t as though it was his first day on the job, this wasn’t his first suicide. It was his first mother and daughter suicide though, it was his first pact. He’d come to find out in the following weeks that it wasn’t booze they were drinking. The mother, Lucy, had been an herbalist and self proclaimed psychonaut. Falkirk would find out that when these two ladies went out they went out on a magic carpet.

Something pulled him into the case, something made him want to answer the question of why, especially as he found out more about these ladies and their lives prior to taking that magic carpet ride to the end.