A Scanner Darkly Comments

[Freck turns on the radio]

Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck, becoming progressively more and more depressed by what was happening around him, decided, finally, to off himself. There was no problem in the circles where he hung out in putting an end to yourself. You just bought a large quantity of downers and took them with some cheap wine. The planning part had to do with the artifacts he wanted found on him by later archeologists. He had spent several days deciding, much longer than he had spent deciding to kill himself. He would be found lying on his back, on his bed, with a copy of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and an unfinished letter to Exxon, protesting the cancellation of his gas credit card. That way, he would indite the system, and achieve something by his death, over and above what the death itself achieved. At the last moment, he changed his mind on a decisive issue and decided to drink the pills with a connoisseur wine, instead of Ripple or Thunderbird. So he set off on one last drive, over to Tiny's Liquors, which specialized in fine wines, and bought a bottle of 2001 Azalea Springs Merlot, which set him back almost seventy dollars. Back home again, he uncorked the wine, let it breathe, drank a few glasses of it, tried to think of something meaningful but could not, and then, with a glass of Merlot, gulped down all the pills at once. However, he had been burned. Instead of quietly suffocating, Charles Freck began to hallucinate. The next thing he knew, a creature from between dimensions was standing beside his bed, looking down at him disapprovingly.

Freck: You gonna read me my sins?

[Creature nods]

Freck: Eh, it's gonna take a hundred thousand hours.

Creature: Your sins will be read to you ceaselessly, in shifts, throughout eternity. The list will never end.

Creature: [starts reading] "The Sins of Freck"

Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck wished he could take back the last half hour of his life.

Creature: [Creature continues to read] "... theft of fingernail clippers..." "... you did knowingly and with malice..." "... punched your baby sister, Evelyn..." "... December, theft of Christmas presents..." "... one billion lies..."

Freck Suicide Narrator: One thousand years later, they had reached the sixth grade, the year he had discovered masturbation.

Creature: [Creature continues to read] "... November fourteenth, Percodan... Vicodin... Cocaine..."

Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck thought, "At least I got a good wine."