Help Laura

I always know I have a fever when I decide I hate my brother for no reason. Surely, there can be no human being on this earth LESS deserving of my loathing than poor Paul, who rescues insects instead of killing them, because it isn't their fault the house is in their natural habitat. Paul never argued with me or hit me when we were kids. Even when I was tormenting him with mud and sticks, he never retaliated. Paul deserves a nice sister, but instead, he got me.

I have bronchitis. This comes with a fever, and fevers, for me, mean thinking that the whole world hates me and is leaving me to die (also that Paul is evil and is plotting to kill me in my hour of need).

Sunday, I went to pick up fun story-hour things from my aunt's house, and I felt sick. Then I went home and felt sicker. Monday I went to work, feeling sick. Then I felt worse. Then I went home and curled up in bed and felt sorry for myself while I waited for my family to care that I was sick. Then I went to sleep.

I spent Tuesday at work, then in bed, lying there grumbling about how no one cared that I was sick in bed, because it just gave them the opportunity they've always wanted: to ignore me. Surely they would have done this all along, but while I am healthy, I follow them around and force them to pay attention to me. But now I am too sick, and my family shows their true colors, ignoring me in my suffering as punishment for how annoying I have been over the years. None of them really love me.

I got sicker and sicker from Sunday to Tuesday. Yesterday, I went to the doctor and he gave me medicine. Then I went home.

Clearly, at this point, my mother had decided she hated me too. I could tell by the way she was looking at me. She was taking me to the doctor and getting my medicine from the pharmacy, all the while thinking, "This is my chance to let Laura know how much we truly hate her. She is the worst thing that ever happened to our family. Now I'm going to buy her tasty food to make her feel better, because I HATE HER."

Meanwhile, I was sitting in the car, waiting for death. Then I took some medicine and waited for death.

Then death came.

See, one of the medicines was supposed to ease my coughing reflex so I would stop coughing up chunks of lung.* The other medicine was an antibiotic, Biaxin, and it was supposed to cure me.

Instead, I was allergic to Biaxin, and started throwing up. Now it is Thursday and I am still throwing up. In addition, one of the glorious-glorious side effects of Biaxin (for me, at least) is the taste of metal. And death. My mouth right now, tastes like I have been sucking down pennies from a garbage-filled gutter littered with corpses. It tastes worse than that time the refrigerator stopped refrigerating and Mom made fish for dinner except the fish had TURNED without her knowledge, and I ate a giant, huge mouthful of rotten fish. WARM rotten fish. Except also with metal.

On the plus side, I no longer have a fever. Sadly, I have other issues. Like throwing up, which also means starvation. I am back to the starvation diet from back when my gallbladder filled with fossilized pineapple gummi bears and died, and I am bound to lose even more weight, because I just bought new pants and new pants mean I will lose weight so they don't fit anymore.

This is because I am poor and cannot afford to buy more new pants when I lose even more weight. All I can afford to do is to allow my new pants to fall down around my ankles just like my old ones did, except slightly more slowly, because the new pants fit a bit better than the old ones.

I had better not lose any more weight.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Because I need one or all of you to do me a favor. I need you to kill me.

Now.

That's right. Get in your car. Get some supplies. Come here, and put me out of my misery, as gently as possible. Sure, you might go to jail, and sure, Indiana has the death penalty, but it will be for a good cause. My suffering will end. That is what you want, isn't it? For my suffering to end?

So don't waste time. Come help Laura. My family won't do it. They just ignore me or laugh. They don't know how serious I am.

I'm counting on you to do the right thing.

*While I never actually coughed up chunks of lung, it was certainly about to happen at any moment.