The Clincher - In Which A Boy Kills Himself Over Claustrophobia

I lie alone in the coffin and begin to question everything that led up to the moment as it becomes harder to breathe. The bitter cold inside of the coffin chills me to the bones, and as my vision goes blurry, the skeletons of people long dead seem to surround me, welcoming me into the catacombs I wish I could’ve never seen alive. I had made the decision to bury myself all on a whim: my father had laughed at me when I told him I had claustrophobia, and in a fit of rage, I told him that I would bury myself alive if it meant getting over my fear of claustrophobia.

 “Or you could just take the elevator this once,” he teased. That was the final straw. The next day, I ran away from home and decided to bury myself in the cemetery deep within the forest by my house. I had gotten some help from Lillian, a friend whose father works at the cemetery, but as soon as I heard Lilly’s footsteps pattering away from the cemetery, I began to wonder if it was really as good of a decision as I had believed it to be just hours prior. It was almost as if my body had left its soul behind and decided to do something I would have never wanted to do.

I would’ve never wanted to nail myself in this coffin, but it felt as if I had no choice. And I knew I had no choice the millisecond that the first nail hit my coffin. This is the most extreme thing I have ever done. And now I deeply regret it. Does Lilly regret it too? Would she even visit me when I’m gone? Does her father even know that her very own best friend was careless enough to bury himself alive to get over his fear of small spaces?

I try my hardest to remember, and then it dawns upon me that my grave was not marked. I hope that ghosts exist so I can spit in the face of my father. After all, it is his fault that I am dying in my very own coffin now.

Kicking and punching the coffin I have trapped myself in, I begin to think of all those tales I had heard in my youth of how people who were buried alive would communicate with the outside world. And then I remember that my cellphone is in my pocket, but the space is far smaller than I thought it was as I attempt to reach down into the pocket of my jeans. I try to pull my cellphone by the charms clipped onto it, but it is a struggle I quickly give up on. Last I checked, the old blue thing is probably dead anyways.

As soon as I relax my arms and give up on trying to reach for my cell phone, it dawns upon me; I won’t escape. Will the tale of Sam, the Boy Who Buried Himself Alive ever be deservingly spoken of? I try not to think about how badly I messed up and shut my eyes tight, thinking of anything to distract me from my fate. But as it all fades into a bright white, I know there was no escaping it.