Normally, this is the kind of thing you check out at Snopes before posting: a roundup of allegedly authentic suicide notes. But because this comes from The Well, and from Art Kleiner, I’m going to give it the nod for straight posting. If he’s really been duped by a scheming, frustrated novelist of a coroner, that in itself is post-worthy, and besides, these are fascinating to read.

Suicide Notes

These suicide notes were gathered at the coroners’ offices by a suicidologist/psychiatrist who asked to be anonymous. He edited identifying details out of the compiled manuscript, and we changed the names. But the text of each letter plus the age and sex given are real. All these people did kill themselves. Were they ambivalent about it? About half the hundred or so letters we saw seemed to have some element of doubt.(There’s a strange story in computer folklore about a suicide note that appeared late one night on the Arpanet computer network. The other people on the network had regularly corresponded with the mean, but always under the name of his lab not his own name. When the message saying he was killing himself flashed on the screen they tried to call the police, but nobody could identify him, and he died.) — Art Kleiner Single female, age 21 My dearest Andrew, It seems as if I have been spending all my life apologizing to you for things that happened whether they were my fault or not. I am enclosing your pin because I want you to think of what you took from me every time you see it. I don’t want you to think I would kill myself over you because you’re not worth any emotion at all. It is what you cost me that hurts and nothing can replace it… Married male, age 74 What is a few short years to live in hell. That is all I get around here. No more I will pay the bills. No more I will drive the car. No more I will wash, iron & mend any clothes. No more I will have to eat the leftover articles that was cooked the day before. This is no way to live. Either is it any way to die. Her grub I can not eat. At night I can not sleep. I married the wrong nag-nag-nag and I lost my life. W.S. to the undertaker We have got plenty money to give me a decent burial. Don’t let my wife kid you by saying she has not got any money. Give this note to the cops. read the rest Give me liberty or give me death. W.S….

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::