After her second unsuccessful suicide attempt, Samantha received a letter from God. 

It might as well have been a piece of the sky, a walk on the rainbow, a thought you forgot as soon as it formed, baggage lost in the brain-train station. Third time’s the charm! It said. It wasn’t from the devil; she recognized the signature just fine, and the threat was perfectly clear—try again and die for real, you fucking pussy. Pfft! Fear was a puddle drying in the sun. In kindergarten, when Lindy with her chubby cheeks and big eyes and beautiful beautiful hair said to her, I bet you can’t tell me what the yellow crayon tastes like! Sam’s anterior teeth were sinking into the wax before she had finished. The results had varied from an hour spent heaving over the grimy toilet bowl to a tiny knife wound added to her group of tiny knife wound friends, a gift from Mother and a reminder of what would happen if she tried to taste the sun again. 

So naturally, upon receiving the letter, Samantha sat with her knees bent in the oval bathtub with a rusty razor she found in her 5m2 kitchen and methodically sliced her body open. She thought God was calling her stupid. Who tries the same suicide method twice, really? She could admit it was a bit foolish, swallowing pills when she’d already coated her permanently stained yellow-green-blue-God-knows-what-color-this-is bedsheets with a cocktail of vomit once, but foolishness was just desperation in streetwear, her brain freezing in her freezer head. Razors forced people to act smart, however. Mother would call her smart sometimes, when she was in her Special Mood. She kissed Sam’s head and complimented her hair and her eyes and her dress bought for a dollar in the Goodwill outlet bins, never mind that it wasn’t her size; she didn’t often have a dollar to waste on her daughter. Samantha hated this mood of hers, and she hated herself for hating it; she should’ve just appreciated the compliments and the kisses before Mother wrapped a wire around her neck on a Tuesday, and now it was Friday, so there would be no more of those. 

Sam closed her eyes. Overgrown laughter was pulled from the soil of her throat as blood trickled from the stomach Mother thought too fat, the thighs Mother considered too thick, the arms Mother assumed too big. It would be apt to leave this world with a parody of Mother’s gifts on her skin, sentencing her to her final prison. Sorry in advance for traumatizing whoever finds me, she thought, and then, I hope I don’t meet her down there, and then the void opened its mouth. 

FADE IN:

INT. DARK ROOM

SAMANTHA, 17, stands naked in what appears to be an endless room, the area around her faintly illuminated by star-shaped lamps floating around. In front of her there is GOD, a figure anyone would recognize. 

SAMANTHA

               I prayed to you but you didn’t answer.

GOD

               You see me now. 

SAMANTHA

               Did she?

God is silent. 

SAMANTHA

               I would’ve done it even if you never told me to.

GOD

               I know.

SAMANTHA

               Right. Do I go to Hell now?

God stares at Samantha. Samantha stares back. The lamps continue floating around. 

GOD

               Let her be light. 

I’m fast; faster than anything that will ever be created. And I’m free. I am the only thing alive in this darkness, and I can go wherever I want. God looked at the formless and empty world sinking into the void and created me and saw that I was good and separated me from the dark. This is something humans will call pride, but a dead part of me knows the name is loneliness. I roam over the heavens and the earth, and I have no one to talk to. Except darkness. I know darkness. He scoffs; he’s not in the mood to talk. Well, siblings rarely are. You think you’re so much better than me. You think Mommy loves you so much, he spits. You wouldn’t even exist if I hadn’t come here before you. 

And Samantha shudders as she stands once again naked before God,

And she says, let me die,

and God says, let her be the sky. 

I loom over the earth with clouds as my only friends and companions, but they’re not there always, so I am alone. Sometimes they speak to me in rain and thunder and lightning, but they’re the pieces while I am the container, so I rarely understand what they’re trying to say. I see the bridge of the rainbow sometimes; I am jealous of its colors. The rainbow doesn’t speak to me, and it hurts to be a ceiling without walls, to be above when everything is below, 

And once again Samantha stands naked before God, 

And she says, let me die,

and God says, let her be the sea. 

I am a body once again, my waves crashing against the empty shore. I toss my limbs again and again to fight with the land, but the land has nothing to say except groan with its sand and its rocks. I know I am stronger than the land, I can grab the shore with my arms, drag it and swallow it, but then I would be alone with the sky, and I don’t want to be alone. I can see some trees from here. They talk to each other with their roots and their branches. They don’t know the language of my tides, and they might be scared to learn. I can’t reach the sky with my limbs because I am its mirror and mirrors don’t have the right to do anything but reflect, 

And once again Samantha stands naked before God, 

And she says, let me die,

and God says, let her be the moon. 

I am thrown into the void and I can see the Earth, and I can see the Sun, and I am surrounded by stars. The Sun gives me some of his light, and I don’t like gifts but I take it anyway and I’m grateful. His heat doesn’t burn. The stars are my children, unruly and nimble, glittering and flickering, and it’s a foreign feeling, being a mother; even stranger how I welcome it. In another world, in another life, I was a child myself, but I wasn’t a star, so maybe that’s why my mother killed herself. The stars die, and when this happens, I sink into the mist of grief, the Sun’s heat my only comfort. Some of them are old, some of them young, but my children shouldn’t die; they don’t deserve it. Did I deserve it? I veil darkness over my face,

And once again Samantha stands naked before God,

And she says, let me die,

and God says, let her be a bird. 

I have feathers and wings and a beak, and I am born from an egg and my mother is merciful to me. I am as free as the air I dwell in, but I am mortal. Shackled by death, I sing and sing and sing, eating nectar and hiding in trees, and no one responds. In another world, in another life, I would cry, but here, I fly and fly and fly, and sing one last time,

And once again Samantha stands naked before God,

And she says, let me die, please,

and God says, let her be a friend.

Talia is good, Talia is nice, Talia’s mother doesn’t lock her up at night. She doesn’t cut, she doesn’t starve, she’s not cruel, anything but. Talia loves Samantha, and she is her best friend, but Samantha doesn’t know how anyone could love this mess. Two peas in a pod, they sit by the pond, having run from their mothers, hands throwing rocks. There’s a woman drowning, sinking to the bottom, and Samantha cries, ‘cause she doesn’t want to go home. Talia wraps her arms around her tight, as Samantha cries and cries and cries,

And once again she stands naked before God and she doesn’t want to live because life is a death sentence She doesn’t want to go back to Earth to her tiny apartment where Mother’s body dangles from the ceiling She wants to scream please don’t make me go back there I want to have a choice I am supposed to have free will aren’t I Why are you wasting this on me Why are you not helping people who want to live What makes me so special I get to meet you I am not the sky I am not the sea I am not the Moon I want to sleep without nightmares I want to eat without vomiting I want to breathe without crying Talia loved me but she couldn’t fill the void No one can The world is beautiful but I don’t want to see I am not my mother but my eyes are not mine and as she pulls them from their sockets, God is lying in the bathtub with blood dripping from her face.