Attempted

No one ever told him it would be hard to kill himself.

A burned-out former detective spends almost all his money on a decent hotel room, raids the minibar, writes a note and downs a cocktail strong enough to kill a horse. The next thing he hears is the maids banging on the door. He is still alive, and now he owes a late checkout fee.

So he tries again, and again. Every plan fails in a new and stupider way, from a ceiling fan that gives out to a dealer who sells him something that isn't heroin, and every failure costs him something he can't afford.

A darkly comic short story about the one case he can't close, by Kristopher Mallory, first published on Stealth Fiction in 2007.

Content note: suicide, self-harm and drug use, played for black comedy.