Fred Aiken Writing

It was February when Darby killed himself. February 22. That date used to not mean anything to Cathleen, Darby’s sister. She found him hanging. She couldn’t believe it. Darby hung himself by tying a noose from his mustache. She doesn’t know how he did it. But she can’t get the image out of her head.

He wore a bright-red plaid collar shirt with his favorite corduroys—Who can kill themselves in their favorite corduroys? she thought—and he had grown out his mustache for fifteen years. Had he been planning it that long? Had he been miserable all those years?