by Geffrey Davis—for R When you're in love with someone whose father has committed suicide, you demand that the world be gentle with her now. The world, of course, will not listen. Still you go through the motions—smile to her assure her of the small, human ways the world will bend softly, now that you have set it straight. And suddenly, to spite you, suicide shows up everywhere. No story is safe, and people these days will kill themselves over anything: the home-team loss, stalled traffic, sappy love songs overplayed on the radio. You find yourself turning the conversations, the channels, storming out together midway through movies. At the rental store, hand in hand, you learn to predict nooses and medicine cabinets, suicidal tendencies coded in DVD descriptions. And you lie: The reviews got this one all wrong—or —I've seen this one, darling. It would put us both to sleep.
