At the urging of my boyfriend (who has been literally shouting into my ear today), here is an excerpt from SIREN SUICIDES, 4th draft, 1st Chapter (the very opening):

Photo by Marco Leone

Chapter 1. Bathroom.

I choose to die in the bathroom because it’s the only room in the house that locks. Besides, water calms me down, and I have to be calm to pull the plug on my life. Nothing would irritate Daddy more than finding a fully clothed corpse of his sixteen year old daughter on the morning of her birthday, floating in his beloved antique clawfoot cast iron tub held up by four enameled sirens, ruled by the Siren of Canosa, or, in plain bathroom fixture speak, the bronze gooseneck faucet. How fitting. Ailen Bright, the deceased, to be guided into the after-life by a tap.

It’s not only my birthday today. Today marks six years since Mommy jumped off the Aurora bridge, on that rainy morning on September 9^th of 2008. I’m tired of the pain, and it’s all Daddy’s fault. I want to hurt him the only way I can.

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

Twenty seconds since I took the plunge, carefully stepping into the water, wearing my favorite Levis jeans and my violet-blue Garfield high school hoodie. Blue is my favorite color. Three is my favorite number. It takes three minutes for an average person to drown. Only two minutes and forty seconds left. I hold my breath.

“Ailen, you there?” Daddy’s voice comes muffled through two feet of water. Luke warm. Fear jumps into my throat.

Shit, I think, he shouldn’t be up this early! Dammit.

He knocks on the door.

Thirty seconds.

Just two and a half minutes more. I can ignore him. I can do it. I’ll have to think of something to distract myself. Think about Mommy. No, I can’t, it’s too much. I push the thought down. Think about Hunter. There, that’s better. I think about this game we play, Hunter and me. It’s called, have you ever. We usually hang out in the bathroom, because it’s the only room that locks, has a fan and a window. I don’t know what Daddy would do to me if he found out that I smoke weed. Last week when Hunter came over, he pointed to the relief on the bathtub. By then we’d had a couple joints.

“Have you ever met a siren?” He asked.

“This siren?” I kneel on the blue tiles, face to face with the enameled creature. She winked her iron eye at me, I must have been really stoned by then.

“No, not this mythical kind. That’s from the books. No, the real siren, the killer kind. The girl next door. The one whose eyes never sit still. The way she walks, the way she talks, every man wants a piece of her. Every man wants to hear her velvety song, the song to die for. Have you ever met one like that?”

“You’re stoned.” I say.

“No, no, listen.” He sucks in on his joint, agitated. “The real sirens are among us. They’re the women that come out at night, in the fog, and sing. Their voice makes you do things. They command you to come close to her, and then they sing your soul out.”

“And then what?”

“Then they find you dead in the morning. They can’t say what happened. It looks like your heart stopped. They search and can’t find anything, no footprints, nothing. What’s creepy is that you’re smiling. Dead, but smiling. Like you’ve been your happiest just before you died.”

***

Since my fellow writers tell me I shouldn't post more than 600 words to be protected under the Copyright Law, this is it. Stay tuned for more updates on my progress!