True Love (English/Deutsch)

Suicide à la Fast Food

I just sit there starring at my phone and put my head in my hands for a few minutes.

Seriously, what does this guy think? That a human being whose life  goes great can be brought to kill herself just like that?

From where I'm standing I can either destroy her by making sure she loses everything that's important to her or I can force her to kill herself. After all, it doesn't say how she should kill herself.

Like the last time I google Mellina Jenkins. She really is a story of success. Grown up within a loving not all perfect family, perfect career, perfect future ahead. And I am about to destroy it.

***

2 hours later I have everything I need to fulfill my mission.

Mellina has got only one thing that she is really proud of and that seems to be her everything - her work at a large designing firm. She is the managing leader of it and had to work her way up as hard as only a woman can imagine. 

Mellina came out of nothing. She is like phoenix that has risen from its ashes to become queen. She has never had the opportunity to go finish school because her parents, both drug addicts, needed her at home to take care of them and the house. She herself ended up on the streets after she ran away at the age of 16, falling into the same damn drug addiction her parents were stuck in. When she was 20 she started selling her body for the next fix. And then there came the day she met Adam. He was 25, streetworker and he was the first person to ever show her he believed in her. And she believed him when he said she could reach every goal in her life. He had helped her to get away from the streets, out of the drugs and into a regular job. Not the high class jobs of course but better than prostitution. One day a co-worker who had become like a motherly figure to her had caught her drawing clothes and after she died of lung cancer, because she had no kids, she left all her money to Mellina to invest it in a career of her wish. She decided to take design classes and even ended up studying design. Step by step she climbed up the ladder of success until she was where she's now - leading her own designing firm.

I have got the perfect plan to destroy Mellinas pride so bad she will kill herself by tonight. I'm sure of it. Bad news is that because of the time  I cannot keep others in safety. It will take the risk of loosing innocent people but what choice do I have? I was not able to solve the riddle yet.

So here's my plan:

1)get fuel

2)burn the firm down

3)make sure she gets out

4)get the final straw delivered to her

I know people like her. They're not just proud of what they have achieved - it is their everything, their only foundation and all they live for in life. They lose it, they're lost and pretty soon all hope is in the cellar and beyond.

***

On the way to the firm "Mellina Fashion" I stop at a gas station to get 7 gallons of gas. I did think of getting them from different stations as 7 gallons is kind of suspicious especially for an investigator. But I have chosen wisely and get it at a gas station far enough away from my aim.

Around 3pm I reach the firm. When walking around the building, carefully making sure no one sees me, especially not the security guards that are all over this place, I find a window to the cellar that I kick in. Since the bottom part of the building is all wood and the concrete only starts on the 3rd floor I am sure that the building will be on fire pretty soon.

As soon as I am inside I pour out the gas all over the room and from the exit to the stairs throw a burning match onto it. As soon as I  see my plan is working I rush up the stairs with another 3 gallons left. Of course I have been up there before carefully placing the gallons, otherwise I would never have been able to get them there without being killed first myself. I repeat the process on the second floor and when this is burning as well I run up to the 3rd and then 4th floor. I know that Mellinas office was all the way to the top on floor 4, taking in the whole floor, so I rush up there, open the office door and scream: "Fire! Mellina the building is on fire!"

***

POV Mellina:

I am just about to finish a new design on my laptop as the door is being opened and this screaming guy comes in. At first, I don't understand but then I hear the fire alarm go off. One of my employees must have seen the fire as well and pushed the button. One good thing is, that the firefighters must be on their way. The bad thing is, we still have to try and get out of this place from the top floor. Good thing I got a special emergency door that leads to a fire ladder. "This way! Come on!" I scream at the guy. I have no idea who he is but he might have saved me, after all the alarm only went of after he told me about the fire. Not even waiting a second we run to the fire exit and leave the building to carefully get down the stairs. As we reach the bottom I stand in shock looking at the building. 

My firm, my baby, my existence - burning down to ashes with me unable to prevent it.

All of a sudden, the stranger turns to me, takes my hand and puts a paper in my hand. He's not touching it which is strange, he is holding it with the tip of his shirt as if preventing fingerprints. He puts the paper in my hand, comes close to my ear and says: Read it, think about it and then do what is and always was better for this world.

And then he takes off. He just runs off without further explanation. I look at the paper and freeze:

There it is, my whole freaking life on one piece of paper. It is a painful reminder of where I came from and where I've made it. At the bottom of the pictures and articles it says:

"This firm was the only thing that made your life worth living. Sure you can truly be proud of yourself for what you have achieved but what is your life worth now? You're a nothing now. A person without hopes for the future because all your hope was in this firm. Let's be honest now - you're never going to get to the top again after loosing everything. Your life is over so do all of us a favour and leave this planet. Or do you want me to make sure you're going back to where you came from?"

Stunned in silence I read the paper over and over. This was not just a blow to my ego. No - this was an official threat that someone, I'm guessing this guy who just ran, is going to make my life a living hell if I did not leave it on my own.

***

I'm shaking on my way home, disgusted by myself. I've never been a bad person, really not. Yes like everyone I make mistakes but all in all I am a decent guy. Typical father and husband.

I've always felt sorry for people who killed themselves out of despair and now I have officially pushed someone to do it. I feel terrible. But what choice did I have?

Driving home I turn up the radio to make sure I'd hear if anything about the fire was aired. I am just about to settle to the music, calming down a bit when I hear it.

"Our firefighters have a tough night ahead as the building of the Mellina fashion company is still on fire. According to the leading officer they will not be able to save the building or anything it it, all they can do is making sure the fire stays with this building and doesn't wander to another one. Unfortunately the fact that there was no human damage has changed in a dramatic way. Everyone survived the fire unhurt but apparently the founder of the company Mellina Jenkins, reacting in a nervous breakdown, realising that the project that has always been everything to her according to colleagues is destroyed and cannot be saved, has killed herself by rushing back up the fire stairs and on top of the roof just to jump off it a second later. She was declared dead right away not surviving the collision with the ground. Some of you may know her story..."

I changed the channel of the radio as I already know her story.

Target 2 eliminated. I was wondering what my boss would have up next and hoping I could solve the riddle before I got a new job.