Back in the summer of 2000 I went with a woman named Klaartje to the River Café in Brooklyn where I ate a bad oyster. I have never eaten oysters again.
Tonight I had a dinner appointment with two ladies in Brooklyn.
A few days before the dinner party the unavoidable question came up. “Any food allergies?” the host asked via e-mail.
“Only oysters,” I answered.
From poisoned oysters it was not far to suicide pacts.
We decided that the evening of May 22nd was a perfect evening for a suicide pact.
We had delicious pasta, grapes, chocolate tart and cheese but somehow we forgot about the suicide pact.
At the end of the evening a roommate of one of the ladies joined us. “Why do you want to die?” he asked.
Do you need a reason to die? I thought of this quote by Walter Benjamin:

“The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is is not worth the trouble.”

Exactly. Suicide? It is not worth the trouble.