I wonder

I found a bullet in the 7-Eleven parking lot a couple of months ago.  It says 'SPEER 45 AUTO' on the bottom.  I immediately assumed it was a cops bullet, that it somehow fell out of his car or something, but it's more likely that it belonged to some guy who likes to carry a gun with him, and happened to have a bullet on him, and it just got away from him.  It's got scratches and dents all over it... it's not pristine.  It's a pretty dinged up bullet.  I keep it on my computer desk and notice it now and then, and sometimes I pick it up and look at it.

I watched a video online once of a guy committing suicide with a gun, putting it in his mouth and pulling the trigger.  Right after he pulled the trigger, he groaned a long, painful sounding groan as he was falling forward.  I've wondered if that groan was actually a sound of pain, or if it was just air going out of his lungs because he was dead, like a reflex action.  I don't know.  I just know it was fascinating, in a really really shitty way.

Tonight I picked up that bullet and pressed it against the roof of my mouth.  I imagined the force it would take to drive it through, through the fleshy gum part, up through the bone and sinus cavities, and into the frontal lobe and then through the top of the skull.  Just pressing it hurt a little, and the roof of my mouth felt so unyielding.  How could it actually punch a hole through it, and keep going?  I was revolted by the thought.  I took the bullet out of my mouth and pushed it against the side of my head.  I pushed it really hard, until it actually started to hurt beyond the tolerable stage.  Again I thought about that force, pushing the bullet through the bone, etc.  I was revolted again... I put the bullet down and frowned at it.  Then I picked it up again and pushed it against my forehead, right between my eyes, really really hard.  It hurt pretty good while I was doing it.  I still couldn't believe it could actually go through the bone and tear apart the gray matter and wreak such devastation, and then exit the back of the skull.  It's hard to imagine, that a bullet could end a life like that.  Just a little thing about an inch long and shiny. 

My common sense tells me the guy felt no pain when he did that... it's fast, and forceful, and violent, and does tremendous damage.  My common sense tells me that all conscious thought, the thought which guides life and through which we live and experience the world, would just turn off.  But I keep hearing that guy who shot himself groan, right after he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.  I keep hearing him groan and I keep seeing him fall forward, and then, after he's out of camera view, I keep hearing the sound of blood trickling out of the wound and onto the floor.  It goes on for about 10 seconds.  I wonder if he's still alive there on the floor, and conscious of what he just did, and in pain and regretting it, and wishing he could take it all back.  I wonder about that, but he was probably just dead.

It's not something I would ever do.  Ever.  I'm afraid of it, and I'm revolted by the thought of it... but the thought is there, and it gets way too much air time.  It's my lullaby, the way I put myself to sleep at night... thinking about that guy as he dies.  I don't like it.