The following is an extract from chapter 3 – Rich Man Hanging in which I attend my first suicide by hanging.


He was hanging with electric cable cut from his vacuum cleaner. It dug so deep into his neck that the top of his head almost pointed downwards towards his feet. The pressure had caused blood to ooze from his nose and ears.
         The groove which the cord had made was so deep that his whole neck had turned dark purple. His eyes were wide open.
As he rotated round and faced me, he seemed to stare. His eyes looked alive. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth and had inflated to almost half the size of his head. A mixture of blood and frothy saliva dripped out with chilling slowness. His hands were white and his fingernails were blue. The television in his bedroom was still on and made me feel very uneasy. I was scared and had seen enough. I went back downstairs and out of the house.