There’s a Danish “Death Pod” that looks like an intergalactic tanning bed. Like a tanning bed you climb inside of it and lie down … but you don’t get tan, you die.

Through a few hours of trial-and-error link-clicking that has no doubt infected my laptop with multiple computer viruses, I’m led to a chatroom, where an anonymous, very helpful concierge of sorts walks me through the particulars of lethal injection, which is accomplished by executing a series of three injections.

First, there’s the sodium pentobarbital, which leads to unconsciousness in under thirty seconds. The last known thirty seconds of your life, if you really think about it.

Have you ever turned the lights off and counted to thirty?

One … Two … Three … Four … Five … Six … Seven …

It’s an eternity.

Next is pancuronium bromide, which is a powerful muscle relaxant that causes complete paralysis of the skeletal muscles, including the diaphragm and the rest of the respiratory system. This phase of the three-part process eventually causes death by asphyxiation.

The third and final substance is potassium chloride, which stops the heart, thus causing death, yet again, by cardiac arrest.

Therein lies our brief chemistry lesson.

Three needles. A terminal hat trick. The proper sequence is essential to pulling this off. If done correctly, success is guaranteed.

A sound plan. No mess. No misery. But the trick is that it’s impossible to carry out parts two and three of a three-part injection process if part one is going to render you unconscious. My concierge can’t stress enough the importance of recruiting a trusted injection buddy, someone who will see the process through to its conclusion. He or she wants me to type that I am in complete understanding of this.

In all caps I type I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND.

Through a simple PayPal transaction I spend nearly a thousand dollars.

Vials of all three substances in liquid form as well as three Percocet would arrive at my home via FedEx the following evening.

The Percocet is intended to make things a little easier, advised to be ingested thirty minutes before the first injection.

It is truly amazing what one can accomplish on the internet.

5

Lights up on a kitchen table, two chairs, Chinese food.

Bella is seated.

Christopher enters, wearing his gas-station-attendant jacket, and a backpack on his shoulder.

CHRISTOPHER

Hey.

BELLA

(To Christopher) I ordered food.

CHRISTOPHER

How are you feeling?

BELLA

Good. Tired.

(To the audience) I tell him it’s nice to see him and he removes his backpack and sits across from me. He looks wide awake, freshly showered. His hair is still damp.

(To Christopher) Eat. Please. Help yourself.

(From his backpack Christopher removes a stationery box, sets it on the table.)

Is that your book?

(He nods.)

You finished it.

CHRISTOPHER

I don’t think it has the heft of a novel.

BELLA

How long is it?

CHRISTOPHER

Just over a hundred pages.

BELLA

A novella then.

(Christopher pushes the stationery box across the table.)