by Mark Hart

Created on: February 01, 2009

Brandon's case reads like one of those mini-mysteries where the hiker in the mountains finds a body in full scuba gear just off the trail. You are the detective. Your task is to figure out what killed him and you are limited to asking questions that can only be answered yes or no. Ready to give one of these mini-mysteries a try? Alright, here's what we know. A man (let's call him Brandon) walks up to an outdoor bank ATM. He buys two candy bars from a school kid selling chocolates for a school fundraiser. He makes his deposit. Later that week he kills himself. Why?

Personally, I hate these mysteries. All the important details are missing and the solution seems to rely on luck, on your ability to uncover some bizarre scenario that makes the story plausible. As you go along asking questions, you have no idea which details are important and which are random. In this case, you know the suicide was related to the incident at the ATM and the chocolates, but what could the connection possibly be? Guessing is what makes these stories so fun to try to solve, and so uninteresting for those of us who lack imagination.

Occasionally, if you are gullible enough to play along, you will ask a question to which the response is that it doesn't matter. Was it a sunny day? Did the envelope have writing on it? Was there a camera at the ATM? It's not important. In other words, you are on the wrong trail and need to ask a different yes/no question. And so, you go on fishing for clues at the scene of the crime. One thing we do know, the solution is seldom as simple or complete as it promises to be. The momentous details that lead to such tragic endings cannot be trivial or insignificant. But what do they signify?

What do they signify, indeed! In the case of suicide, it may be just as true to say the significance of every detail resides in their utter insignificance. Does not every suicide finally boil down to this, to the overwhelming conclusion that nothing matters? And yet it cannot be that simple! How ironic that life and death so often hang in a cruel balance, cruel because it can only determine that nothing really matters. Or perhaps it is more accurate to describe suicide as tragic. Is it not tragic that someone so young, so talented, so accomplished, so giving, with so much to live for, should decide to. Yes, it is tragic, but only if some things really do matter. And is not that claim precisely what is in dispute in the mind of one contemplating taking his or her life?

I wonder

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