Veronika Decides to Die
A Novel of Redemption
Chapter One
On November 11, 1997, Veronika decided that the moment to kill herself had-at last!-arrived. She carefully cleaned the room that she rented in a convent, turned off the heat, brushed her teeth, and lay down.
She picked up the four packs of sleeping pills from her bedside table. Instead of crushing them and mixing them with water, she decided to take them one by one, because there is always a gap between intention and action, and she wanted to feel free to turn back halfway. With each pill she swallowed, however, she felt more convinced: After five minutes the packs were empty.
Since she didn't know exactly how long it would take her to lose consciousness, she had placed on the bed that month's issue of a French magazine, Homme, which had just arrived in the library where she worked. She had no particular interest in computer science, but, as she leafed through the magazine, she came across an article about a computer game (one of those CD-ROMS) created by Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian writer she had happened to meet at a ... read full excerpt from: Veronika Decides to Die: A Novel of Redemption ebook
