The Folded Leaf

by William Maxwell

Considering the whole of human misery, it is not unreasonable that now and then some unhappy person should want to take his own life. But certain customs and practices now fallen into disuse—the confiscation of the suicide’s property, the brutal punishment inflicted on his corpse, the refusal of a Christian burial, and that strange practice of burying a suicide at a crossroads with a stake driven through his heart—testify to the horror aroused by this act. The horror may be due to the fact that all people share, in some degree, the impulse toward self-destruction; and when some one person actually gives way to it, all are exposed to the common danger. Or perhaps the horror stems from something else, something much less complicated: The suicide doesn’t go alone, he takes everybody with him.