Tucked in the hills near Zurich, Switzerland,  a local suicide clinic has bet all on an ambitious marketing plan.

“Come for the suicide; stay for the cryogenic freezing.  When you’re ready we unfreeze you and let you commit suicide again.  Two suicides for the price of one!”

The controversial slogan first began appearing on billboards around Zurich and soon spread to all of Europe.

“We were doing good business.  But we were getting stiff competition from other suicide clinics around town.  They had marketing departments and were light years ahead of us in terms of advertising.  Once clinic even hired Bruce Springsteen to come and sing the entire ‘Nebraska’ album for their clients.  And if listening to that doesn’t make you want to kill yourself…I don’t know what will” declared the head of the Official Zurich Suicide Clinic, the oldest in the country.

“So I got to thinking.  What can we do that they don’t?  Then it hit me.  Repeat business! We had a cryogenics lab installed and started our marketing campaign.  So far it’s been a big hit.  People get sentimental about their suicide.  It brings back good memories and they want to commit suicide again at the same place.”

A quick tour of their cryogenics lab reveals 50 frozen bodies, “happy suicides”, waiting to be thawed out so they can commit suicide again.  Many of the frozen are married couples.

“There’s something about marriage that prompts a man’s thoughts to killing himself.  And they want the wife along too.  Why just last week I thawed out a couple that committed suicide, well, it was a murder/suicide actually.  The husband told me the happiest moment of his life was shooting his wife in the head just before he shot himself.  He asked me if this time he could just shoot his wife and be gone…..but I told him a contract’s a contract.  He was disappointed at first until I pointed out that at least he would get to shoot his wife again.  That brought a smile to his face.”

But it’s not just married couples.  The suicide clinic has been doing great business with all types since the cryogenics lab was installed.

“We get lots of single people too.  One single man came here to commit suicide because he was unable to find his one true love.  Ironically while he was here preparing to die he fell in love with one of the nurses.  Six months later when we thawed him out for his repeat suicide she had married another man.  This upset him so much he, and this was quite ungrateful on his part, left the clinic and killed himself by jumping in the river and drowning.  We could have done that for him!”

A majority of the clinic’s business comes from England.

“Well, their English.  What have they to live for?  The weather is so drab and there is nothing on TV but those damn soccer matches.”

Another interesting fact about the clinic:  No Americans.

“What can I say about the Americans.  Stupid bourgeois cowboys.  They insist on living and breeding.”

As I left the clinic the Director handed me their new pamphlet detailing their “Holiday Special.”  Clients for a reasonable extra cost get to kill themselves on Christmas and get thawed out every holiday to do it again.

“What says the holidays better than shooting yourself in the head on Christmas?

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