Jump

our usual tuesday night meeting was cut short this time. somebody came to the door of the lecture theatre, and we were told we had to leave right now by the front door of the building, and give our details to the police. the policemen and women seemed cheerful enough, they took down everyone's details and we filed out into the cold.

and that's when he told us, the reason we'd had to leave. somebody had jumped from the tenth floor of the building, and the whole place was being sealed while the police investigated it. most people just looked kinda blank for a moment, then a nervous joke was cracked and everything was fine again. except it wasn't, really, the whole dynamic of the night had changed. the group headed off to the pub, chatting and joking but distinctly subdued.

we were all thinking, who was it? what drove them to do it? while we had been sat watching cartoons on the big screen and laughing at stupid jokes, someone somewhere else in the same building had been staring at the far-off ground considering their last few moments. had they been conflicted, debating whether or not to do it right up til the very last second? or was it the last action in a calm and measured process?

I wonder what they thought as they fell. was it panic, the sudden realisation that they didn't want to die after all? or was it happiness at last, knowing the end was at hand?

is there even time to think when you're falling from ten floors up?

...I feel sick. trying to imagine how desperate that person must have felt to do such a thing makes me ache with sympathetic pain. I don't know who they were or why they wanted to die, but I wish they hadn't. I wish there wasn't that kind of sadness in the world.

View Thinker #adb9f2's profile

I met this guy once. He was sick leukemia he was dying we all knew it one day while we were alone sitting at his kitchen table he looked at me he stared for a while and then he asked what my biggest fear in life was and before I could even think I said death. He nodded and said yeah me too but I smile anyway. He died a week later. I didn’t know him all that well. He was a friend of a friend and we ended up there at his kitchen table alone by accident but I’ll never forget it. ‘Yeah me too but I smile anyway.’ I tried to image what it would be like to be him and know completely and totally that you weren’t going to make it through all of that sick and hurt and I couldn’t I still can’t but I can’t forget it either.

Log In to Leave Comment

View Thinker #9ce831's profile thought 17 years, 5 months ago...

Sometimes I hate that little voice....sometimes it gets me into such trouble....sometimes it gets me into situations I am unable to fully grasp and process.

Every time I've started moving in a direction that may be risky and I'm not sure what to do, the little voice whispers through my mind like a wind over a moonlit plain of pseudo consciousness... it tells me to jump....just jump.

It's almost as though there's no need to worry when that silky voice suggests the idea. There's a calm feeling that passes over me and suddenly I'm entirely alright with what's going on around me. The situation is processed... trouble nearly avoided. The trouble isn't in me anymore, it's out there for the world to enjoy.

Jump

I will always jump

Patreon Supporters

HELLA RADICAL FYRE gAnGsTa CaPs sUpPoRtErS MORE HELLA RADICAL FYRE

  • Bitey_Chicken IS HELLA RADICAL

CAPSLOCK SUPPORTERS

  • DreadfulStar
  • Wocket

Support Ether by becoming a Patreon supporter at the lowercase, Capitalized, CAPSLOCK, or gAnGsTa CaPs level.