Something I've been working on out here. There's a few more installments any comments or ideas welcome.
He watched her, waiting for her to fall. The world screamed up at her, screamed on and on. She could feel it pulling her. Their very tongues stretching out to hook her limbs. Closer and closer to the edge she inched under their force. There she could see them all staged below her in a parody of human caring. Woman shook their heads and cowered into men’s chests. She wondered if they were acting for some film or if they just wanted an excuse for an extra hour off of work. Voices drifted individually to her now but she found them more difficult to understand than the collective swell that had been aimed at her before. She took one more step, the last one that could still hit solid concrete without travelling 14 floors first. Here on the very, very edge all seemed to go quiet. She felt the breeze gliding past her inviting her to join it, to fly and be free. She lifted her eyes towards the horizon and there she could see her destination in creamy blue. The crowd below stilled itself in a collective movement and for a few seconds the world stopped in mourning of something that was yet to happen. Glancing down her movement seemed to be the theatre of humanity. A figure shook himself into life and she focused on him, his dark jacketed back retreating away from her. He looked back for a long time with his head turned over his shoulder. She felt glued by his stare, it was more real than anything that she had ever felt. He broke away first and from her great vantage point she saw a tear as cold as ice fall leaving a permanent shatter in that dome of humanity that she saw concaved below her. There he had given her a way in, a sign of reality in the group hysteria of falsehood. As he walked away, her hero, she levelled her eyes with the horizon and, sure of her self now, took her final step.
From the moment he saw her look up at the clouds he knew she was jumping and he couldn’t watch her do that. A long morning at work had found him strolling the streets of Brighton. He wasn’t really hungry, never seemed to be these days but the gentle winter sunshine was some sort of tonic to him. He’d found himself in the crowd before he’d seen it. He found it harder to move around people than on the previous streets. Dark coat clad people were stood too still in his path. He had looked up just enough to see their faces. It had been a point not to make any more human contact than he had to since Isobel had died but now his natural instinct to understand the surreal image around him forced him beyond his grief. The look on their faces was terrifying. These people were really frightened of something. He stopped feeling their pain and wanting to identify with it. It seemed to him that while they couldn’t join him in his lost shadow he could easily fit their emotion into that gap in his body. He followed their gaze up not able to understand what they could be agonising over since hey hadn’t known Isobel.
There was the girl. Standing on top of a horrid brown office block. She was clear in her distance. Blonde and wearing nothing. The wind was behind her and blew her long hair on to her body, covering and uncovering her breasts with each breeze. The people around spoke in disbelief but he found it easy to believe and understood exactly what she was doing. She was living before she died. He wandered whether she would die here and now today. He had doubted it for that moment. She surely would feel that sudden shock that life was worth more than we are. That realization that had coursed through his veins three weeks after Isobel’s death. Only when you are faced with the fragility of your own existence does the desire to keep living kick in. He hadn’t understood why. The grief for Isobel was still as strong as ever and he had no idea how he could continue to be without her to confirm him. But from that moment he had slipped back into the main stream. He had managed work, the occasional meal and to meet his friends or family once a week.
He looked up with all of the others but he felt no need to scream as they did, to beg her not to jump. Maybe she had no intention to fall today. He knew that if she did she would barely hear the cries of the world to stop her, after all what was a collective conscious to one that could not understand her own? She took her step to the edge and he listened to the individual quiet pleas for her safety. Among him a few people dropped to their knees and in whispered desperation prayed for her soul. Every single person wanted their words to make that difference but did they think that this young, pretty girl had no-one to beg for her survival but them? He realised that then and there they believed that. They could be the one that mattered to her. Above her mother? Father? Best friend? Sister? He turned to go, pushing his way through the morbid crowd. His throat was being choked and he couldn’t resist the need to turn one more time. To see her perfect image of innocence, that image of beauty that was about to haunt these people’s minds forever. His gaze was caught by something above the heads of these people and he allowed himself to believe for one reckless minute that he could stop her smashing her wasted life on a city pavement in that next moment. It was the same crazy hopelessness that had made him believe he could save Isobel and letting a tear fall openly he turned away. His third footstep hit the floor as soon as the screaming began. He pushed harder against the dark, warm bodies and broke into a run. He ran until he could hear the cries of “oh god”, “no” , “fuck” …As if any of these utterances of language could describe the tragedy of a girl who hadn’t even found a way to interpret life giving up on it. Maybe she was never destined to make any sense of it. Maybe she was saving herself some kind of prolonged agony but somehow he felt that she had made her decision to crush her soul within her body without even knowing who her soul was. He ran until he was alone in some random back streets and here he collapsed against a shuttered door way and sobbed against the cold metal and his indifferent leather jacket. Sobbing about a girl who was Isobel being dragged to her death by a monster living on the inside of her.
From the moment he saw her look up at the clouds he knew she was jumping and he couldn’t watch her do that. A long morning at work had found him strolling the streets of Brighton. He wasn’t really hungry, never seemed to be these days but the gentle winter sunshine was some sort of tonic to him. He’d found himself in the crowd before he’d seen it. He found it harder to move around people than on the previous streets. Dark coat clad people were stood too still in his path. He had looked up just enough to see their faces. It had been a point not to make any more human contact than he had to since Isobel had died but now his natural instinct to understand the surreal image around him forced him beyond his grief. The look on their faces was terrifying. These people were really frightened of something. He stopped feeling their pain and wanting to identify with it. It seemed to him that while they couldn’t join him in his lost shadow he could easily fit their emotion into that gap in his body. He followed their gaze up not able to understand what they could be agonising over since hey hadn’t known Isobel.
There was the girl. Standing on top of a horrid brown office block. She was clear in her distance. Blonde and wearing nothing. The wind was behind her and blew her long hair on to her body, covering and uncovering her breasts with each breeze. The people around spoke in disbelief but he found it easy to believe and understood exactly what she was doing. She was living before she died. He wandered whether she would die here and now today. He had doubted it for that moment. She surely would feel that sudden shock that life was worth more than we are. That realization that had coursed through his veins three weeks after Isobel’s death. Only when you are faced with the fragility of your own existence does the desire to keep living kick in. He hadn’t understood why. The grief for Isobel was still as strong as ever and he had no idea how he could continue to be without her to confirm him. But from that moment he had slipped back into the main stream. He had managed work, the occasional meal and to meet his friends or family once a week.
He looked up with all of the others but he felt no need to scream as they did, to beg her not to jump. Maybe she had no intention to fall today. He knew that if she did she would barely hear the cries of the world to stop her, after all what was a collective conscious to one that could not understand her own? She took her step to the edge and he listened to the individual quiet pleas for her safety. Among him a few people dropped to their knees and in whispered desperation prayed for her soul. Every single person wanted their words to make that difference but did they think that this young, pretty girl had no-one to beg for her survival but them? He realised that then and there they believed that. They could be the one that mattered to her. Above her mother? Father? Best friend? Sister? He turned to go, pushing his way through the morbid crowd. His throat was being choked and he couldn’t resist the need to turn one more time. To see her perfect image of innocence, that image of beauty that was about to haunt these people’s minds forever. His gaze was caught by something above the heads of these people and he allowed himself to believe for one reckless minute that he could stop her smashing her wasted life on a city pavement in that next moment. It was the same crazy hopelessness that had made him believe he could save Isobel and letting a tear fall openly he turned away. His third footstep hit the floor as soon as the screaming began. He pushed harder against the dark, warm bodies and broke into a run. He ran until he could hear the cries of “oh god”, “no” , “fuck” …As if any of these utterances of language could describe the tragedy of a girl who hadn’t even found a way to interpret life giving up on it. Maybe she was never destined to make any sense of it. Maybe she was saving herself some kind of prolonged agony but somehow he felt that she had made her decision to crush her soul within her body without even knowing who her soul was. He ran until he was alone in some random back streets and here he collapsed against a shuttered door way and sobbed against the cold metal and his indifferent leather jacket. Sobbing about a girl who was Isobel being dragged to her death by a monster living on the inside of her.
Good start moving on to the next blog now can't stop Mum xxxxx
ReplyDelete