Living Dead - Offer Reish (phonics books .TXT) 📗

give full consideration to what has been lost and to mourn it. But do we really mourn the loss of the dead or our own loss? If the former was the case then the death of a terminally ill or one who's lived a life of constant sadness and despair should spur happiness and relief in the peace that the deceased has finally been granted. But reality doesn't tally with this condition, of course. In reality most people name the worst moments of their lives as the deaths of their close ones. Is this, as some people believe, really the result of empathy for the dead? Or is it the purely selfish act of grieving one's own loss? When I jump off this balcony, will Lila cry for the great prospects I will have missed out on, from the promises and joys that I will never experience, or will her tears express her own pain at never enjoying my presence again (if that)?

No, suicide isn't an act of selfishness. It's an act that ignores the selfishness of others and takes advantage of one's right to affect one's destiny to the full extent. Similarly, to stay alive when life is filled with torment is not a considerate act but more than anything a sin against oneself. I love myself, therefore I wish to pursue that course of action which will maximize my happiness or in my case minimize my suffering. There is only one thing I can do to fulfill such a wish, and it is the very one for which I seek your concurrence.

 

Fear

 

I fear death. How can one not fear the greatest mystery of life? I don't know where I'll be headed, how long I will be there, or who or what will receive me. I don't even know who or what I'll be. Frankly, I can't be certain that death will be better than life, but I'm willing to take the chance. You see, as much as death is to be feared by anyone alive, my fear of life is much the more intense. I fear backing down and perpetuating my suffering; I fear balking at this opportunity for relief and the pain I would undergo before mustering up the courage to obtain another. If death is a mystery, then life is a terrible certainty, and there is no shame in fearing what is terrible.

You must understand and appreciate that I didn't come to the decision to step out to this balcony lightly. It was no whim or momentary weakness (or weakness at all for that matter) that made me hold the railing, stare down at the street 80 meters below and already be on my way there in my thoughts. I have deliberated at length before consulting you and have weighed and been affected by a wide range of factors, fear being one of them. I have presented you my case; the time, effort, and emotional turbulence required of me to make up that case were substantial and added no small a burden to my already burdened condition. It is following this considerable investment, the exhaustion of my faculties and an intense emotional effort that death has been chosen and fear of it has been maintained.

And yet there is one thing which I fear more than life, and immeasurably more than death: that she should find me in this position. Lila will be back from work soon, wearing her usual smiley façade and acting as though the positive in our lives exceeds the negative. Her job is the reason for our being here, on such a high floor with such a fine view at such a fitting place to end it all. If not for our little excursion I would've had to find a different mode of setting my plan in motion, and I believe none would be as freeing and tempting as the current one. Why, you might ask, should I fear such a turn of events (that she should discover me here) when moments later I could lay whatever emotions her return might stir in me to rest? On an intuitive level I might agree with you, especially if I wasn't in the position and having the aspiration I am, but now that I'm wiser I believe there's no reason to expect me to be any more impervious to fear than you. After all, whatever stirs fear in a man is temporary, more often than not short-lasting but in any case always finite, bound to end and go away. Why, then, not fear- be terrified- of facing the person most responsible for your taking your life in your final moments? You haven't committed suicide before (I have neither, of course, but since I'm in the process of it, allow me to assume standing on higher ground in this respect) and therefore you don't know this, but taking your life is just about the most intimate, personal thing a man can do in this life. It's an admission, a confronting of your greatest hurdles, a cry for relief, a final farewell, a protest against injustice, and in my case an expression of vengeance and hate, all bundled together in a single act. Indeed, an act of suicide can't be complete or proper when it isn't done in private. Just imagine: how terrible would it be if she were to come into the room and search for me, finally to find me outside, pondering, craving; it would never cross her mind what was dominating mine. She would come outside and try to hug me; to pull me back into this world. I doubt I would have the courage to slip out of her grasp and jump. It would be a magnificent display and the perfect act of reprisal, but it would miss a significant part of the essence of my intentions. No; I mustn't let it happen.

 

 

The End

 

The sun hides perfectly now, leaving no trace of her presence, and the perfect darkness is lit only by the streetlights from below, the buildings in the distance and the stars high above. It's almost as if she's sending me the message: don't let yourself be seen. I shiver constantly now, unable to shake off not only the falling temperature but a disturbing sense that the 80-meter fall is now far longer, deeper and more ominous than before. There is something about that black vertical space separating me from the street, nothing but a few thin metal rods buffering between us, protecting me from it (or perhaps standing in my way). There is something about the stars glinting and the moon in a faded crescent, resplendent and full of grandeur but unreachable to us, the living dead; but who knows, perhaps the dead can touch them? I've had these thoughts before, and oddly it feels as though I'd been at the same place as I am now, yet I assure you I've never been in this room, in this hotel, in this city even. I was here and yet I wasn't. Then, as now, there was the smell of wine in the air (I didn't realize it before but suddenly it seems the pungent, sweet yet mildly alcoholic scent fills the balcony), tempting yet forbidding. A streak of pain suddenly shoots through my right leg as though it has an unexpected recollection of some painful event; my forehead itches maddeningly. I scratch it too hard, made anxious by the sudden changes, and there is blood on my fingertips. There is some meaning to all this that I simply can't get my head around.

Below, the alley is quiet but the main street to the left which is easily visible is even more bustling than before. People, cars, lights; a constant whir produced by everything together, each individual element contributing its small part that becomes indistinguishable in the resulting blend. They don't know what is brewing 80 meters above them, nor would they care if they did. What is the suffering of a stranger to them? They don't care now, but just wait for a man to fling himself down from the 23rd floor balcony and there will be complete pandemonium. The selfishness! I think about the alley now, peaceful and uneventful, and about what it would look like in just a few minutes if I were to do what is to be done without delay; this evokes a chilling recollection of the cliff. The cliff in Mexico on the night of our accident, which one moment was a divine haven from the waves beating against the rocky shore, and the next was wreathed in havoc. One moment there was only sand and rock and water and air so fresh it seemed to belong to a different, better place than our world; the next it was twisted metal, shattered glass, spilled blood and broken bones, and finally the lights and racket of the rescue teams.

My shivers aggravate and now the whole railing is shaking with me. It seems soon the entire balcony will convulse- but why do I indulge these evil memories? There's nothing in them for me but more suffering and more injustice. To be driven off the cliff like that, thrown nearly to my death and worse, to my sweetheart's death! How can any decent man make sense of such cruelty, let alone accept it? The memories come back to me now, blurry flashes of consciousness in which the mind barely maintains a grasp at reality but emotions burst out. The pain, the helplessness, the sight of Lila's ravaged body beside me. The cold water spraying at us in complete darkness, ten times as dark as the alley below. That's why I hate the cold and the dark. It didn't always use to be that way; I used to be a winter person. I realize now that those hours hanging between life and death with no real sign that I was in fact still part of this world but the heavenly stars above embedded in my subconscious memory a violent aversion to the cold and the dark. It's the same with the wine. Yes, I used to savor wine, even the simple kinds that most men of my stature don't deign to bring anywhere near their palates. But the wine that night… we'd had some, and I remember getting a strong, sweet whiff of it in the moments that preceded our fall. And now that scent will be forever connected in my mind with that horror (if I ever meet that scent again).

And then there's the balcony. 23 floors, 80 meters, straight down to the concrete road. What was it like then? A single cliff, perhaps 20 meters above the sea, the face as precipitous as the face of this building leading straight to the rocky shore. I see it now in my mind's eye- I haven't seen this image since it happened- the tires screeching against the poorly paved path, the rear swinging at the turn and suddenly us falling. We flipped once or twice in midair, then crashed on the sand. It was too quick to think but not too quick for a horrible sensation to make the stomach churn, so deeply set that neither words nor anything short of a near-death experience could illustrate. I twitch now and feel my stomach twist at the mere thought of it. Why, then, does the edge of the balcony call me so irresistibly? When I look down over the railing my head spins with my usual fear of heights but at the same time I have an urge to step beyond it and recreate what happened in Mexico. And yet I feel that more than any of the other catastrophes, Mexico was the catalyst of my misery; so why recreate it? There are two voices in me pulling hard in opposite directions. But let's not attach undue importance to this voice or that urge, for as I've explained my being here is supported by reason and is entirely sensible.

Now I