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

think it's time for you to pass down your judgment. After you've heard my story, felt my pain and understood the reasons behind my intentions, I entrust you with putting your best judgment into practice and giving me a recommendation about my fate. I must urge and instruct you beforehand, though, that you don't base your recommendation upon your own view of suicide or your own perception of how you would deal with multiple tragedies in your life. Base it upon how you think it suitable for a man like me to deal with the kind of pain I've been afflicted with, whose views of the alternatives are what they are. I ask you to determine whether you find it justifiable for me to jump off the balcony now, on this cold evening, with my leg wobbling and my forehead bleeding; with a torn heart and a crushed ego; with no prospects of a brighter future and the load of the past crushing my shoulders; with no will to live and a fair propensity to die; a man wronged by those and that which he once believed could never wrong him. How do you find, I ask, regarding me and my position, not you in yours, you in mine or me in yours? It may be very possible for you to believe (or to think you know, but let me assure you that you don't know it until you've faced it) that nothing in the world would ever drive you to take your own life, and still state that, having heard my case, it's the right choice for me.

What say you? Be quick, for my fiancée and the bane of my existence is already running late and will no doubt be back within minutes. And by the time she opens the door I wish to no longer be standing out here. By that time I'll either be seated in front of the television repressing my regret at my cowardliness, or lying prostrate on the street with a disfigured, demolished body but a freed soul. Be decisive as well, as my decision must be final. Procrastination isn't an option; if ever I'll jump off the balcony it must be now. Never will I have a better case than I do today, and the moment I set foot back in the room I may as well renounce my intentions for good. I won't run away from making the decision; it's now or never. Either I take my life tonight, flying over the railing with a weightless soul (I wonder if I might be so light, freed from the hefty burdens that weigh down on me at present, that I won't fall and will simply glide through the air like a bird), or I let God or nature or the external circumstances take their course.

I don't ask for explanations or a thread of logic. I ask only for your answer- a simple yes or no- and I will be on my way. What's the matter? Have you never had the life of a man in your hands? Well neither have I, and yet now we're both in a position to rewrite fate. But wait- there's a noise coming from the door. Is this it; has the moment come? It's funny how we toy with heavy decisions we're hesitant to make until the least opportune moment, when we are forced to terminate our dawdling, isn't it? Well, my friend, it's time for us to terminate our dawdling, as now the door is opening and marching inside is the (still) beautiful Lila. She doesn't see me at first, as it isn't the most natural thing for someone walking into a hotel room to stare outside through the glass doors of the little balcony. There should be nothing of interest there. I turn away and stare beyond the balcony again, and currently I hear her calling me.

"Clancy? Baby?" She calls searchingly, yet to have spotted me.

At this point I must apologize to you swiftly for the time, effort and forbearance I've asked of you: your advice is no longer of use to me. You see, even if you were to give it to me at once in its final form I would have no time to consider it and revise my own resolution accordingly. I must make my move before she finishes scouring the bedroom and the kitchen and realizes where I am. You may say anything you wish or urge me to overturn my decision, but you won't avail of it. I would prefer you didn't, as it would only make things harder for me, but I can't deny you the choice just like you can't deny me from following the course of action upon which I've set my mind.

Lila keeps calling my name, now with something of a reproachful undertone, but her voice soon fades away in my mind as I climb over the railing. Suddenly the noises from the street seem to arise from within my head, and the soft howl of the wind grows ten times in volume. I'm on the outer side of the railing, finding scant footing on the very edge of the balcony so that my body is slanting outward, held in place by my arms. If I let go of my tight grip of the railing with either hand I would fall; in a sense I'm no longer on the balcony and am rather hanging by a thread that will soon break over an 80-meter fall. This is it: these are the final moments of my life. What does a man do to lament these moments, or as in my case to celebrate them? Never mind, my reward shall be more than sufficient in the act itself and its immediate consequences. Even now as I draw my last breaths I feel lighter than before. My heart no longer stings and I'm slightly hopeful of the future. So this is what it feels to be at peace- I'd forgotten completely. This- these moments now- are sufficient reward for my decision, even if I'm headed to an eternity of damnation. For I've escaped, finally, the scourge of earthly damnation that has been following me relentlessly.

'Don't look down', I think to myself, but even as I do so my head turns downward, looking through my outstretched arms at the route I'm about to pass through. I'm not free of fear or anxiety, but neither am I denied a wonderful sense of adventure. An 80-meter freefall in which I need not worry about such trifles as safety, landing, or the moment after; what can be more exciting?

I bring my head back up and begin to release my grip of the railing. Just then I receive some esoteric signal to sneak a glance into the room and I realize that she's spotted me. She's staring at me in astonishment, speechless and unable to move. She knows what I'm about to do and she can't contain it. But can she really be so surprised? After everything she's done; after everything I've been through, is it really so unpredictable that this is the choice I make? How I pity people who will only see the world through their own eyes and never be able to break free from their biases! I don't take my eyes off hers as I release completely and push my feet back so I fall legs-first.

 

 

The Beginning

 

What's happened? Not only am I still alive, but I haven't fallen. Something has snagged on the edge of the balcony and is holding me hanging just beneath it. A sleeve, perhaps? But the surface of the balcony was quite smooth and I don't remember there being anything to snag onto. I look up and realize that indeed my sleeves are pressed perfectly lightly on my arms with no pressure to indicate they've caught onto something. No, I'm being held not by a mistaken reaction between fabric and cement, but by my own fingers. It's as if my body and I are two separate entities now, and the former seems still to adhere to the naïve belief that life must be clung to at all costs. I can feel a certain pressure and pain along the tips of my ten fingers, but it's as if my sentience and control of them have been reduced considerably.

So now I'm dangling from the floor of the balcony, arms stretched and fingers gradually giving way to the slippery floor. Now I ask myself, if they- my fingers- are so intent about preserving this body, why not wrap themselves around the base of the railing and obtain a far stronger and more sustainable grasp at life? Perhaps they, too, realize that their instinctive urge to survive has been undermined by the almost equally powerful urge to avoid suffering. I think I hear footsteps on the balcony and the sound of a woman sobbing. They are the sobs of the guilty one who's finally been punished for her sins. Perhaps this is why I've held on- to get at least a fleeting, savory taste of the just effects of my decision. I wonder whether she'll have the courage to look down and see that I'm still there, but at this point it really makes no difference. My neck hurts from being craned so I let it fall back to a level position.

The floor underneath our room doesn't have a balcony, and I'm facing a window so clear at the frontier of contrast between darkness and light so that I see a clear reflection of my grotesque self in it. A man clinging by the skin of his teeth to dear life when all he wants is for it to be over with (precisely that, not death, is what I wish for; death is merely a tool). But as my observation of the reflection of this man deepens I ask myself if this is really me. The man in the reflection has strange eyes with pupils that seem unusually small, and yet my eyes have never been so conspicuous. He has fairly long hair, and yet- since when do I grow my hair that long? And that smile- a dark, sinister, complacent smile; surely it doesn't belong to me! Finally and perhaps most disturbingly, the man whose reflection is projected to me on the spotless 22nd floor window has a deep, unsightly scar at the very center of his forehead, as though it were a badly botched tattoo…

Do you remember the peace that washed over me moments ago? Well, it vanishes now instantly, making room for utter consternation as the identity of the man in the window dawns on me. It's the man who on his last night of his excursion to Mexico with his future wife lost his self control and almost lost everything he had. It began when he snuck one too many glasses of wine at the unusually festive hotel bar. From there the way to the room of the beautiful Mexican girl who'd been staring at him half the night was short and free of guilt. Then more wine and a promise to his fiancée that he wouldn't drive that night. He was so convincing that he believed himself, as though having already forgotten his recent duplicity in the act of betrayal. He was a very trustworthy man in a very untrustworthy condition. Or perhaps a more accurate account would describe him as a trustworthy man whose untrustworthy side (which any person, trustworthy or otherwise, carries inside) was unleashed for the first time.

When she didn't see he had one last glass- or was it two? Three?- before they left. This time he promised her that he was perfectly sober and capable of driving. She, intoxicated not with alcohol but with love, believed him again; so strong was her need to trust him that she manipulated her own better judgment to satisfy it. So he drove them up the winding, rugged, potholed road. He did well in the first