! Trigger warning !
Make Me A Bird - Arcane Station, Marianne Hekkilæ
Prologue
The airport bustles around her. Families rushing past her to catch planes, important business men talking in their phones and sellers trying to get their attention for a new product. She just numbly walk in between the madness, the lightness of the location somewhat blinding her after over an hour on a plane.
She reads the signs protruding into the passageway on her way to the baggage claim. The foreign way of putting letters together to form words she's never heard uttered somewhat making her heart stir.
She's made it this far.
Getting her small suitcase takes a bit of waiting. But it doesn't matter, she's in no hurry. In between getting lost in thoughts, she studies the people she travelled with. It's many reasons to come to this city. Vacation. Business. A trip with friends.
It's many reasons indeed. And for her, she's always wanted to come to this city. She's dreamed of it since she was a little girl. The one thing she swore she would do in her life was visit this city. So it was kind of fitting then, that she chose it as her last place to ever visit.
Her baggage safe in her hand, she walks out of the airport, officially setting her feet on another country's soil. It's still early in the day, so the sun breaking through the high pillars flickers in her eyes as she locates the taxies.
She hails a cab and tell the driver to take her to a cheap motel, anything within the heart of the city. She wants to be within walking distance of everything, wants to see the important parts today. It is with a little difficulty, what with the broken english of the polite driver, she gets her message delivered. But when he understands and starts driving, she leans back in the backseat and truly relaxes.
The buildings rushes past her as she comes closer and closer to the end of her travel, and she watches them with interest and a little bit of melancholy staining her heart. It's been her dream to come her for so long that it seems a little unreal, that she's here now.
Still, it's not making things any easier. Yes, it's beautiful, but it can't fix what's broken inside her. What's been broken for years and just had been shattered more and more.
They didn't drive past any attractions before the driver pulled up outside a modest looking motel. She thanks him and give him a generous tip, so much in fact he nearly doesn't take it. But she don't need the money, not after today.
Inside, she finds a little lady with grey, curly hair at the desk looking kindly up at her through thick glasses. Luckily this one speaks english, so she without problems can ask for a single room for a week, insisting on prepaying it in cash. She also gives her a false name, lucky that this place wasn't formal enough to ask for identification or credit card assurance. The price is not half the amount she was counting on, and she nearly ask her to change the reservation for two weeks, but instead pays the share, contemplating if the rest can go to the cleaning staff.
When everything is settled and she's about to go and find her room, the lady behind the counter addresses her with a question she hasn't heard for so long she's a bit taken aback.
"Are you alright, Miss?"
She doesn't know what brings the lady to ask such a question. Maybe she saw something in her eyes, something that's been growing and growing and has now taken over her mind. A kind of emptiness with the hopelessness that is her life.
Still, she finds it in herself to give the nice lady a week smile.
"I will be."
And she will be, she thinks as she walks to the elevator. By the end of this day, everything will be alright again. The emptiness within her will disappear. The feeling of never being good enough will be gone. And, most importantly, the feeling that's killing her the most: she will never again pretend to be someone she's not. No more burying of feelings and urges. No more buckling under someone else. She will be free.
The room is small, but clean. There's a small television on a desk, and the bed looks comfy enough. She puts her small suitcase on top of the bedding and open it, looking through the scarce amount of clothes she brought; all her favorites.
She shimmies out of her skinny jeans and blue top, catching her own reflection in the full length mirror at the side of the bed. She looks at her body, how bony it's become, the result of her miserable life. On her upper arms she spots blueness of the bruises she's been given. Snapping out of it, she turns back to the suitcase and the clothes. There will be no more of that, she's going to make sure of it.
She chooses her favorite skirt and a baggy, but nice, white shirt, decorated with lace. She ties her hair up, and applies a tasty amount of make up. She's going to blend right into the people outside, as long as no one spots the desolate look in her eyes.
She packs up the suitcase and leaves it beside the desk. Her identification is also left behind, neatly placed beside the television along with the rest of her money which she withdrew in the airport back in England. But on second thoughts, she picks out a few notes, realizing she might need them herself. She brings with her her credit card, the only link to track her, to get rid of somewhere along the way.
She takes a last look at the room with all her belongings in, an unavoidable sigh escaping her lips. Then, with renewed determination, she closes the door.
Her movements all day have felt mechanical, but leaving her things here was harder than she thought. But it was another step. Another step towards resolution.
She keeps her head down as she passes the lady by the counter this time, feeling the need to escape into herself, to distance herself from life as it is. Her next hours would be used to only admire the sights and feel the peace grow inside her.
This was both a rash decision and a long planned intent. It was inevitable. Her whole life had led up to this day.
Her last day.
The birds are chirping as she enters the streets, people walks by her, completely absorbed in their own lives, and she just wanders in between, just breathing deeply and feeling the sunshine on her face. Existing too, even just for now.
When she spots a street gutter, she breaks her credit card in two, dropping the pieces in between the metal bars. Symboling that she couldn't be found anymore.
She feels herself detaching more and more from the world around her as she goes on. It's a good thing too, it will make it a whole lot easier. She knows now that she's not made for this, she was never strong enough to endure the pain of life.
She decides in her stroll to visit all the places she peeked at in her traveling magazine as a little girl. Of course, back then, she thought she would visit under other circumstances. With maybe someone she loved, since it's the city of love after all.
But life made things harder for her than she could ever imagine. She found out that she wasn't cut out for it, to speak her mind and stand for what she felt had always been hard for her. In the meek early stages where she tried, she was turned down viciously. It was degrading, it was a dismal. And acceptance had always been important for her, so she buried her true self to make her family happy.
She walks along the river to the first sight, a large cathedral. People stand around taking pictures as she glances up at the large building. But she doesn't need to capture this moment on a digital device. No, this memory wasn't meant to live for years. Neither was she.
She admires the architecture and the decorative circle in the middle and the tall windows. She wonders for a second how it would be to get married in such a great building but quickly discards the thought. It wouldn't happen for her. Yes, she had a fiancé back home, and in truth their wedding was technically in planning, but she just couldn't go along with that reality anymore.
Before the memory of the man she's spent too much of her feeble life with becomes too much, she moves on to the next destination.
A pyramid of glass greets her at the large, open space. She lingers here for a bit, walking around it and the fountain. She watches the people going in and out of the museum. A kid to her left yells out as a stuffed animal falls out of his stroller. She goes over and picks it up, gives it back and receives thanks from his mother before they hurry away again.
She's numb. She's so numb and she wonders if that kid will have the same life she did. She hopes not. Or, at least, she hopes he's tougher than she ever was. Her strict mother following her through life, even now she had an iron grip over her decisions. Nothing went past it, and that's maybe why she had done as she did, gotten herself a fiancé who didn't seem harmful in the beginning, but in time had turned out just as bad as her mother.
With a last glimpse at the glass pyramid, she moves on. But the next sight she decides to not walk all the way over to. She sees the monument a long way, and she can admire the gate and how the traffic moves to and from it from the street she's at.
It's huge. It's one of the hugest things she's seen. And it's also beautiful. Dividing the city around it, daring to stand out, to be what it is. Daring to mean something, to claim its place.
She shakes her head at herself of how she makes everything a metaphor. She's not here to ponder what might have been if she was a stronger person. She's here to see the wonders she's always dreamt of, to give everything a worthy end.
The last and final destination is what she's looked forward to see the most. Of course it's not the first time she's seen it today as she approaches it. No, the tower is large, projecting over the city. She's seen it several times from a distance, but she's tried to postpone the reverence of it until it was time. And now it was.
She feels a small grip around her chest as she stares up into the sky, spotting the top of it. It's magnificent, it's everything she ever thought it would be. It's a heavy sensation, but it's also worthy of what it will come to mean in her life.
She uses some time to watch the tower from the park around it, going around the many food booths and smelling the distinct courses. Her mouth waters but she doesn't buy any. She needs her money for the ticket to the top.
The line isn't remarkable long as she places herself on the end. And soon enough her last money is gone and she's left the brown ground beneath her, flying up in the air inside the elevator.
It's crowded and it's overwhelming but it also feels right and when an attractive girl bumps into her, she thinks that if that's the last contact she'll have with anyone, that it will be okay.
She steps out on the top, heaven suddenly a lot closer than before. The sky is blue, small wisps of clouds in the distance. A beautiful day to die.
She walks over to the railing, noting the height of it before she leans her arms and head on it to look at the view of the city she's always loved from afar. The perfect last spot on her journey.
People are busy with capturing the moment and the view around her, but she doesn't need to. Because it will soon all be forgotten, lost in the abyss or whatever would happen.
The breeze ruffles through her strands of hair, and she closes her eyes. Knowing that this is it, that her suffering will soon end, it makes her smile to herself. The weight on her shoulders lifting of the thought of this being her last moments.
And her last day on this planet had been perfect. As perfect as it could become in how her life had turned out. Everyone in her family had abandoned her in one way, leaving her alone with her overbearing mother. No one supported her to be who she really is, suppressing her until she was however they thought she should be. Mentally pressuring her into getting herself a boyfriend in university. Making her take the course that would fit them best, refusing her of her career dreams and instead ending up with a degree in economy. Making her stay with the boyfriend that wasn't as sweet as the first impression, instead turning out to be controlling and abusive. The pillars in her life one by one was knocked over until what she stood left with was only discipline and servility. As long as she became what her mother wanted of her, she thought acceptance would save her happiness. It only deprived her of it. Her mother never happy, her fiancé always ruling, her accountant job never fulfilling. She had no authority over her own life anymore, everything was planned out for her, but this, this she could control.
Whether she existed or not.
And she knew it would take her mother and her fiancé a while to figure out what happened to her, not even leaving a note for them. Her suicide would say it all. It was the only way out left she saw.
She steps out of her shoes tentatively, then quickly hosting herself over the railing, standing with her front to the city, her hands gripping the railing.
A second or two passes by as she feels a new sort of feeling rush through her body. A sense of complete peace. Equanimity. Freedom.
She's long prayed to whatever God was up there to make her a bird, to give her the strength to escape her life and the people in it, to just fly away. And now, now she finally could.
And with that Emily loosened her grip and leant into nothingness, falling through the air towards the ground beneath her.