Text: Scission, Tim Winton.
Final Piece
The wind whistled and howled as she looked over the ledge.
One step,
that's all it would take.
One step,
that's all she needed.
That one step could end all the pain.
One step could stop all the nightmares.
One step could make it all go away.
She looked over to the now empty beach, the last place where she was happy with… him… it still hurt to even think his name. Every thought of him bought on a new wave of pain.
The kind of pain that felt as if your whole chest was about to burst.
A deep black hole had taken over the place where her heart once lived.
She shuffled closer to the edge, inhaling a large shaky breath before looking down.
As she looked down memories began to flood into her mind, clouding her every thought.
The first hello...
The first kiss…
The first touch…
All painful, vivid memories consumed her every being.
The more she fought it the more clearly they became, and with the clearness came a new hit of pain settling in the pit of her chest.
She took one step back and the images stopped. She closed her eyes and now she could hear his voice,
she could hear the whispered I love you's said through the night,
she could hear the steady rhythm of his breathing,
her every sense became consumed by him.
His voice,
his smell,
she could even taste him on her lips.
She began to take a few steps back, it seemed the further away she got the clearer he became... kind of as if he was begging her not to take that one step.
But as she got further away, the images began to shift.
They were no longer happy memories she longed to see. No not at all, they had been replaced.
It had been replaced with the one scene playing over and over again, a scene that she had begged herself to forget.
The once silent ledge was now full of the girls scream as she sunk to her knees, face in hands shaking her head begging for the images to stop.
It seemed instead of the scene drifting away into a distant memory it became as if she were re living a never ending nightmare, one that she already had the ending for.
She bought herself closer to the edge and the scene stopped and began to change.
She now saw him, not as the monster she was trying to escape from. But the boy that was the key to her happiness.
There was only one way to make it all just go away, and all it took was one step.
She took one last step back, and the scene played out in front of her... But this time she didn't fight it off, she let it play out in front of her.
The only way she could truly describe the scene playing out in her head was the colour red.
That's all she saw through blurred vision when she found him there.
It seemed as if the cliff was the only option, she took her last breath and took her one last step.
He pulled up to her house, he hadn't heard from her in a little while and he had begun to worry. She had told him that she didn't want him to come around anymore, but he still had a pull to her… an urge to protect her not just from others, but herself and him…
He knocked.
But there was no answer.
He began to panic and let himself inside with the spare key.
Everything was as it should be, nothing was out of place… but the house felt cold, almost lifeless.
He began to call out, but there was no answer.
He found a note on the kitchen table, stained with big water marks, tears maybe?
His breath caught in his throat,
his heart stopped,
his palm began to bleed as his nails pierced into his skin,
as he fell to his knees reading the note over and over again
"I hope she makes you happy… goodbye my love"