Chapter 3: The Other One
I chose a sodden day to go to the roof. It was pouring. The silver linings were growing dim as the clouds thickened and the sun was obscured completely. All of a sudden, I heard a deep, reverberating noise as the bright flash of forked lightening conquered the solemn sky, branching down all over the glinting metal buildings in the distance. I could have gone back inside but somehow being soaked wet that day made me very happy to be alive.
I had never been on top of this roof before. Threading softly to the front side of the building, I saw someone, standing on the edge. I didn't know many people in South Ashfield apartment, well precisely no one in particular, only the superintendent so it might have been one of the neighbors. Their back was facing me, so I couldn't see whether it was a puny man or a girl wearing a dark cloak.
" Hello!" I called them out of curiosity.
Then they looked back for just a split second and I swore I saw that she was a thin, ill looked woman with a big belly. Was she pregnant? She looked away. I gasped in horror. She was a pregnant woman. My heart started pounding faster and faster against my chest as the realization dawned. She wanted to jump and she was pregnant. I couldn't move though, my brain froze and I lost my mental abilities all at once. I was hopeless but somewhere deep inside I wanted to give the woman hope. She already had one, why she'd want to take it away from herself.
"Don't do this, " I pleaded. Feeling warm tears forming under my eyelids, I took a step closer. "Think about your baby." Another one. " Think about the joy it'll bring to you." My face twitched and my voice cracked when I realized she wasn't paying any attention to me. " Please just come back."
" I'd rather die with my sin than live with it!"
The gruffly voice coming from the woman startled me but before I could even think of a response, she did it. I watched her leaning forward far enough knowing she succeeded in what she set out to do. She fell down like a dying bird.
I felt a single tear trickle down my cheek, but I didn't bother to wipe it away as it mixed with the rain, still falling down mercilessly.
Tap. Clatter. Tap.
My sadness is hollowness. I can't begin to tell what's worse. Sometimes my hollowness is a shell, holding a thousand oceans of tears. Sometimes though, it holds a thousand pieces of glass that are wedged in between my soul and body. That's the pain. Sometimes though, like when you were born, I realized how a forbidden fruit tasted so delicious. I had kept you awaken all night. I was already drowning so what one more sin as to look at your bright eyes all night could do. I remember the time my cat died and I cried and he hit me. I never cried since then. Or when everybody laughed and I couldn't bring myself to do it. That's the scariest thing, my son. Sometimes I am somebody, someday in pain and sadness. But sometimes I'm nobody and I don't seem to feel it.
I don't seem to exist at all…
I looked up at the typewriter, my hands shaking and my face drowning in tears.
What was happening to me?