*This is a creative project I did for class*
The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets
successfully through many a bad night
-Friedrich Nietzsche
“Don’t do it!” shot from my lips. They stood there, the three of them—hands grasped tightly, figures erect, chins raised defiantly: two true, one fiction.
They wore red; each sporting a shade of blood red that whipped around their slender legs in the pre-dawn breeze.
In a daze, I watched as they stepped slowly, but deliberately toward the edge. The time for hesitation had passed; this life had beaten them mercilessly and no clear alternative presented itself. Swift action was the cure for their affliction and they calmly flicked the switch of survival instincts to the “off” position, dulling their bodily impulses.
The first rays of sunlight appeared over the eastern hills; like soldiers scaling a great wall, they thrust themselves over the precipice and pierced their blue adversary like fiery spears of conquest.
I knew each of their stories, and I had felt each of their pain. I knew nothing else could cure them, yet I spoke out again, this time louder. “Don’t do it!”
The world was waking in anticipation of a new day. Small rodents could be heard scurrying this way and that, doting over their young one moment, and scolding them the next.
Three women—oppressed, forgotten, marginalized, objectified, disturbed, abused, and yet I screamed, voice cracking with tears. “DON’T DO IT!”
The whole face of the sun was now grimacing down on the scene. The breeze had calmed, but I shivered.
In unison, they turned to face me. They said nothing, but their eyes betrayed their veneer of calm. With their eyes, they cursed my sex—damning every son of Adam with a single glance.
I physically stumbled back in retreat at their unmitigated hatred. Each glare was so menacing, that I reeled back, slamming my head down against the hard gravel. Groggy from my spill, I peered through the haze of semi-conscious awareness. They were looking cruelly at my pathetic form, curled up in pain. I croaked feebly, “please, please don’t do this.” But their will for freedom would not be delayed.
With knowing looks to one another—summing up the difficult emotions behind their decision, they resumed their funeral march, smiling peacefully—even as they stepped into thin air.
The trio plummeted downward past the window of two children sleeping peacefully in the soft light of dawn. Next to the boy’s bed was a jug of milk and next to the girl’s, a loaf of bread
The sputter of a motor starting broke the still, and I listened as an old truck gasped and choked down an endless highway. From my supine position, I saw a panoramic view of the hills rising up around the shrinking valley which I was lying in the middle of. There was no way out, and I distinctly remember feeling trapped as the hills collapsed over me, blocking out any hope of escape.
Though one chose chloroform, one drowning, and the third a gas oven, in my dream, they died together. Alone in life, they found companionship in death. Forgotten in life, they found recognition in death.
Nothing seemed more appropriate; nothing seemed so just, yet I still fail to see closure. The scene is blurring in my memory: “don’t do it” remains a fragmented reminder of the cataclysm witnessed. Did they have every reason to follow their convictions to the asphalt below? Yes. But for three fiercely independent and strong women—three women who had never backed down from anything, why would they take the easy way out now?
Their defiant life had led them to the point where they committed the final act of rebellion by taking their own lives. The thought of suicide had dulled in their imagination, and carrying out the deed was their only solace left in a world devoid of meaning.
Family and friends were no more than burdensome responsibilities. Life had nothing more to offer, and they found no tangible reason to continue living through the pain. And despite my best efforts, they painted the ground red in the soft light of early dawn.
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