Pendulum

1. Prologue

I pretended I was the moon.

It wasn't there tonight, in the sky but somewhere else, shining down on someone who didn't need it because, as it was night-time here, it would be daytime there. It was unbelievably unfair, that one side of the earth could have both heavenly bodies at their disposal at one time when it only needed one.

So I pretended I was the moon to provide the night sky around me some comfort.

I imagined myself coming down from the sky and laying down to rest below water. How beautiful would that be, arriving at a lake, or a river, or an ocean to see the moon's pretty face shine up on you from below. I believed that if I were the moon, I wouldn't be made for soaring through the sky; I would be made for resting below a surface, the incredible amounts of water in the space between me and the air acting a heavy blanket to help me fall asleep.

What really frightened me was how certain I was of succeeding.

No risk of waking up in a hospital bed, wondering what was going on, remember everything and then feel relief wash over me, thinking thank God I was unsuccessful, thank God I chose a method that made sure I stood a chance because deep down, I didn't want to succeed.

But I didn't stand a chance. Not now. Not like this. Because no part of me wanted to be unsuccessful.

I let the wind ruffle my hair. That was the sensation I got; I LET it ruffle my hair. Or, it was the sensation I pretended I got. I pretended I had that kind of control over the wind because without it, I wouldn't have control over anything. I didn't think normal people realised how much of their sanity hung on the loose thread of having control over their lives, or at least enough aspects of it that they wouldn't feel out of control. They just took it for granted, the control they had over when they woke up, the control they had over when they took a shower, what they had for breakfast, whether they missed the bus or not, their performance at work, if they worked overtime... Who ever thought "Wow, I'm in so much control!" as they decided for cornflakes over oatmeal at the breakfast table? You just didn't notice the sheer amount of control present in a life until you lost all of it.

As I had done.

I looked out over the city lights. I wished I could see some extra beauty in them during these particular moments of my life, at this end of the greyscale spectrum that represented it. Hadn't I read about that? How the beauty of the world was enhanced when you had Decided, capital D? I hadn't really thought about why that was but now, it was crystal clear to me. It was your soul's way of trying to save you. "Look! Look how much beauty there is in this world! You do want to stay, right? Right?!" A form of self-preservation.

But my soul didn't say that. The lights seemed even uglier to me than one could expect on a crisp evening on top of a high bridge. It was because my soul didn't try to save me. It tried to encourage me. It tried to egg me on by enhancing the ugliness of the world. I tried to figure out if I wanted that to be the case. If I wanted my soul to try to save me. No... No, of course I didn't want that.

I looked back on what was behind me. There was a fence between the road crossing the bridge and the edge where I stood. The fence was so high, I had no idea how I'd managed to climb over, no memory of it. I didn't even remember what I'd felt before I came here, what had laid before the decision but judging by the tears drying on my face I had climbed the fence in a panic because I never shed a tear unless I was in an uncontrollable panic. The tears felt cold on my face as they used what little warmth my skin provided to evaporate. There were no cars on the bridge. None at all, and if one would cross, they wouldn't see me as I wore a dark sweater and dark jeans that were in no way enough to protect me from the cold but at least camouflaged me against it.