Suicide Lane Cafe

Pastel Gloom

I stare out into the open sky. From this height, I can feel the sea breeze whipping at my face. The scent of salt fills the air, and I inhale deeply. 

It is nearly sunrise. The sky is turning a shade of pastel pink, the warmth of the sun infecting everything around it. Below me, the morning people have begun to dawdle by. I peer down and wonder where they are going.

Perhaps that mother is on her way to the grocery store for milk to appease the child she is cradling in her arms. That student, dressed in comfortable flannel and jeans is on his way to class because he is failing a crucial course. The jogger with music plugged into his ears is a retired soldier, determined to maintain his body for as long as he is physically able.

Everyone has somewhere to go. Everyone except me. 

I close my eyes and savour the feeling of wind in my hair and against my face. There is nowhere for me to go. I will forever be stuck in this bottomless pit of emptiness. Perhaps this is where I am meant to be. 

This is the fate the gods have blessed me with the day I was born – the gift to be able to see the world for what it is. I am incapable of viewing things through rose-tinted glasses. I only see things the way they were meant to be. 

I reopen my eyes. A smile crosses my lips. This is my fate, and finally I have accepted that. I have come to terms with who and what I am. I look down sixteen floors of emptiness, and think:

Hello, darkness, my old friend. I have come to speak with you again.

Slowly, I step off the edge.

-fin-