What We Left Behind

Chapter Two: In Which Eric is Dreaming of A Memory

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Eric blinked.

Thank you for the light and this energy. Thank you for this oxygen to breathe. Thank you for this life in me.

Thank you for this day.

Actually, no.

This was a crappy day.

I hated most of it.

Sitting at the roof of a hundred-feet office building and staring down at the world going by, the only thought in Eric's head was how this was indeed an awful day.

And on top of it all, his psychiatrist had asked him to take up this practice, where everyday he had to count ten things in life he was grateful for.

Everyday. Seriously, every single stupid day, even when he sure didn't have anything to be happy about. Eric was sure he hadn't ever had so many things in life which he could thank the universe for. He didn't know how he could bring up new ones everyday.

Besides, this was an idiotic activity.

The only good thing today was that he was here, atop this building, his life within his own hands. He could wish to end it or he could wish to live on longer.

For once, he could make the choice.

There was no police. No sirens and willing noises. His mother wasn't crying, his father wasn't standing in the corner stone-faced and emotionless. His older brother wasn't staring at him in disgust.

Eric still remembered that day.

His breathing, getting slower and slower, almost drowned in oblivion, almost in his next birth, when someone grabbed his arm. Pulled him back into the realm of the living.

There were police all of a sudden, and medics, and his family and the neighbours. All staring with empty eyes as he was transported onto the stretcher and wheeled in the ambulance. The next couple of days were hard, with constant pain and stress as they healed him.

And worst of all, it was all going to waste.

They saved him just so he could try to kill himself again.

Right now he was not killing himself, though. Right now he was testing the waters, wondering what it felt like to be present in this atmosphere so high, on the verge of falling any time, and still sitting on like a stubborn little badger. He wanted to feel the cold evening breeze on his face, on his hands and body, ruffling through his hair, even tickling past his eyelids.

He wanted to once again feel like he was alive.

And he could fall anytime.

His legs dangled over the edge.

It would be like falling from the sky, like a dead object, like a meteor from space, like a half-eaten rodent from the beak of a hawk flying overhead.

It was like that: falling from the sky.

"Eric!" He heard a voice shriek, the wind carrying the sound forward to him so sharply he jerked. Almost losing his balance from where he was perched.

He gripped the edges of the roof tightly, releasing a heavy breath and glancing back.

There she was again. His psychiatrist.

Her hair flew past her face, revealing her face pinched up in worry. Or maybe it was just disappointment. A client killed himself by jumping from the roof of her office building. That would ruin her business forever. She gripped the door which led to the stairs going down, as if she was afraid the wind would blow her right away if she let go.

"Eric!" She screamed again. "Come back!"

You almost made me jump. Gave me a minor heart attack.

Eric shook his head slowly, turning back around to face the world. "I'm not going to jump, relax," he yelled back. "I wouldn't do that to you."

When he looked back, she was frowning, carefully leaving her grip on the door railing and taking a few steps forward.

There was a white line drawn on the cement, and on it written the words: Do Not Cross.

It was a line Eric had crossed long before but she stopped just behind it. Then she tentatively held out a hand. "Can you come back, Eric. Listen, we can discuss-"

"Why do adults always want to discuss?" Eric asked. "I just can't get it. Why can't you...you know...keep quiet for once? And just...let it all happen?"

Her frown got deeper. "Because that's not what we are supposed to do, Eric. We're supposed to be in charge of what happens to us, what happens in our life."

She said that we wrote our own destiny. But if Eric had the choice, he would just let someone else do it all for him. Took away the loads of responsibilities stocked onto his shoulders.

Eric shook his head. "You're a doctor, so you're supposed to say that, to all the suicidal teens. You just always have to be motivating, you know."

She sighed, the small puff of air releasing from her mouth and carrying forward to Eric, holding all the sorrows and arguments she didn't put up. At last she looked up at him, then leaned forward and tried to catch a small peek of what lay below. Cars, buses, commuters, houses. Life.

"Aren't you afraid you're going to fall?"

Eric thought for some time. "I was."

It looked like the sentence he said was so heartbreaking that it took her a few moments to compose herself after that. "What aren't you afraid of falling anymore, Eric?" She asked.

I'm already at the bottom.

Eric didn't say that. He just shrugged.

She sighed. "Can you just come back, Eric? Inch back a little, because I want to sit with you but I'm scared of heights. A lot."

Eric thought that was nice. Maybe the nicest thing someone had said to him in a long time.

So he inched back. Just a little.

She saw the green signal and carefully walked forward to take her seat next to him.

"Now, we can take up from where we left off," she said. "Why don't you want to be the owner of your own life?"

"I am the owner of my own life and that is why I tried to give it away," he stated, raising an eyebrow at her. "But to answer your question, I think I'll just ask one back. Why are you people always so adamant on changing the course of life? Why do you always want to control how it goes? Control what happens?"

"So, you...you're just going to let whatever is happening to you...just happen??

Eric shrugged his shoulders, hesitating just a little. "Yeah...yeah, as long as it's not something bad, and...not if...I can do anything to stop it."

"So you will try to change it if you're not satisfied with it?" She asked, with an intelligent nod, and Eric realised almost immediately that she had left him with no choice.

"I mean..." he paused, thought, then just gave a short nod.

"That's what happens, Eric. We can't always let life happen, not if we don't want to live through what's happening." Then she asked him a question he still thought about.

"Don't you agree that it is only the sunflower which chooses whether to face the sunshine or not?"

To this Eric said something back:

"But does the sunflower also have a choice in whether the sun comes up or the thunder?"