Shards

THE ITCH [+16]

Rain.

The sky reverberated and thundered above the busy city, and the sounds of cars and people echoed back. A useless, meaningless, aimless dialogue that got nowhere.

Neither party paid attention to each other, because neither of them had time for that. Too worried about doing what should be done. And so, blinded by their responsibilities, no one noticed an insignificant woman on top of one of the buildings.

Silent, soaked, dripping like a wax doll, and nameless. There were so many people in the world that it seemed like there were none. And then she jumped.

The height was so great that her bones became crumbs when they came into contact with the cold, dirty floor. I was in the front store, working, when I saw the figure fall. A strange blur, too big to be a bird, even though I heard no sound. The only thing that could be heard was thunder.

When I saw the body, after my curiosity got the best of me, I didn't know how to react. I didn't know that woman. But there was something instinctive in us, human beings, that emerged when someone of our species died in front of us. Who knows, fear. Compassion. Curiosity. What could have happened?

The man in the store next door was the first to call emergency services, the most curious of us all. He approached the motionless body and even touched it, trying to see who the victim was. He didn't know her either.

The event didn't even make the newspapers. Many people killed themselves in that city, and who could judge them? I've wanted to do it myself. But with no news, it was all just speculation.

"Her friends said she had been behaving strangely for some time", "She wasn't suicidal", "But she was definitely sick". The gossip continued for a long time, the rumors only increased and became more and more outlandish, only getting worse when two more people did the same thing. From the top of tall buildings, they threw themselves and crashed to the ground.

They weren't related, they didn't know each other, they didn't even look alike, but for some reason they killed each other in the same way in the same month. It wasn't common, but it wasn't that alarming either. Not for the people of the city who had seen it all. And another instinct began to emerge in people's chests.

An itch, an inexplicable desire to see the bodies. Satisfying curiosity, understanding what position they were in, one last look before the person disappears forever. They took photos that spread across the network as quickly as they were taken offline. But they found ways. Forbidden, unknown sites. Even the most sensitive could not resist. They denied it, but they knew they wanted to see it. Everyone was watching, making faces at their cell phone screen, they needed to see. And they saw.

I saw, a few days later, when the man from the store next door fell like a bag of meat onto the sidewalk, coming from the top of the building. Both of his femurs came out of his leg on impact, his body almost landed perfectly on his feet, and the sight was too much for me. I ran to the bathroom and started vomiting, so much so that some of the stomach acid came up and I couldn't breathe for a good ten seconds before I gasped, limp and helpless.

The numbers continued to grow. Five, nine, twenty-three suicides ending their own lives in the exact same way in a very short space of time. It was difficult to hide the images from the population, and even more difficult to provide an explanation. However, they found something, at least some concrete information.

Don't approach the bodies.

It was clear that most of the victims were in the health sector, working in morgues or funeral homes. Slowly, those people's suicides became accidents. It wasn't something psychological, although it was certainly cerebral.

Security in buildings increased, no one could go up without authorization. Everyone was alert to the slightest sign of behavioral change, anyone who seemed even slightly shaken had to be quarantined, confined to their rooms until the police arrived to take them to some place no one knew about. Now the news was in the newspaper, on television and on the Internet, a constant warning to stay away from the bodies. And it didn't even work.

People in quarantine began to kill themselves in their rooms, hitting their own heads or sticking a pen in their own eye. The scenarios got worse and suddenly everyone started to be afraid that one day, suddenly, they would just kill themselves without being able to avoid it. For the first time since I was born, I witnessed the city silent.

When my roommate one day started having sunken eyes, losing his appetite, and not moving for long hours, I tried to talk to him. His sentences lingered, drawn out and lifeless, almost without coherence. I couldn't keep him in the room. Maybe he could have some chance if I was monitoring him, keeping watch to prevent any fatalities.

In a way, it worked. When he tried to stick a knife in his chest, I stopped him. This made him aggressive, hostile; I had no other choice but to fight him. The noise of heavy footsteps, falling things and banging on the wall attracted residents, who called the police. Some even knocked on the door, but I was too busy to open it.

He had me pinned to the floor, and I could see his throat moving like he was going to vomit all over me. His gaze remained emotionless as he slowly approached and I struggled, in absolute panic. Maybe this was my time, maybe I shouldn't have gotten involved.

Blood.

Pure blood came out of his mouth, straight onto my skin. That warm liquid ran down my cheek onto the carpet, the fabric and I stained forever. When the police arrived, it was already too late. My friend was on top of me, passed out but alive, and I was traumatized. I refused to say anything during the entire process of being dragged, put into a car and taken to the place no one knew about.

It wasn't incredible at all. Just a medical facility, but with cells. All I could hear were screams and moans of pain, then I suddenly missed the sounds of the city.

In the first hour I was there, they subjected me to seven tests. The specialists spoke in whispers, barely making sounds to move, and protected themselves with several layers of protection that just didn't cover their look of pity. Something told me there was nothing they could do. That I wasn't there to be helped, but to be contained.

— Am I going kill myself? — I asked a nurse, after she took some of my blood. There was hesitation before their rueful response.

— No, you are going to die.

The difference was not very clear to me.

It meant death just the same. It wasn't like I was going to be murdered, or die of natural causes. I only understood when they tied me to a stretcher in an isolated room, with nothing in the room but a window, from where the scientists were watching me.

I cried in despair, knowing that I couldn't even say goodbye to my family. All this because I tried to help my roommate. There was no point in struggling like that, I would never get out of there. It was only when I came to terms with it and when the tears stopped obstructing my vision, that I was able to see, in the window, the reflection of a monitor that was behind me.

ETISARAP