Holding My Breath [Wattys 2016]

1 0 7 ~ R u s t y

                 

Present Day ~ July 24, 2011

My biggest fear is something that surrounds me. It's something that we experience every day, pay no mind to, and never quite see coming or going.

But if we lost it, we would be nothing.

Time. It's such a simple word, something so common that nobody ever thinks we could lose it one day. I don't fear time itself, exactly. Just the fact that it's finite. For me, one day, it will run out.

I look back at my life and I see a slideshow of memories. I see my friends at the cotton gin, cheering me on as I jumped. I see myself just a day ago, sleeping against Blue.

And I hear Bailey's laugh. I see Blue's smile. I see them all. Blue, Bailey, Sawyer. Colt.

Toby. Toby. Toby.

I never thought that my time with my family would end so soon. I always thought that my parents would see me graduate, that my dad would walk me down the aisle.

I always thought that my life wouldn't go like this.

But thinking is what gets people killed. Thinking is also what is supposed to keep people alive. But while I'm standing there, on the edge of the bridge, thinking, time is ticking down. Time is passing me by and I'm not even noticing it.

And by the time I do, it isn't because I came up with a plan. It isn't because someone came to help me. It's because of the gunshot. The third strike, the third bullet. But this one doesn't go into the air. It isn't a warning.

It hits me. It takes my balance.

I try to shake their names out of my head, but those memories just keep coming.

And before I have time to think about what's happening, or how long I have left, the force makes me stumble backward.

And I'm falling.

And falling. And maybe I left everything up there, on the bridge. Maybe all of my hope and dignity that I had left was with me while I was thinking, but once I start to fall, I don't know where it is anymore.

Now I don't have time. I can't think.

I can't do anything but fall.

Straight down, towards the waters, I could never really escape from. I always say that the first time I went off this bridge was when I died. But that's not true. I got a second chance. And I ruined it. I didn't save Toby. Who knows what happened to Blue.

This is it.

Now I'm reallydead.