The Wharf ~ Short story ~

The Wharf

I knew something was wrong as soon as I heard that knock on the door. It was February the 24th, 5 am when I heard it. My parents' room is upstairs so they couldn't hear it and so it was left for me to answer the door. Two police officers towered over me as soon as I swung it open. "Can we please speak to Carmen and John Oakley?" his tone was not at all telling to what was yet to come. I let them both in and started my anxious walk towards my parents' room. I shook them both awake; it took me three tries each but they both rolled out of bed. Their eyes near bulged out of their head once they were informed, incredibly awake and aware after hearing about the officers waiting for them patiently in the downstairs living room. They walked in a flustered manner, instantly worried, or curious, I couldn't tell. I was told to stay outside the living room but remained in the sectioned off kitchen, curiously hoping I could hear even just a snippet of the conversation they had.

Once they were told of why the officers had come to our house, I heard a shriek come out of my mother, so desperate and fleeting it sounded inhuman. I ran out of my hiding place, around the corner wall, and ran to comfort my mother.

"What's wrong mum?!" I begged for an answer. "What happened?!"

The officers were silent, my father still swallowing the news. They had found my sister's body in the nearby lake. She had gone to the wharf and was dead within three to four minutes. They say that this should be a comforting sign; a sign that she didn't suffer for long, but for me it just shows how such a short amount of time is required to end the life of someone who I have known for the entirety of mine; someone who I thought I would know for the rest of mine.

Hearing all of that both shattered my heart into tiny irreparable bits and flipped my world upside down. My instant response was to go silent. All I said was a measly "Ok, I guess dad's going to have to drop me to school instead."

There was no life in my voice and it seemed as if my eyes were in a constant state of alert. Wide open and unblinking, unable to shut for fear that I would miss the moment when they all told me it was a joke and Heather would jump out from her hiding place behind that ugly old floral arm chair and yell "GOTCHA!" After 2 minutes of standing there in silence... I realised that wouldn't happen.

I walked away and up the creaky flight of stairs, straight towards her room. Heather was never the tidy type and there were clothes strewn all over the floor. I collapsed into them laying on my back and staring at the ceiling. She had plastered it full of pictures of models she strived to be and band members she strived to be with.

My eyes welled with tears. I sat up, staring at the tiny polaroid of us both, heather was mid way through a giggle when it was taken while I was pulling a silly face. The polaroid was tucked into the corner of the mirror, as if suspended by nothing but a prayer. I suddenly broke down, crying and screaming. Overcome with all five stages of grief at once, I kicked and shoved every piece of furniture in in Heather's room before I crawled into her bed, whimpering myself to sleep.

I've come to the realisation that life is incredibly temporary. You can never know, unchangeably, what will happen. Sure, we've all heard this countless times before, but for me, it's never seemed so real. Life is so fragile and unpredictable that just the other week I was planning to go on a trip out of state with my sister and only a few days ago I was helping my parents plan her funeral.

Sometimes I think about how she must've felt, as she looked over the edge of the wharf, the one we used to jump off as kids. But this time she wasn't playing Marco Polo with her little sister, she was getting ready to kill herself. Then all at once, she ended her life in one jump. One jump and three minutes later it was over. One jump off the wharf and I will never recover from the whole it has left in my soul.