Once upon a time there was a girl and there was a boy. Well, at least that was how they wanted to start the story. But unlike any of those stories, this one differed in a way that the girl and the boy both knew their ending was never the happily-ever-after kind.
But despite all that nonsense, they were still happy. Wasn’t that the kind that should matter?
And so the real story began like this: there was a girl named Nira and she was a self-admitted patient at a mental asylum. There was this boy named Philip and he wanted to be called Pip. To the others who knew, Pip was nothing but an imaginary dog. There was an actual dog named Pip though, not imaginary just currently non-existent, Nira would say. But she wasn’t referring to that Pip. She was referring to the Pip who offered her a shotgun so she could shot herself and end her life. That Pip was the one who had changed her life completely. Like the way the moon changes it shape from to time -it felt extraordinarily normal at the same time, lovely.
Nira would talk to Pip, the imaginary dog every afternoon of every day in the asylum. She would watch as the dog sniffed the corner of her room, tracing its nose to the coldness of the pallid floor. She liked him, it, the dog -Pip. Because sometimes the dog reminded her of the Pip she once knew.
It all started in a one sunny day of June. Nira was living a perfectly normal life. Until she decided the normal wasn’t the right word for it.
Nira would stare at the sun and scream because it hurts her eyes. She would go to the kitchen and eat raw foods. She would get the scissors and cut herself. She wasn’t herself, not at all. But she knew what she was doing, and again, it felt normal.
The facts were these: she was an only child to a single mother. Her mother was a whore, a drug addict and a nagger. From time to time her mother would have few generous visitors. Generous enough that sometimes they would sneak into Nira’s room and give her gifts in exchange for her helpful services. She was a child back then but every bit of her youth was taken from her.
It wasn’t their fault, that was what her mother would tell her. Because it was all planned by God Himself. Her mother’s way of saying that everything happens for a reason. Of course that was after the ecstasy and the heroine and the methamphetamine. Despite everything Nira still grew up to be a smart, kind and beautiful teenager. Adulthood was another story.
The first attempt was when she was twenty three. The insecure bitches in her community college decided that they should teach the new girl a lesson. Nira cut her wrists but she was found by the school janitor before she bled to death.
The second was when she was on their yard. Three years had passed. She was married to a guy named Harold and just became a mother of a two month old baby boy. She tied a rope on the branch of a paper tree and slipped the other end around her neck. She looked at the ground, then to her bare feet. Her feet was still touching the wooden chair. It was the only thing connecting her to her life. Nira was contemplating and Harold knew that when he screamed her name and grabbed her by the knees. He cried and melted at her presence. He wanted to be mad at her but he couldn’t. He knew when he married Nira that there will be consequences. But he loved her. He loved her anyway.
The third was the one Nira will never ever forget. She was standing at the edge of the roof top of her flat’s building. It was exactly five in the morning and she just woke up. She wanted to see the sunrise from up there but something or someone within her told her to jump instead. The cold crisp of wind against her cheeks, the bright color of the sky and the lovely image of the tiny cars below. It was confusing at first but when she spread her arms and closed her eyes it all made sense to her. Until he spoke, him, Pip.
“You could take my gun if you want. Just one pop, it’ll be quicker than that. Less gooey stuffs too.” Nira couldn’t help herself. She stepped down from the edge and looked at the beautiful pair of jade eyes staring back at her. He was serious but the tone of his voice was mocking. His eyes shifted down and finally stopped at Nira’s toes, then back to her eyes again. Nira felt embarrassed, but most of all frightened. It felt like her whole life was being trespassed by this stranger and he was aware of it. He stood up and walked towards her which made her uneasy and tripped on the elevated part of the edge.
She could have died that day. But then the man called Pip, saved her. On the other hand, she could have died by jumping from the building but the man called Pip stopped her by suggesting to use his gun instead. It was a very complicated story, but Pip and Nira argued otherwise.
That night they talked and they made love and they shared their stories to each other.
The facts were these: Pip was forty and his eleven year old son had just died from cancer and his wife left her. It was okay, he’d said, he never loved her anyway. But he cried while he said it. Because it was easier to lie than to admit the cruel truth.
The truth was that he was about to shoot himself when Nira walked out of that door and looked up at the sky. She was beautiful and ugly at the same time, he’d said. But as she stepped on that edge and smiled all the ugliness was stripped and so Pip decided to stop her.
“Why? Why would you stop me when you said it was all going away?” She whispered on his ear. She was on top of him, their bodies pushing against each other. Pip stopped and stared at Nira’s charcoal eyes.
“Because imperfection completes us as much as beauty do.” And then just like that, Nira decided that she will never ever try to commit suicide again. That was the same day she went to the asylum.
Harold visited her every day, Pip never did. Harold brought her gifts, flowers and stories, Pip gave her a lick. And that was the dog, Pip, not the man who save her with a shotgun.
Many years had passed and still, Pip was nowhere to be found. Then, one rainy day of August, Nira saw a strange caption on the newspaper. It said in bold letters: Death by a shotgun. The newspaper was torn and dirty. But the picture next to the article was very clear. It was Pip. Her Pip. It was the picture that she took when Pip took her to his son’s grave. It was him and her and it was perfect. She couldn’t bring herself to read the article so instead, Nira hid it away.
Nira was old, and she was dying, the least she could do was to read his last moments written on that single paged-article. Most of it was torn but not the very important part: witnesses said the man jumped while carrying a gun. That son of a bitch, she’d said.
Nira had live for him but all those years it was him who gave up on everything. But she couldn’t remember him that way. She would remember him as the stranger that saved her. She would remember him as the Pip, the loving dad to a brave son. She would look at that picture and she would remember Pip, her Pip.
