SWIM Book 1 (Complete three-hundred pages)

DAY 60.3

Wednesday, December 17, 2018

"D

on't end your life for a teenage romance. . ." Jack had said, in that dream I had that night before.

I spotted a brightness behind my eyelids, and opened them.

There is a lot to live for. . . isn't there? A lot to die for, too, maybe.

I tried to block the noise, the noise in my mind. And I let in only the sounds.

Of my breath. Of the world.

In out. In. Out.

In.

Out.

In. . .

Out. . .

And then, I thought of all the things I'd wanted in my life. I'd wanted a nice beautiful car. And a nice, beautiful house. I wanted a nice, beautiful husband. And a home, full of heart, full of love, and full of babies. I know it's not cool, it's not very hip. . . but that idea always made me smile. Who doesn't love babies? I wonder.

I want to hold one.

I cried on that ledge. I was going to be a lawyer. Or a doctor. A businesswoman. A wife. A mother. A grandmother. I was going to lead. I was going to make. I was going to be somebody.

I was never going to be lost to oblivion. I was never going to give up. I am in the winter of my life, which means it can't get worse. My life can bloom. No more storms. I am alive.

Overlooking the clouds, I see them clearing. There is a sun beyond those clouds in the sky, and it's beaming down through the thawing cracks. I swallow, and know I am still alive. I step one foot back, off the ledge, and stand again on the safety of this roof, and spot in the distance, wiping the horizon with a blurred brush of color, the soft rainbow painted over that horizon.

There is no storm coming, I think. None, and then I hear. . . a chirp. And a melody. And I see, all of a sudden, a white bird, I don't know what kind, flying through the air all alone, but with motivation, carrying a wooden stick on a path to who knows where. Carrying it all the same, with a passion, and a drive, to keep going on.

I could then feel the waft of the ocean breeze pick up over my hair with kindness, petting and stroking with the hug of a caretaker. The salt-air was most potent now, and I could no longer smell the sulfur. The bad smells of the black sea were gone. And I looked down, and saw the black water that had faded to gray, now cleared to blue.

All around me, the mist was gone. And the clear day became drenched, in the warm heat, of the yellow sun.

I breathed again. For the first time in a long time, and I was starting to hear my favorite songs playing in my mind. One TWO one TWO.

I turned, taking my other foot off that ledge, and decided I will live for the chance of family, friends, art, love and whatever faith to raise my spirit.

And then I thought about Jack's book. And maybe how I could take it back for him. I'll wrap it in a plastic bag from the kitchen, keep it dry, and make my way as far as I can for civilization. And make us immortal in that story.

Activists and debunkers of global climate change will spread that book, I think. Jack will never need to fear oblivion if his art carries on. And that's when I turned, thinking to myself—

Art motivates a lot of people to live—to write it, to experience it, to pass it on--

But on that thought, I stopped dead in my tracks, when the door--

THE DOOR TO THE ROOF--

Opened. . .

And I saw him step out into the sun-drenched world, shielding his eyes with a weak and lifting hand. . . He stopped dead in his tracks, too.

And in that moment, we heard the birds sing, and many of them flew up into that sky--

And Jack said--

"I thought I heard your voice."

And I shouted his name in my mind, and ran across the roof, saying nothing at all, embracing him, kissing him, and a couple of hungry kids, drenched under the new light of the sun, were reunited, happy they hadn't the guts to swallow pills or jump off rooftops. . .