The Dying Story (Chasing Illusions #3) | A Novel

Chapter 5

There's a tiny ritual I do every night, around nine or ten o'clock, after I finished up some of my work (though sometimes I skip this ritual to finish my work). I would put Luca in a harness, and I'll walk her up to the roof of the apartment. We would stay up there for around an hour before coming down.

Luca loved the night, and on days that I didn't bring her out, she used to meow loudly (aggressively too) or end up eating one of my plants and throwing up. I learned to get used to her loud meows till she got tired of it, though she had learnt to irritate me during my work by lying beside my hand and trying to bite it when I move the mouse. Needless to say, having a cat trains your mind to come up with creative ways to keep your cat out of the way and enjoyable at the same time.

As she walked beside me, sniffing whatever spots that interested her, I walked up the stairs and reach the roof. There was a little garden around, with chairs and benches left for people to sit and enjoy the cool night air. I suspected that some even tried to have sex here, given that I found a dirty condom once. I hoped there wasn't anybody doing it here, because I definitely did not want to see any naked bodies or hear any moans.

Luca tried to chew on a grass, and I watched as she failed and gave up, choosing instead to rub her body against the legs of the bench. Cats are mysterious creatures. More mysterious than dogs.

Sitting on the bench, my thoughts went to Charlotte once more. She jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. What did she think of then?

When it came to the list of how to kill yourself, never once in my life I thought about jumping off the building to do so. It was either hanging, taking a large dosage of sleeping pills or cutting myself. Perhaps it was because the idea of it never appealed to me, since there's always that small chance you'll survived, and if you did, you probably have to live with broken bones and possibly a disability that makes your life even worse.

Suicidal thoughts and a disability? Sign me off.

Why did Charlotte take the time to drive to the bridge and jump off from there? What made her want to do that? Was it the ocean beneath, where she could drop in like a cushion and never come up again? Was it the jump itself that made her choose it? For a moment I almost wanted to try, just to see why it was a preferred method of killing yourself.

"Charlotte, why?" It's an automatic question I ask, because everybody ask this type of question when they hear someone killed themselves. Why? Charlotte must had been suffering for a long, long time, to the point she couldn't take it anymore. Even though I had a good idea of why, I still did not have the complete answers.

Charlotte's mother and father did not have the answers.

Charlotte's long-standing boyfriend did not have the answers.

I, who understood what it was like to want to die, did not have the complete answers.

People wanted to die for many reasons, but a lot of it comes down to one thing: life was no longer meaningful to live on. Humans are resilient. If you give someone a reason to suffer, they will endure it. If you give someone a reason to continue living, they will do it, no matter how painful it is.

Somewhere along the line, Charlotte lost the meaning for living. Maybe the pain choked it out of her.

Pain. How much pain do we have to endure until our wills completely break?

I picked a flower from its stem nearby, and as I played with it, I thought about the afterlife. I never put much stock into the afterlife simply because there wasn't really a way to know what would happen after you die.

But if there was an afterlife—

I hope Charlotte had her peace.

I really, really do.