most days

   It was a normal day. It was a day like my most days. I was walking down the road I have always walked. My classes were done for that day and there was still sunlight left to take me home. So I was not rushing, I was just walking. One of my headphones was hanging off my shoulder since I wanted to hear my surroundings. Ambre from Nils Frahm was playing, calming my breathing. I didn’t understand why this pool of people were here. They never were for the 21 years of my life.

  Then something happened. Something that was out of my normal. That pool of people were looking somewhere. I did something I normally wouldn’t do ; I joined the crowd and looked what they were looking at. After my eyes saw what everyone was looking at, I corrected myself. They were not looking somewhere, they were looking at someone. 

  A boy, to be more specific. Maybe around my age, maybe younger. I couldn’t see the details. He was laying down. On top of a building roof that was in construction. He was on the edge, laying and looking down. It was as if he didn’t see or hear any of people that was looking at him. I saw his lips move but couldn’t read what he was saying. 

Everyone was screaming words like ‘Get down’ ‘Come on kid, don’t do this’ ‘Let us help you’ ‘Just jump already’ ‘Quit the show’

  In my fucked up head, I knew I just needed to walk away. This scenario just brought back too many bad memories. Memories I worked so hard to forget. All I had to do was to take a few steps and I would be out of this street, out of this mess.

  But the less fucked up part of me knew. Knew I had to do something. What if they walked away from me that day? How would I feel when I cried for help and no one answered? A shiver traveled through my body. The thought left me breathless. I didn’t wanna think about that possibility even though I was through that.

 The police and the ambulance was already here but they couldn’t get close to him. 

It was hard to take the first step but after I took it, I kept going without stopping. When I reached the entrance of the building, I stopped and looked at the police.

“I can talk him out of it.”

Police didn’t care.

“I can talk to him.”

He looked away from me.

As I was about to repeat the same thing, a young man talked as he got out of the ambulance.

“How are you gonna do that?”

“The way they talked me out of it.” 

He said nothing but he understood what I meant. He turned to the police. “Let her talk. She can do it.”

  Even though they were not sure, they let me in with the man beside me. I have climbed 57 steps and I finally was on top floor. I saw few people trying to talk to him but he was looking at the sky as everything everyone was saying was in a foreign language he didn’t understand. I saw the man that brought me here whispering some stuff to other people. After few suspicious looks, they cleared my path that opened to the guy.

  I took few steps but he didn’t even noticed. To be honest, he didn’t even looked like he was about to jump. He just looked down sometimes but other than that, he just looked done. 

“I wanna tell you something about me.”  After tons of people saying stuff to him, I first didn’t expect him to hear me out but appearently, something was different. I could hear shocked expressions of other people. 

He looked at me. Expected me to continue.

“It was a normal day, you know, everything was the way they were supposed to be. The way they always were. You made it different” 

“I’m not gonna say that I’m sorry. At least not for this.”

His voice was normal though he sounded a bit tired. Maybe of everything. Didn’t know, didn’t care.

“I wasn’t expecting a sorry. And I’m not gonna say that I understand you cause I can’t. You are different. We are different and even though we think we feel the same things, we don’t. We feel similar but different things cause we think different and we live different. I’m not saying that we being different is a bad thing. We are human after all, we are created to be complicated.”

He took his right arm and put it under his head and that was a sign for me to continue.

“So I don’t know what happened, what or whom you lost and to be honest I don’t care either. The only thing I know for sure is what I felt and lost. And I was there. Different feelings, different lives, different places but the same edge. I was done with it even though people thought I had a way to go. I just didn’t see the way, all I saw was just nothing. People thought they cared about me, they thought the little life in me would light their whole life but I knew, the moment my light was gone, they would give up on me, find new lights to make them happy and that was okay. People moved on and it was in their nature to do so.”

I could feel my memories coming back. My heartbeat was too fast. My thought got heated.

“But you now what? Even though I had no reason to believe him, I believed that God was there and he was making everything in his power to make me lose it. To test me. To blame me for being this way. I’m not telling you to be religious, I don’t care. But I had a moment that even He couldn’t keep me here.”

I saw him looking at me. I was tired of standing up so I sat down.

“ Your edge?”

“ Some people say it was a miracle, some say God gave me another chance and some say that something within me didn’t wanna let go. I don’t know what happened. I was supposed to get numb from the cold and fall to sleep. It is weird how out of all of my perfect plans, that one was the one that didn’t work.”

I gave too much information away and it was very uncomfortable.

“ Why me?”

“I guess I don’t want to leave you to faith’s or your balance’s hands. I played a big gamble that could go in ways that I don’t like now. It is a slow process, boring a bit but I’m learning how to keep that light alive. I’m learning my own ways. I’m accepting that I’m different in this pool of other different people and that’s okay. I’m learning to live with what I have which is me.”

I guess people were getting bored cause the voices that came from downstairs were not as much as it used to be.

He got up and sat down.

“Can you manage?” I asked.

“Don’t know but why don’t give it another shot. And I have no intention of giving all these people a story they can talk over dinner. I have to talk to them, don’t I?” His head was pointing behind me.

“I guess so.”

“Will you stand here while I’m doing that?”

“No, I have a road to walk before sun sets which is about to happen.”

Before turning my back at him and walking away I said something.

“And don’t mess with my normal again. Cause if you do it again, I don’t know if I’ll feel like stopping and talking.”

I heard him laugh but didn’t look. I wanted this memory, his memory to end there.

.-.

Out of a sudden inspiration. a little dark and a little light