The Balcony.

Dream · Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:41 pm

This is a short story i just made, of course, criticism is appreciated:

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You want to know, doctor, why i did it? What was it like? You want to help others like me? Or you want to understand the reasons within my actions so your scientific desire is satisfied and feel that the world is a bit more sane, now that you get more how it works? But why am I asking all this? I frankly can’t give much of a damn, prostrated in this bed with plastics coming in and out of me, giving me health, giving me relief, giving me life.

All right, doctor so I’ll tell you, just because it gets boring in here after a while:

That night, I was torn with grief; I argued with and separated from someone meaningless that at the time meant everything to me. I went to a hotel called I don’t care what, five stars place, I got a room in the seventh floor, the receptionist noticed the deep sadness in my eyes and corresponded with a glimmering mix of pity and compassion on hers, I could just stare at her numbed by my pain, and in my room, I drank, i drank like nothing mattered, and I smoked too, the cigarettes which I finished I threw them through the balcony of my room, while I listened to classical music and dancing maniacally, if you would have seen it doctor, I’m sure even you would have been unnerved.

Having consumed 6 bottles of vodka and thrown 9 packages worth of cigarettes out of the balcony, I realized all that had shut down my rational mind, and now I really saw my life.

Nothing, basically.

So I decide what I should have decided long ago, take this unbearable nothingness and squash it against the floor.
So I get up to the balcony and get one drunk leg above it, it’s not easy controlling your life drunk, in the dizziness I raise my eyes and look at the full moon of that night, reflecting itself in my sight. I don’t know why, but that brings a tear down my cheek. Then I gaze down at the street and the people walking through their lives, I recognized some of them, yet no one even noticed I was about to jump. I get my other leg above the balcony. It’s hard to keep balance, and on top of that the vodka is raining hellfire on my throat and my eyes are weeping with tears. Some people turn around, some point, some scream, moments later everyone is watching, some look even more scared when they recognize me.
I watch all this around me and yes, I am half-crying and with a possibly lethal level of alcohol in my blood, but that is outside, inside, I am happier than i have ever been in my life. Inside, I tell myself I’m directing a play and this hotel, that street and this balcony is a theater. All this, all these events and emotions, I’m at the head of it, from this balcony.
The crowd and unsuspecting actors do a variety of things, some talk to their cellphones, others scream at me not to jump, others scream at me to just wait a moment, others ask me what I’m doing, I think I faintly hear a vagabond telling me to jump, I’m not too sure, but it sounds like the vagabond just after saying that is discussing with someone, a secretary screams at me to please don’t do it while crying rivers down his cheeks.

Oh, thank you God, this is so wonderful.

These people, all of them, they were leaving their lives to watch this, to really watch it, this small twelve-minutes theater had swallowed them complete, it robbed them from their existences, nor their jobs nor their houses nor their cars mattered now, I matter now, I am everything they care about in this theater, and similar to a director that observes the audience, I observed terror or curiosity or interest in their faces. Inside myself, I smiled. My life was broken, but here in this balcony-theater, I had all life before me, the symbol of life and death, the greatest leading role of all drama. My actions brought the imbalance unique of the thin door that separated both. And many people beg me through screams and crying not to do it, but I’m still here, drunk, in rather poor balance above a balcony in the seventh floor.

Mothers close their children’s eyes, I wait for all of them to do it or take their children away, sirens ringing, police is coming. Then I see the most important face in the world, the only one that mattered to me, the one I care for says “sorry” the one I love says “you must have misunderstood” the one I need says “if you get down we will clear this up, please don’t end it all for a silliness like that” the one that was everything to me a few hours ago says “don’t do this to the people that love you” my love says “and neither to me”
Policemen get off their patrols; the psychologist is already calling my name through the megaphone. Time to go, thirteen minutes is a good time, but all plays have to end, and the door to beyond life doesn’t last long, so I give this the only horrible final it can have.
I look at my beloved in the face, making sure I have complete attention, I give my most sincere smile, from what little part of myself is still glimmering between all the grief, I remember for a glimpse the receptionist, maybe that’s where the glimmer is. I say “good luck, be happy, goodbye”.

And I jumped, and I think you know the epilogue doctor. I bet you want to ask me if I feel it was worth it or if it was completely stupid of me, even if it doesn’t appear by your face, I know you want to ask me. I’ll answer it this way, if I could do it again, I wouldn’t do it again. But that’s only because I already did it.

And because when I hit the pavement, counting each floor with a capital sin, my eyes ended up directed at my love’s face, and I saw that even outside the theater, I still caused suffering and pain in someone I loved, and even outside the theater, to someone I mattered…

The Balcony.

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