I did it just like they told me to: I jumped. Well, that was stupid. I jumped, I hit the ground and never got up again. But, then again, they don't care. They never even looked to see me land. A piece of advice, kids: don't jump. I don't care why you're thinking about it, where you are, or what you think they'll give you for it, you're gonna lose something. For me, I lost everything, but then again, that doesn't matter.
I jumped. Where was I going? I have no idea. Seemed like the thing to do at the time. My friends told me to jump and I did. What was it that my mom always said to me...(thinking, thiking...."Don't do whaqt your firends always tell you to do...") Oh yeah, that's right. Well, I didn't listen. I did exaclty what my momther always told me not to do. I did what everyone else was doing. So, as I fell, fell, fell...kept falling (where was I going?) I knew this was a bad idea. I loked down, and goll darnit I...
i jumped. it was the toaster this time. nerves of steel. i hand the waffle to my daughter. "dad (looking me over)--you are really bad at fashion." that's the tip of the iceberg.
people are circles. the outside circle is our behavior. the next circle is our thoughts. inside that, our feelings. at the center there is supposed to be something else, something more lasting and substantial. a light, our soul, awareness, something. and that's what we really are.
but what if this center goes unused or unnoticed for so long that it disappears. or the outer circles take on...
I felt I had nothing to lose. Nothing to gain either.
"Mom, I don't feel like going to school today!" I yelled at six o'clock this morning, while she yelled at me from downstairs.
For the past 3 years of high school, I never fitted in. I just had one friend. Her name was Jasmyne. But she never fitted in, like me. So we struggled our way through high school, and all we had was each other.
But today, I just could not take it anymore. I looked forward to graduation in a few months, but everyday I had to...
I jumped.
In a few years time I would be able to pin down the thought processes that had led to possibly the most insane decision of my life, but right now all I felt was the surge of adrenaline as I took that leap of faith and laced my fingers with those of the man next to me. The almost stranger, the man who'd watched me across the room for the past month. We'd barely even spoken until two days before yet here I was, my hot sweaty hand in his, leaping into the unknown.
I couldn't help it,...
I jumped. I blacked out. When I awoke, head ringing and eyes spotted with colours, he turned round slowly.
"You ever heard of an Ox Bow Lake?"
"nuhuh" I said. Mind you, the gag would have rendered the same result as a Shakespeare soliloquy.
"sahwiwochee" Hell, it was different. Maybe if you were a dentist, this conversation would be less one sided. I eyed the man who had broken in to the lab, wondering if he'd had orthodontist training. He knew his way round a physics lab alright, but fiddling with the quantum accelerator probably wasn't the best idea. That...
I jumped.
Then I found mysef flying.
Yellow street lamps weaved below me.
They said that yellow represented caalm and the ability to fly signified that I was rising above my problems.
But what do they know?
Their 'experience' came from reading books. Mine came from real life, from living with the monsters in my head. Dark, shapeless freaks clawing at the psyche, dripping poison into every cell and stem, clawing relentlessly at my skull.
I tried to cut them out, I tried to drink them t sleep but they wouldn't stay quiet for long.
Therapy! What a joke. Seeing...
I jumped off of a building once, and landed on the next one. I had to. The building was crumbling from the foundation up because one tiny sliver found its way across the massive concrete block and decided it was hungry. So it expanded and soon enough, the building was shifting, leaning on the right and then switching, crumbling more and leaning on the left.
It was a leaning tower and I had to jump from the sinking building if I wanted to live peacefully. Not all of jumped, though. Some wanted to stay, saying it was their home because...
I jumped. And immediately regretted it.
The fear stripped me of all the other emotion that had been clouding my judgement. My wife, my children. Their faces all flew through my mind like the frames of a length of film.
"What have I done" I wondered as the air flicked my hair about. Pulling at my clothes as if it wanted to help me and stop my rapidly accelerating decent.
Then there was just disappointment. No sadness, no fear, no anger. Just disappointment. I had always sat on my high horse whenever I heard a story of one committing a...
I jumped.
I know it was dumb but at the time I didn't really think I had any other choice. Besides, it's not like I really thought about it. I just did it. Just took that leap. Stepped off the edge without looking down first. He was coming after me and my instinct took over and I am now lying in the bed that I made.
Of course I had the choice of socking that guy at the bar, the one who chased me, the one weighing about 300 pounds and all of that muscle. Of course I could have...