Warning: This work has been rated 16+.
I open the car door and step out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Why is breathing so hard?
I look at my watch. 5:49. These are my last moments, and I can't say I want to savor them. Oh well. Guess I'll never know any existence besides a miserable one. It doesn't even matter. Nothing matters anymore.
I look down at my feet. I haven't moved at all. Slowly, I take a step. My legs feel like they weigh a ton each; walking has never been more difficult.
I see it now. The bridge is in front of me. Each heavy step brings me closer. My heart is racing. My mouth goes dry.
"Excuse me," says a voice behind me.
I turn around. A mother with her children, smiling, holding a camera out to me, asking if I would mind taking a picture of them.
I hear myself say, "Yes," as I take the camera. I wait for them to position themselves and plaster fake smiles on their faces before counting, "One, two, three."
I hand the camera back with a weak smile. She thanks me and turns around to show the picture to her kids. The irony of it all is sickening. Families here enjoying their time and marveling at the beauty. And why am I here?
To die.
I can't even apologize to anyone now, because there's no one at all who makes me regret this decision. Not one individual in this godforsaken world has cared enough to make me think twice. The fact of the matter is there never will be, because people never change. Humanity is always fundamentally the same.
All that's left to do now is climb over the railing. And I've never been so ready for anything in my life.
So I do.
I hear horrified gasps coming from the people near me on the bridge. One person yells out that there's so much to live for, that this is all a mistake. I laugh out loud. If only they understood what hell I live in. If only someone had even tried to understand, maybe I wouldn't be here.
The memories of all the reasons why flood into my head.
I feel my jaw tense as I remember the look on his face: twisted, animalistic, disgustingly satisfied. My stomach churns as I recall him castigating what he called stubbornness. It repulses me even more now than it did then.
I lean back against the rail, taking a deep breath. My exhalation is visible in the icy air. In this tranquility, this revoltingly backwards peace, I let my eyelids drift closed and enjoy these final moments of life.
"I'm done," I whisper into the empty space that envelops me.
Stop and wait. Think for a moment.
The words are nearly audible, and I know why. I've been told this more times the I care to count. By someone who loved me.
She's dead now. But she loved me.
Dead. Like everything inside of me.
How she would cry and wail and shout and plead and pray. She would hate it if she saw me here, making this choice.
But no matter what choice I make, I'll have made the wrong one. There will always be someone who wonders, someone who pines over what may have happened if I'd chosen differently. It might even be me.
I have to do this.
I am a second away from taking the step to embrace my death. And I am so terribly afraid now. Not of dying, not of the unknown; that doesn't scare me. All at once I'm terrified because I am considering staying alive.
Be brave.
I want to scream now. I want to tell her how angry I am and how much I wanted life to turn out differently and how hard I tried to be brave. But it's all dust now. Trying means nothing if you give up in the end.
And I gave up.
But what is braver? To face death without fear and still smile? Or to look to my life and still smile? For the first time, I'm doubting my own decision and equally dissatisfied with both options.
I'm suddenly acutely of all of the noise around me. I'd almost forgotten that there was a world beyond my mind.
I open my eyes and turn my head. In small, graffitied black letters, I read:
The world has truly gone to hell
Go down with it. Might as well.
I read the words over and over and over again, until I've lost count. Fourteen words, fifteen syllables, forty-nine letters that make my choice for me. One foolish act of indiscretion, a stranger's desire to graffiti a beautiful bridge, has decided my fate.
I don't want to die but I can't want to live.
So what do I choose?
6:02.
I choose bravery.
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138,256 Literary Works • 672,091 Reviews
Hello there!
As others have mentioned, your pacing is admirable. I love the way you spaced the words out--it leaves breathing room while still keeping us moving.
However, I'm going to disagree with Elinor about both the ending and the vagueness. At least in my mind, the point of this piece is not your character's back story or why s/he is on the bridge--the point is the moment of choice and the emotions leading up to it. In my opinion, the generality is very much your friend here, because in a way the struggle s/he faces is a choice everyone has to make--how to face the void and the challenges of life.
Because of this vagueness, though, you're going to need to be more specific elsewhere or it won't be interesting. For me, the middle of this piece tended towards boring and melodramatic--the part where s/he gets out of the car was overly drawn out, or maybe even unnecessary since it's unrelated to the jump. My advice is to find specifics in the moment--this is flash fiction, and I think you would benefit by portraying the snapshot of the moment as accurately as possible.
For example, I would have liked more vivid references to the scene. What is below the bridge? Are there people there? What is the weather like? Can s/he smell/hear the water/cars below? I'm talking about before s/he steps over the rail here--I really like how all references to the outside world cease the second they're about to jump, because then they really are isolated and it's just their decision. However, it almost seems like before that it should be more vivid even than usual, the same way adrenaline fixes memories of car crashes, etc. On the other hand, the numbness someone else mentioned could be affecting his/her perceptions as well, as long as it's obvious that's what's happening--are colors muted? What is it like to see other people being happy in contrast to what the character has planned? I really like the camera family for this.
I didn't read the ending as a choice to jump, though I could be wrong. I like the vagueness here too--it makes us question what the "brave" choice really is. While I am by no means condoning suicide, the best quality a short story can have (again, in my opinion) is to linger--with this little space, a plot arc of "I want to commit suicide, now I don't" is very hard to carry off realistically with so little time to work with--dramatic character shifts a la Dickens don't usually work that well. Leaving the ambiguity here avoids that problem, and also causes us to question our beliefs, a tactic I think works well here.
This is the first review I've written in ages, so it might be rambly and unhelpful--for that I apologize. I guess the Tl;dr is more vivid descriptions, cut some of the beginning or make it more numb and less whiny, keep the ending.
Good luck! I really enjoyed reading this and look forward to seeing what else you write. Let me know if you ever need a review or have questions!
Cheers,
Lupis
A really interesting and moving piece. The short sentences grabbed me and didn't seem overused despite the amount of them. The topic was dealt with tastefully and there was just the right amount of drama created by it.
This short story is really captivating. It's an attention grabber. I wasn't bored while reading this whatsoever because I love your writing style. I hate reading a writer's work that isn't interesting and just seems to "flowy" and doesn't make any sense, but your work is nothing like that! I read this multiple times because I really did enjoy it and I enjoyed how you wrote this. However, I am a bit confused on some parts. There are some things in the story that almost came off as poetry to me instead of a short story. It didn't really have a 'story' feel to it, it has more of that poem feel to me personally. However I did enjoy it and I would love to see you write poetry.
Hi there! I really enjoyed reading this piece. You had a style of writing that really suited it, and I could really see that a lot of thought had gone into it. Your grammar and spelling was fantastic, and I only found one thing to really quibble over:
This isn't exactly wrong, but it does feel a bit repetitious, and not in a good way. Personally, it felt a bit immature compared to the lovely wording of the rest of the piece, and even though it conveys the intention well enough, it just didn't quite sit right with me. All the stylistic features in here work fantastically (to the point where I want to go all Lit student and analyse them for their effect on the reader and hidden meanings - don't mind me) but this didn't quite have an ideal effect on me.
Your vocab was very sophisticated, and for the most part worked really well. There were just a couple of paragraphs where your use of words felt a bit too forceful and inconsistent with other paragraphs.
I liked the ambiguity throughout, especially at the end. It didn't feel too obscure, but you did leave things up to the reader's imagination, which I liked. I had just enough to stay interested (which can sometimes be a problem when people try to write in a vague way, but not here). In some ways, with the mention of:
it felt as though you were being very specific, and I wanted to learn more about who 'he' was. The reference to the woman worked beautifully, but the above felt as though it was talking about a certain event that had happened to the character to lead her (or him, I guess. In my mind it was a her, but I don't think you actually specified. As I said, love the ambiguity!) to this point.
Excellent job, and a creative take on the topic! Well done.
Hi,
Well this is definitely an interesting premise, and you have a unique and snappy style that kept me reading until the end. In a short space of time you were able to emotionally invest us in the character and the situation she was in, and this is no small task. There are a lot of stories about suicide out there, but you were definitely able to write it in a way that seemed fresh and original.
I'm not sure how I feel about the vagueness of all of this, though. In a way, I like it- it makes it more universal to anyone who's ever felt this way. But I'm a sucker for strong characters, and I want to know more about her. What went wrong in her life, what caused her to be so cynical and hopeless. In addition, the tone of her narration felt slightly unrealistic. I've never been on the brink of suicide before, but she was awfully critical of the family for no apparent reason. Maybe they trigger a painful memory - ie, she once had a happy family life, but that's now gone - and she's jealous, bitter. I don't think she would be so reflective, either, more numb. Maybe memories that were the straw that broke the camels back start replaying in her head, but she realizes that actually ending her life is going to be a lot harder than she though.
I really, really dislike the ending. It completely negates any arc her character (and thus the story) might have had, as well as any potential messages or themes. I have strong feelings about this subject, so I'm going to try to not go on to much of a rant here. Often, suicidal people believe that things are a lot harder then they are. There are people who love them and care for them and they do have things to live for. They kill themselves because they don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've known people that have killed themselves, no one I've been extremely close to, but in each case I saw the reactions of their close family and friends. So much anguish. So much heartache. By choosing to kill herself, your character learns nothing. A much more poignant and beautiful story would end in her realizing to keep on living for all that her future will bring. Ending your life prematurely is not brave in any way; it's selfish and cowardly.
Otherwise you did a good job with this, and I look forward to a revision. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!
Thank you for taking the time to review my story! The vagueness of the story is intentional. In writing this, my hope was that readers would fill in the blanks however they wished. I am intrigued by your interpretation that this protagonist did go through with suicide; it's not explicitly stated. In fact, my imagination suggests that the character did NOT go through with it, but as I said, I left it up to individual interpretation. Regardless, I really appreciate your review! Thank you!