One Fifteen

The time is one fifteen, and there is a man standing on the rim of Milleu Bridge, waiting for the courage to jump. If you looked any closer, you would see that his pale lips are trembling, that his bloated eyes hold fear. Why, he wonders, am I afraid? He had seen so many good people die. His own life should have been easy to be rid of.

He closes his eyes, starting the ultimate countdown.

Ten, nine, eight…

At that exact moment, a thirty-five year old man is fleeing from a manic shark, its bloodthirsty form lurking nearby. The man’s body is doing all it can, his arms and legs pushing to exhaustion. His heart is a drumstick; beating the giant drum so fast, so very loudly. For once, his metaphysical self is helpless. His knowledge, his opinions, his memories… they are useless: a dead end, a path to oblivion.

“It’s alright, Spence,” he splutters, hoping that the sound of his own voice will bring some sort of inner calm. “Your angels are looking out for you.”

At the same time, in the midst of South Africa, a woman is giving birth to her second child. It is a difficult birth, and she is losing a lot of blood. Weakness is overwhelming her, smothering the last of her strength like a damp cloth over a suffocating mouth. She sighs, her head lolling. For a second, she feels blissfully detached.

“Nadia, the baby’s almost here!” her husband cries, gripping her hand tightly. “Don’t go anywhere…”

She sighs once more, not sure where to find the strength to carry on.

At that moment, a British student is finishing her first novel. It has taken her so long, and now she is finally there. On page three hundred and two. But frustration is rattling her tense form, for she cannot for the life of her get the last paragraph right. She stares at the screen, her tired eyes taking in the collection of words that she knows off by heart. What an awful way to end, she thinks. This paragraph is hardly worth all the months of sleepless nights I lived through.

She scrolls up to the penultimate page, studying it carefully. It is as she reads it through that a flash of inspiration strikes her. She grabs for her thesaurus, once again attempting the perfect ending.

***

The time is one fifteen, the seconds running out of that miniscule spectrum of time. One sixteen is near.

For some, one sixteen is but a beginning: a new career, a new life.

For others, well. For those unfortunate souls, one sixteen will never come.