A boy
stalked through the streets, his attention set firmly on the ground in front of
him. His view did not waver,
neither left nor right. It was
over. Everything he knew was wrong.
Freedom. Freedom.
The thoughts, wishes, hopes and dreams had failed him.
His motto had always been, “If you want something done, you’ve got to
do it yourself.” So now he was
talking matters into his own hands. He
was headed to the sea, where his freedom lay.
Beneath the frothy, filthy water, his final freedom lay.
It was merely a step away.
He charged on,
appearing almost instantly at the dock, where our poor Chapter slept.
He did not notice her frail, hunched-over figure.
He noticed nothing. Not the
pale moonlight reflecting softly off the slowly rolling tide, not the quiet
breeze that whistled lowly through his hair.
None of it, nothing, mattered to him anymore.
He shoved two or three
crates out of the way. They hit the
ground with a loud bang, waking Chapter with a start.
She sat stalk-still in the position she was in, watching him carefully.
Retrieving a length of coarse rope from under the crates, he formed a
crude noose-like knot in it. This
sent terrible thoughts to Chapter’s head and she hid behind the fallen crates
to remain unseen. Then he took the
other end and tied it to a post on the dock.
His eyes were ablaze with inner fire, inner hatred.
Loosening the knot,
the boy fit his head through it. The
picture was finally coming to Chapter. She
gasped outwardly, but the boy was too involved with what he was doing.
He neared the edge of the dock and stopped.
So this was the end. So this
was what it felt like to almost die. He
took his stance, a graceful diving position, and thought of the family he had
once known. They had left him to
die in the beautiful house he had lived in as they went along with their lives,
not even noticing him. The memories
burned a deeper hole in his heart and he was ready.
He was finally ready.
A piercing scream
filled the air around him and broke his concentration.
Soon, all he knew was that he was lying flat on his back, the wind
partially knocked out of him. The rope had been untied from around his neck almost
instantly by a girl, who must have fallen from the sky.
She was now sitting on top of him, keeping him from freedom.
He looked at her with
a malicious glare.
“What the hell…”
He words were lost by the terrified look in her eyes.
She was shaking, almost as much as he was.
They remained silent, letting the sound of their heavy breathing echo
throughout the night. He stared
into her eyes, his own mixed with loss and confusion.
Had this angel really just fallen onto him, squandering his dream of
freedom under her? Lifting his hand
slowly, he touched her face, her skin flushed, yet pale at the same time. Words were lost within him.
“Are you an
angel?” he asked, still dazed. The
look in her eyes wavered from compassion to terror to pity and then back again.
What had she just done?
“No.”
Her words were short and sweet, and still the sound remained in his ears.
There was something about this girl…something so different. He had never felt the way his heart felt just then in his
entire life. “What were you
thinking?” she whispered. He was
forced to return to reality.
“I have nothing to
live for.” He said, lowering his head. “I
want to be free.”
“That’s not
freedom.” She was still shaking.
He placed his hands on her shoulders and moved her to the ground.
Then he slowly sat up.
“It would be for
me.”
“No…” she said,
shaking her head. “Death is not
freedom. Death is the end,
finality…” She had wanted to
end it for herself for so many times. She
had yearned for finality once, not just freedom.