The jump. by Vanda Q (easy novels to read txt) 📕

“What do you mean?” I gasp, words trembling against my clenched teeth while I feel my gaze roaming around, looking for an escape – I feel suffocated, as if my whole body is fighting against the urge to hold her and whisper to her that’s not true.

“You should be concerned… About me. And how the love Emily harbours deep within her heart for you will decay, like a flower that withers. She will not hate you, but she will hate herself, for letting her heart drink in the sights of the realm you walked through. And I will be there, making everyone that cares about you miserable, wondering what love truly is or if it exists. Making impossible for them to forget you, making impossible for them to forget the pain… Because, after all, I am pain. I am the crazy feeling that wakes you up during the night and makes you feel useless. What did you think? You will jump and forget about everything and the love will simply fade away? No…” She is now crying, her sobs moving her whole body, fragile like a poppy flower in the wind, threatened to have her petals flying away from her. “I will be there forever. Because you can never really understand or let go love. Because I am the journey that creates who you are… And when that journey ends and you can’t see the pot of gold and the end of the rainbow, I will still be there, mutilated; distorted in an ugly painting. I am pain…”

As if nothing happened, her tears disappear and she straightens her back, while her purple irises stare deeply into my mind. Her smile is now again serene, as if at the flip of a coin her entire demeanour could change; and maybe that is what happened and… She is not only Love. And maybe Love has two sides, just like a coin; one is called ‘bliss’ while the other one bears the name of ‘pain’. The cigarette I was holding between my fingers is now rolling on the cement and I feel my whole body floating above an immense nothingness beneath me. Her fingers gently rest on my check and her warmth forces my lungs to take in a deep breath, hold it as a prisoner to their merciless need and…

“Look out for me, Cassian.” I feel the urge to blink and when my eyes open again, all I can feel is the desire to have kissed her… But now she is gone, her perfume still lingering in the air around me, while the light is dimming more and more and the moon can now be seen on the sky. I let out an ugly sob, revelling in my pain and thinking about the lost bliss. And when I look down, on the cement that now seems to move with me, in a spiral, there is the cigarette she gifted me. I let my body slide across the ledge and I let out a pained murmur, my lips adamant to say ‘no’ again and again, while I hold the cigarette close to my chest…

x x x

We are always told love is simple and unexpected, that love is happiness and can be our only hope in the darkest moment. The Love I know, though, is a beautiful lady with a war contents in her soul, her two sides battling against each other, never finding peace or harmony. The Love I know has a smile that makes you want to kiss her and a gaze that holds secrets she is afraid of. She is just a lost girl, who is not lost enough to not be found, but not sure enough to be certainly there. I’ve realised people have their own definition of love, because we always try to define things around us, to seem less confused or to put some order in our lives. But Love is the opposite of sense and order, she is confusing and love is a puzzle that shouldn’t be solved, that should always remain a mystery to us, something we can only grasp intuitively, but never hold in our hands, viciously saying we found its recipe and genetical making. The next morning, I woke up full of questions, puzzled, in my bed – not knowing exactly when I finished ‘Fight club’, the book that has been sitting on my desk with a book sign nested half way through it. I didn’t remember when I took out my old posters and put them all over my walls or printed out all the pictures of me and Emily. I scrolled through the notifications while still in my bed, in a haze and I stumbled across a message from Emily; she was asking to meet for a coffee. So, I did. But this time, I did not resent her for how well she used words to tell me we need a break and I did not wonder if she forgot to put ‘up’ after the word ‘break’. I enjoyed simply being in her presence, knowing that we had no destination and no goal and we just had to enjoy the journey.

When I was young, in college, my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. He never smoked a cigarette in his life and he was a young man, full of energy; a hardworking man, with a heart of gold and charisma of JFK. He died a few months later, not even the most skilled doctors in the world being able to cure him of the disease that mercilessly took him away from his loving family. As I sat near his grave the day after I saw Emily, I talked to him about my encounters with Time and Love. I jokingly asked him if I was going crazy and I expected to hear his voice telling me that I was completely nuts; but I didn’t. I remember that after my dad died I picked up smoking; perhaps as a gesture to show death was wrong and that I should have been the one taken away from the world and thrown into the abyss of nothingness, not him. And that was, perhaps, silly and childish, but at the time, I felt my entire world crumbling around me and the narrator of the earliest stories in my memory was fading away, his name engraved on a tomb stone. I felt powerless against a universe that didn’t care about me. I’ve been told that death is cruel, that it will take away from you the most precious people in life, that it revels in the tragedy it creates.

The problem with ambition is that, most of the times, it is uncertain; the problem with effort is that, most of the times, it is gruelling. And I don’t know how much my soul can dig up for the fountains of ambition only to be left to die of dehydration or how much my mind can withstand the sight of my effort being beaten up by a gang and robbed by tiredness and fear. I decided this is my last shot; that if I truly want to get away from everything, this was indeed the last time I could have the chance to do it. So, I woke up one morning, at 5AM, the sun fighting against the shadows of the night to take its deserved place as the king of the day. I thought that if my body is going to crush against the asphalt beneath me, I should at least have as a spectator to my show the guy that just got his coffee and donuts from the bakery across the street; at least, if I die, to make someone’s day eventful.

The city of London in the morning is outstanding; peacefully quiet and as if it is stuck in time, as if everything that is living is in a state of hibernation. Birds are singing their cheerful ballads and the light slowly seeps now through the darkness, rising victoriously above the horizon line after a gruelling battle. I feel my feet dangling freely, the sensation of nothingness beneath them pushing adrenaline through my body with the force of a tsunami. And as I am sitting in the light of a new dawn, I start to wonder exactly… Why do I want to die? I know Time and Love won’t be here to anger me or delight me; I know Time doesn’t care and Love is too troubled to do anything. I close my eyes and listen to the distant sounds of the city, thinking this is the last breath I will probably enjoy before the eternal slumber. But my mind is then painfully alert when my body is pushed towards the nothingness and my hands grab onto the ledge, while my muscles fight to keep my balance and skull intact. From behind me, I hear a chuckle, amused, delighted and as I turn around, I feel anger encompassing me.

“Are you fucking crazy?” I scream and all the tension almost melts away as I’m met with a pair of blue eyes. A boy stands behind me, holding in his hand the cane he nudged me with. He seems around 5 years old and his big eyes stare at me in awe as I climb down from the ledge and tower over him. Then his admirative expression is slowly morphed into a picture of amusement; and he laughs… And that laugh makes me want to embrace him.

“I thought you wanted to do it. I was just trying to help.” His voice holds in its inflections something from the innocence of a 5-year-old, but the maturity of a man in his 50’s. I stare at him, almost baffled and I start to wonder who he is. Innocence? Hate? He sighs and when he does it, something from his expression makes me feel like I know nothing; like I have so much to learn. “Don’t be stupid now,” he chirps towards me and then theatrically takes a bow in front of me; when I can see his face again, he wears a smile that might as well hold all the secrets of the universe in its curvature. “I’m Death. Pleased to finally meet you. And, by the way, that’s a bad word you just used there.” He shakes his head, as if scolding me. I look incredulously at him, for the first time realising I may know nothing about Death. He makes a turn and throws a glance over his shoulder, signalling for me to follow him. “Come on, we’re having a tea party.” His cane rhythmically bounces against the cement as he walks away, with me on his tail, following him religiously.

“You are… Death?” I ask, barely audible, as if scared he will scold me again for not knowing him already. He only hums and I can see from behind he nods gently, nonchalantly walking around the roof top. He stops, abruptly and taps his cane twice on the roof top and in an instant a table and two chairs appear affront him. He walks confidently towards them and climbs in one of his chairs, his gaze now piercing though my mind as I join him. I almost want to ask him how can he be… Death; but I don’t and he laughs quietly, his laugh making me think about the burden put on his shoulders; along the history, he was the only content, taking away the lives of so many people…

“My dad… Did you see my dad?” I say is a husky voice, emotion gripping my soul and holding it in its hurtful embrace.

“Your dad is fine,” he replies with his natural easiness, as if talking about the latest developments in politics or how he took his dog to the