Short stories

The art of letting go

Blindness surrounds the body. Dark, oily water terrorises every last thought. Suffering and secrets on the brink of exposure with each crash that vibrates through my skull. Numb, frail. Harsh whips of hushed torture hit the blackened rocks with impaling brutality, whilst innocent droplets fall on the water, instantly being taken into unimaginable horrors. Rueful, cowardly. Clumps of tormented debris swirl, unintelligible, around her peaceful body. Moonlight glints sharply off her sodden corpse, reflecting onto the thrashing waves, the serrated edges of the rocks.

Dismally pathetic as she lies on the bed of writhing, snakelike torrents of the sea. Her eyes ravenous in death, tawny hair a mess around her broken, battered shoulders. Her chest still. Quiet. The carcass shrouded in unknown darkness... undiscoverable darkness.

Her mouth poises uselessly open, seemingly to gasp for air that's blackened by the tragedy, poisonous to breathe. Indecisive sea surf's shove her body to and fro, spray spilling over into her mouth. Her tongue lulls, lifeless – like the rest of her. Blood stains her forehead, gently and silently crawling into the salted sea, only to billow out and blemish the once pure water. Fingers splay out in a deathly glaze. Yearning... She floats.

The abandoned, shattered boat, lonely in the wallowing atmosphere, rolls over the stabbing ripples, smashing against the agitated rocks... the sea booms as it swallows everything in its path. A few small, glinting lights shine in the background, the mountain line seeming further and further away. Raw and uncut, uncensored. The horizon a blunt edge against the savagery below me, spiralling colours re-painting the sky as morning strikes the deadline.

Blinking golden eyes stare at me from the sky, slowly shying away from the scene

as the light grows ever brighter. I watch her face carefully, speckled with blood. The mountainside just a meter away, littered with the remains of her previous life, resonates in my mind. Old photos glare at me, taunting me, smiles carved into the faces of the people on the card. Keys jangle eerily in the soft breeze. Letters flutter, the odd word floating from the paper to my mind... Her clothes walk to the edge, her final moments showing themselves to me.

***

Water gently laps at my body, coldness spreads through me. A white light abuses everything. The mountain edge towers above me: seemingly never ending, small birds, flutter their wings against the wind, pass over me, gliding almost effortlessly. I don't notice the boy at first; he's just some sort of shadowed puppet in the brightness of the world, watching intently. I curl my lips back over my sharp, needle white teeth in a menacing smile. He doesn't move an inch, his muscles constricted in place, his chest the only thing moving as he sucks in breath after breath of oxygen. My chest isn't moving.

My neck screams out in pain to me. A red stained rock attacks with agonising ferocity; my head falls back without any cares, dunking my head slightly under the black murk. Small, comical bubbles escape my mouth and reach up towards the top, disappearing. My eyebrows furrow together in amazement; confusion takes over my now careless brain.

My mouth is pushed open by the water: instead of fresh air floating into my lungs, water rushes down my throat. I don't even notice; the cold liquid becomes my oxygen, constantly flowing in and out of my mouth, down my windpipe, hitting the sponges in my lungs. Yearning floods my body for more. My slow heart thuds almost non-existantly deep inside my chest.

The boy is still standing, staring. I stare back. His arms are curled around him like a safety blanket; back slightly hunched over, mouth a small grimace. A perfect, crystal tear forms in the corner of his eye and glints in the pale light as it rolls down his cheek. The wind tugs at his t-shirt and scrapes his bare arms. Pieces of paper and card fill the air around him now and then.

As water floods my body, taunting memories take over my now empty head.

***

The buzz of people take over my position. They arrived slowly after my beaconing, screaming phone calls reached through to them. They push closer and closer to see the girl that silently drifts consumed by her own sadness: no one seems that shocked.

I watch silently, beady eyed, as hair flaps worthlessly in the harnessing wind, as the overtaking crashes of the sea lap up the mountain side, as her body bangs and hits every edge around her. Whispers accompany the wind now.

The winter sun rise gently starts to highlight the sky, pale blues mixing with vibrant orange and blood red. Dark, spindly trees outline the horizon like spiders. Her body, growing ever paler, is illuminated by the different colours, making her death seem like art, but it's a tragedy that will tear and tug at many people's hearts.

The beauty of her final breath: the beauty of her letting go... The art of letting go.