THE EIGHTH TIME
Chapter 4
Deathless
What exactly were you suppose to do in a situation like this? By situation like this I mean getting caught while you’re just about to jump off a cliff to off yourself, and being told to back flip.
On one hand the idea was good, and it would definitely be epic to at least back flip once in my life, on the other hand, what the heck is going on here?
Hi my name is Keegan Bundy and I should have taken into consideration the “people hanging around” factor before deciding death by bungee jumping without a bungee and by a rocky cliff that so does not apply to bungee jump.
My hand wrapped around the fence again and I turned around to face whoever had just stopped me from finally killing myself.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping, praying, that it would be the blond alien chick with inflatable boobies. I didn’t recognize the voice, but I still hadn’t heard her, and the voice was kind of hot so she definitely could fit.
Of course I wished it was her, I kind of had been fantasising about her all day long, but it wasn’t her.
Of course it wasn’t her.
Why would things be magically alright for once?
No, the person who had just stopped me from jumping was a girl, yes, but it wasn’t the girl. She was wearing a dark red hoodie, Texas A&M embroidered in white letters on the boobies—yes I stared there, sue me—the hood on her head, brown hair coming from both side of her face barely below her shoulders in length. I couldn’t really say if she was fat or skinny because of the hoodie, she didn’t look overly tall or short from where I stood, I couldn’t clearly see her face…
At this point all she was to me was the mean mean person who had just stopped me from killing myself and was the cause for yet another failed tentative.
“What do you want,” I grumbled.
Oh wow, so clever, that’s really all I can come up with? But then again it’s not like I said something completely random like “Crakatoes unicorns”. Okay, again, wow, what’s wrong with me?
“Nothing, I just can’t let you jump. I’m pretty positive that there’s a law that states that if you don’t help someone in a deadly situation it’s a felony, and I really don’t want to do jail time, I’m too pretty for prison and I always drop the soap… wait that only applies to men right?” She looked up to the sky, making a face, scratching the top of her hood. “What happens to women in prison?”
Woah. Okay, this girl is crazy. Well that’s nice that means I can still jump. Rejoice world, all is not lost!
“That’s lovely, now go back to your hospital room; normal people are trying to do their normal people thing here. Move along,” I waved, holding on tight to the railing with the hand that wasn’t whooshing her away.
“ ’Fraid I can’t do that,” she replied after making a clicking sound with the side of her cheek.
Oh for crying out loud!
“And why is that?”
Go away, go away, go away. Some people are trying to kill themselves here!
One thing was sure, if she told me suicide was against God’s commandment or whatever, I think I would throw her off the cliff with me. Like that was what you needed to hear to stop yourself from taking the jump. Like that would be the answer to everything: God, you know the one that you’ve never heard anything from, the one that doesn’t give a crap about you, Him? Ya well He doesn’t want you to kill yourself you see, because your crappy life, He thinks you need to endure that, because it’s his gift and blih blah blah blah blou blah blih blou.
Hi, my name is Keegan Bundy and I give depth to gibberish!
Anyway, point being, God talk was the last thing I needed at this moment.
The hood-wearing brat though, just shrug at me and answered, “this is much more interesting than anything that’s on TV at this time of the day.”
Ya, I wasn’t expecting that, at all.
“Can’t you satisfy your morbid fantasies elsewhere?” You crazy lady. I didn’t add that last part. Maybe I should have added that last part…
“ ’Fraid not. You stuck with me Bundy.”
Woah, what? “How do you know my name?”
That was beyond freaky right there.
“Kind of hard not to remember,” she shrugged and went on. “Ted Bundy, one of the most infamous serial killer in the US, I’ll spare you the details, according to my mother it’s never a right time to talk about necrophilia and putrefaction. I find serial killers’ mind fascinating…” she sight almost dreamingly. “Any chance you two are related?”
Again, woah. If I wasn’t about to kill myself and didn’t care about my life, I would be worried for it right now. Very, very worried.
For some reason though, I thought back to this morning, in the homeroom, to the person who had snorted my name. Could she be her?
Who cared?
“No I’m not. And if you don’t leave, I’m going to jump and you’ll get in trouble for not stopping me and what not.” That so wasn’t a good argument though, considering what this girl had just told me…
Why did this kind of stuff had to happen to me?
And she chuckled, actually chuckled. “Oh I’m not worried; you’re not going to jump.”
Hi, my name is Keegan Bundy and I am so very confused right now. Mommy, where’s my mommy?
“What makes you so sure,” I asked her, defensively, my jaws tightening. Who was she to just barge in here and say things like that She didn’t know me!
“Simple. You, my friend, don’t want to die.” She smiled. I could actually see her smile.
This was so the kind of girl you’d make an exception on the whole “you’re not suppose to punch a girl in the face” thing.
“Oh ya? What gave it away? The fact that I’m standing by a cliff and I was letting go of the only support I had before you rudely stopped me?” There, that ought to shut her up. Annoying brat.
“You wouldn’t have jumped,” she informed me, shaking her head.
Hi, my name is Keegan Bundy and I’m about to punch a girl in the face.
I glared at her. “I would have.”
“If you really wanted to be dead, really dead you wouldn’t be having this conversation with me, you would be a mangled pack of meat and bones at the bottom of that cliff,” she said, motioning behind me with her chin. Why did she keep sounding so darn proud about all of this? Were all girls like this?
“Lovely image, really. Did you skipped the playing with Barbie’s girly part of your childhood to be so odd right now,” I asked condescendingly.
“Well ain’t you like a bear with a sore head.” The way she said that, pinching my cheeks like an annoying aunt would have been fitting. “If I wasn’t right, you wouldn’t be blowing a fuse over this Bundy.”
Enough, this is enough. “Who the heck do you think you are,” I exploded. “You don’t even know me? Just go away and let me die! Go. AWAY. I just want to die, I’m seriously not lying here, just let me DIE!”
“You really believe that don’t you?” she shook her head and added, like she was only speaking to herself “Like George says, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”
Dear lord, what was wrong with her? I felt like pulling my hair off, honestly!
I yelled. “LEAVE!”
“Look, calm down for a sec, and just listen up. Okay?” She raised her hand, in a peace gesture I think, kind a like someone trying to approach a wild animal. I’ll give her wild animal. Stupid brat! Why couldn’t it have been the blond alien chick? “Just listen to what I have to say and if I’m wrong or if you still don’t give a crap then I’ll leave and you can back flip the crap outta that cliff, alright?”
She obviously wasn’t going to leave either way. “Fine” I grumbled.
She took a deep breathe before continuing. Maybe I should just jump right now…
“I know you don’t want to die because people that want to die have accepted death and you clearly haven’t since you don’t seem in peace with anything.” Her voice had gotten softer as she spoke. She had a nice voice, I could give her that much, but that was all I was giving her. “You’re mad about something, maybe about everything and you decided to take out that frustration on the one thing you have all power over; your life. But you don’t want to die, even if you don’t even know it yourself, you don’t want to die because deep down, you know that there’s something out there that will make you happy, and you want to find it.”
I snorted. I had sent hat one coming. The craziness could have fooled me though. “Is this when you tell me to give myself fully to the ways of God,” I asked mockingly.
She snorted too. Alright, odd. “No, that’s where I tell you that if you sit on your butt and feel sorry about yourself all day long you will never find that one thing that can make you happy.”
“Huh?”
“And I can help you with that.”
I blinked a few times. I wasn’t exactly expecting any of that. But she was probably just messing with me. She was probably just some crazy death loving kid that wanted to see someone die for real in front of her. She didn’t really want to help me. “Ya right. Funny, really.”
“It’s true. I can because I’m a third party completely unbiased about the whole thing. I don’t care if you live or die. I’m just trying to pay forward.”
Hi my name is Keegan Bundy and I think I just entered the twilight zone.
“So what you’re saying is that you want to help me find a reason to enjoy life?” I couldn’t help the incredibility to leek in my tone there. This kind of stuff didn’t happen. And even if it did, why would it now? Shouldn’t someone have stopped me sooner?
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she nodded.
I snorted again. “You sound ridiculous lady.” And I turned my head a bit to look down the cliff again, but it didn’t look… inviting like it had been.
“What’s to lose though? If I’m right, then you’ll find a reason to stay alive and you’ll be happy, and if I’m wrong then you can come right back to this cliff and jump.”
“I don’t know…” There must be some kind of trick there… like I do this but she’ll own my soul and come and collect it in ten years dragging me back with Hellhounds.
“What’s so wrong about living Bundy?”
“What’s wrong about living it’s that there’s no point to it!” And I began to rant. “I go to school to get a job. I work to make myself live until I can retire. When I finally can retire though I have a stroke. The hospital bill is atrocious so I don’t have any money anymore so I have to start working again and I end up as the old cart giver slash greeting man at Walmart. The only plus side in this is that I get to say like Jeff Dunham’s Walter “Welcome to Walmart, get your shit and get out.”
Woah, where had this all been bottling up?
“Well ain’t you the pessimist? There’s more to life Bundy, you just don’t want to see it because you’re stubborn. You like to pity yourself, you like to feel bad about yourself. That’s what you’re looking for. Pity.” She pointed at me sternly and her tone was more sharper than it had been “This is merely a cry for help. A show for attention. That’s the only thing you want. You want to prove to mommy and daddy that you had issues but they were too dumb to see it so now “AH! Look who’s laughing!” You’re just SO much better than them now aren’t you?”
“Look who’s getting worked up now.”
“Because you don’t see it.” She lifted her heads up in disbelief and let them fall back beside her. Well she was obviously taking this personal… “You have a life, a whole life in front of you. You can decide to do whatever you want with it. You are the master of your own destiny.” she said that last sentence in a whole omniscient voice. I could have laugh if this situation wasn’t so unlaughable. “I’m not asking much, just give it a try. Have you ever even tried to enjoy life, just once?”
I didn’t answer that; I just stayed silent looking at her. I realized I hadn’t actually looked at her properly… and she was kind of far and I had crappy eyesight so it was hard to do so. But she seemed to have soft features, that much was obvious…
Hi, my name is Keegan Bundy and I’m so diverting from the subject at hand.
Maybe she was right about that point. I wasn’t exactly trying.
“That’s what I thought,” she said and she was smiling, just a little but there. “Just let me help you. Let me help you and if I’m wrong, if your life really is worth being ended, then I won’t stop you.”
“So basically, what? You play life realtor and try to sell me your crappy life plans and if I still think it’s bull, I can just come right back here?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
To this date, I’m still not sure why I answered this.
“Deal.”