Anki’s Path

by Katherine Chan

‘… I don’t know why I’m writing this letter, when I know that no-one cares about me, when I know that no-one loves me. Who’ll care enough to actually find me in time? Only those who don’t want to have a death to tar their image, who don’t want anything to hurt their careers…’

Have to find her, where could she have gone? No-one’s seen her leave the school grounds, no-one’s seen her since the session before lunch, and I just found the note sticking out of her locker when I went to get my lunch.

Sure, you don’t usually pull out the notes that are stuck in someone’s locker because they’re meant for the owner of the locker, but the bit that was sticking out, read ‘To My Friends. If There Are Any’, and the handwriting was hers… Immediately, alarm bells starting ringing in my head, and I wrenched the note out from the little slit.

Running now, sprinting, the teachers yelling at me to stop, but I do not pause, must not, cannot tarry, I cannot let her die. Who cares if I get a detention later if I let her kill herself?

Run through the possible ways she could kill herself inside the school grounds, only reach one possibility: falling.

Leap up the stairs, the door to the roof is locked. Sidekick, the wood splinters, breaks, teachers are coming up the stairs now, demanding what the hell I’m doing. Can’t waste my breath, she could be outside, just about to jump.

Force my way through the door, splinters catch in my uniform, whirl around, searching for her, she can’t have already jumped, it’s only been minutes since I found the note... Surely…

There. She’s clambered over the concrete divider to the corrugated iron roof of the building next to it. Yelling to her to stop, begging her to just wait, to think it through again. She sees the bright yellow piece of paper scrunched up in my left fist, the pink tinge in my cheeks a testament to the amount of running I’ve been doing, searching for her.

Please, stop, don’t, I’m here, I care if you live or die. She doesn’t seem to hear me, the teachers behind me pull out their mobile phones, calling for the police, but to me, their panicked voices fade away into silence, and all I can see is her stepping forward, away.

Leaping over the concrete wall, thudding across the corrugated iron, stretching out my hand, reaching, grasping for her, as she steps…

Forward…

Downward…

Falling…

My fingers catch on the hem of her dress, the note falls from my hand as I scrabble to gain a better grip on her uniform, the yellow paper floats down, turning over and over, in a wordless prophecy to what will happen to her if I don’t pull her up.

Her weight, combined with the potential energy, pull me to the edge even as I manage to tightly grip her dress. A few teachers leap over the partition, in an attempt to grab onto me, but it’s too late…

My feet hook onto the edge of the roof, but then they too slip, and we fall, down, down, down!

“Why?” She whispers, even as we plummet down.

“Because I honour all my friends, and would give my life for any of them. But you, you, I would do so without a second thought, without any regrets, because… Because I love you.”

She smiles, sadly, a tear leaking from her right eye, glittering in the light, then…

I twist in the air, putting myself between her and the ground. “My last gift to you: life, and don’t let anything stop you from living, not even the hate my parents will direct to you because I have died in your stead, while you live.” Her eyes widen, and she tries to be the first to hit the ground, to cushion me, but I resist.

“Please… Don’t make me live like that. I’ll only try again, and you won’t be there to save me. Let someone live, and since I won’t accept the gift… Let me die.”

It seems so far down to the ground, but I guess the air resistance, and the height from which we dropped are rather large factors. I shake my head. “No. You have dreams, so make them come true. My dreams… all lead to ensuring that those I care about achieve theirs.”

She stared at me… and I could almost see the words ‘My dream is to die…’ forming on her lips, she would have said them, except for one thing…

My back made contact with something both soft yet at the same time, hard, a.k.a. grass and compacted dirt. Bones creaked, groaned, snapped, shards flying into my internal organs already bruised from the impact, nerves went haywire, blacking out from the pain, but the most important thing had been accomplished:

She was safe, unhurt, and alive.

People say the last thing you hear are the sirens of ambulances, the slamming of police car doors, the lowering of ladders atop fire engines…

People say the last thing you see is the face of the one you love the most, even if they aren’t there physically.

People say the last thing you taste is your favourite food.

People say the last thing you smell is your favourite perfume.

People say the last thing you feel is bliss.

People say such things, even though they don’t know how it is to fall to your death.

And the last thing I heard was her whispering “Don’t die, please don’t die, Anki…”

The ambulances weren’t in sight yet. The police hadn’t arrived yet. The fire fighters hadn’t come with their ladders yet.

And the last thing I saw was the cloud-spotted sky, the birds having been frightened off by the terrified screams of those watching. Her face was somewhere near my neck, and she was too shell-shocked to move.

And the last thing I tasted was blood. No turkey with plum sauce.

And the last thing I smelled was dirt and crushed grass. My favourite perfume was L’Air du Temps.

And the last thing I felt was death.

THE END

Thankyou for reading yet another depressing anecdote from yours truly. Congratulations on not having rushed to get a counsellor for me after reading the first few sentences. Or at least I’d like to think you didn’t because:

I

DO

NOT

NEED

A

PSYCHIATRIC

THERAPIST.

Do I need to repeat that? I’ll just assume that you actually possess a brain that is capable of not-so-complex reasoning, and so I won’t. Now, as with the other stories, JUST BECAUSE I WROTE THIS STORY DOESN’T MEAN I’M GOING TO KILL MYSELF.

And I won’t, because I fear pain… Give me a cheap, painless and easy-to-access way to kill myself, well then you start to worry. Not before. And it’s not like you’ll worry anyway, because you all think I joke about everything.

Joking is my way to get attention when I get next to none, and that which I get is negative, pointless criticism. Such is the life of someone who is different, the black sheep, the scapegoat, the nail with a raised head that got hammered down…

I hate this world and its obsession with the ‘norm’.

I hate this world with all its don’ts and next to no do’s.

I hate this world and I wonder why we can call just about anyone ‘friend’.

I hate this world and its lack of loyalty.

I hate this world and how no-one seems to notice.

I am here, can you see me?

No, you can’t.

And you never will, because…

Because I am everyone around you.