Sweet November
Year 2016 coming to an end. Another year.
She felt the chilliness of the November breeze ice up her skin as she stood holding the railings of the bridge. New York City was truly insomniac, it truly was magnificently. It was late 3.30 am and still cars were breezing past her. In tangent black, the horizon stood merging with smears of orange and yellow from the surroundings towers as if someone had spread it on the big black canvas or maybe this was how it appeared through an artist’s eyes.
She shivered at yet another splash of the wintry night, wrapping the light coat around herself. She took a step forward and peeked down the New York Bridge. The mist was vaguely accurate on the top of the frosty water. No ships or any life boats were in her view of her eyesight. Her mild vaguely dwelled on what would happen when she would jump and embrace the last moments of her life, the cold creeping down her veins, slowly painfully numbing the life out of her body. She immediately stepped back at the painful thought. Who would have thought committing suicide would need this much of work? She has a google history of committing suicides way too much to prove her actions.
They say when you are going to die, your whole life flashes in front of your eyes, like a memorial as if begging you to hold back to life for it’s too precious to be swept away in tears and tides. To hold back for the sake of your family, and friends, for your own life isn’t just yours to claim, what of the broken hearts you’ll live behind in your wake. What of it? Clarke thought. She thought like she had done for a month but the pain of a broken heart lashed in scales of betrayal, what of it? What of the suffocation, the claustrophobia she feels even when she stands with her family, the hollowness that is still there even after bottles of cheap rum? What of her voice? Should it be just numbed and swept aside for other’s sake?
Is my life not mine to claim? Is it asking for too much for my peace?
“First time?” Interrupted a voice from her far right subsiding the inner battle raging within. “I came here two nights ago, didn’t have the nerve to do it and yup, here I’m again.”
The pedestrian lines along the bridge was pretty much deserted the last time Clarke checked, so much so the even being foots apart from each other she could make out every word that the stranger said in slim outline.
“First time.” Clarke replied but she wasn’t even sure if the question deserved a reply. The stranger was pretty much putting a timescale on life and death and yeah Clarke might be a bit freaked out.
The said stranger was pretty much muffled in all layers of warm apparel Clarke could possibly think of for brimming sweet November but even amidst the fur, she saw wild brunette curls spiralling out, dark eyes enclosing towards her but they stopped at a distance, away from her, as if giving her space.
“Thinking about jumping from here?” the accent dipped in British tinges didn’t go unnoticed by the blonde, hands shoved inside fur jackets.
“Yeah?” came her unsettled reply.
The stranger rubbed the un-gloved hands, her own breathe dangling before her in the frost of the atmosphere. “I don’t think that’s such a good plan. The water is freezing down there and it’s close somewhere around -5 to -6 Celsius. You jump from here and” , Clarke noted her hand gestures as she swatted both her palms closing them up and smashed them together, like squatting an insect by the foot. The demonstration creeped the hell out of Clarke. She found stepping back two steps.
With measured steps, Clarke peeped onto the unnerving calm waters whistling smoothly down the bridge before glancing at the stranger. The stranger was now standing up close to her, the perfectly sculptured jawline marvelling out in the blurred city lights behind her whose dark eyes widen in questions.
“So what’s the plan?” Despite all odds, out of all possible scenarios, she asked about the apparent plan of how to commit suicide with a brunette girl.
The girl simply shrugged, “Well, there’s this dock right below. I checked it out. It’s pretty scarce at the moment so we can just …. You know walk into the fatal water chanting whatever last prayer you want until we catch pneumonia or the lungs fill with water.” She paused, and crouched her eyebrows in thought, a small smirk tugging her lips “At least I can die with my face intact that way.”
Even in the adverse irony of the situation Clarke snorted at the girl’s reply, “Yeah, you’ll die modest as well. Geez, as if that’s gonna show in your post-mortem report.”
The walk down the gloomy lanes of the shipping docks were pinched in silence, and even if there were any sailors or sorts they would be too drunk out of their senses to even notice two bodies drowning themselves willingly.
“It’s nice to have a company while you are going down, you know.” She said loud enough for only Clarke to hear, who was following are gracefully on her tail.
When the first splash of cold water sipped through the thin layers of her jeans, Clarke almost yelped out only to be stopped by Lexa who pressed her hands on her mouth.
“Second guessing, yourself?”
“Never.” Clarke determinedly answered but in all reality she was. When is anyone ever ready to actually die? “It’s just … it’s freaking cold.” She wasn’t going to give up. A long series of curses flew out from her companion’s mouth like sand with each foot she stepped in for.
“Yeah, turns out we might be dying a painstakingly slow death.” She paused again, and under the dim lights that illuminated the poignant dock air, she glanced at the blonde, “You are beautiful indeed, blue eyes.”
You are so beautiful, Princess. The word felt like a distant echo is Clarke’s thoughts. Words were the most dangerous weapon, they would hurt, they would make your bleed without even cutting your physically. No bleeding but you are bleeding in blood tears. And somehow in the shallowness of her water, her steps mismatched. She was toppling over, her hands flung out to balance her outstretched body only to be led by the brunette. Whose obnoxiously green eyes stared at her, with such vigour that Clarke had to look away.
It felt as if a thousand cuts were being branded on her skin as she took each step into the looming death. Her sharp intake of breathe wasn’t the only sound around and subconsciously she loomed her arms around the brunette’s who’s skin was already stroked in shades of pale white. The grip on her arm tightened, and by the time Clarke inhaled in a long breathe, she stood neck deep in water. She felt the footing of the river back lose touch of her feet, the only support being Lexa’s whom she was gripping onto.
“I’m glad…. I’m glad… I’m not alone too, green eyes.” She didn’t know if even amidst the heaviness of the night the brunette had heard her. She tasted the saltiness on her mouth as she moved up deeper and deeper out of the shallowness of bank, into unknown dark territories. Her death was inevitable, but if she only could diminish the coldness.
She felt a stiff touch on her shoulder under water and realized that the brunette had somehow eliminated all the distance ranging between them. Her face only inches away from Clarke’s and it was then, the reeking smell alcohol clogged her nose.
The hazy brunette murmured, “Liquid courage” almost to her questioning thoughts and foregoing actions and tugged out a small bottle of whiskey that she had gripped onto as if her life depended on it.
She gestured Clarke her poison. It felt like eternity when she lay half drowning in the river, and when she wouldn’t be dying anytime second soon, might as well, die out by going all down, Clarke bemused as she gulped down the rest of the contents of the burning liquid.
She couldn’t feel anything. Nothing except she counted her own breathe on the frosty haze. Her clothing clinging onto her like second skin, hands draped around her shoulders clumsily as her companion was barely staying put.
“I always felt lonely on Christmas, here in New York.”
The stuttering confession from the green eyed girl in the unlikeliest of scenarios fluttered a certain warmth in Clarke. Her own teeth was clattering in a rhyme and her dizzy thoughts wondered what made the brunette come out here, when it was true that New Year’s was only a month away. Another year.
The nostalgic waves hit Clarke, suddenly the pain of why she was here in the first place became too raw, too open for her to breathe. She knew it wouldn’t be futile if she questioned her ongoing decisions any further. She tried to drift further into the cold embrace of the docile blue but her legs were barely moving against the underlying current. She felt a mild tug on her wrist, following her seconds into the depth-ness that soon slowly started loosening. Clarke motioned her hands further into the surfacing depth of the water for that humane contact, maybe she’ll find her on the other side, smashing waters in aimless direction but her lids were getting heavy. She struggled against the notion was of opening her eyes until she had the girl within her reach.
Maybe it was a hallucination or some sort of a weird mirage but the too bright of yellow light that fell on her eyes directly shutting her eyes permanently, a protest already on her tongue. The blackness was all in now.