Filed under: Short story
“You want me to… WHAT?????”
She was shocked by what he suggested. It was impossible. Insane. It wasn’t something a normal person would do even under the strangest circumstances.
“You heard me the first time. It’s your only way out of this mess.”
The footsteps were closing in and she could hear the dogs barking. They could smell her, and soon they would be here to devour her alive. So much for freedom. So much for life.
“You want me to jump off this cliff… and I dunno what’s down there… And you want me to sing ‘You are my Sunshine’ all the way down?” She asked him again, maintaining an astonishing level of calm despite the obvious chaos of the situation.
“Yes.”
She wished she could at least see him before she did as he asked. But he remained as ever, invisible. And she knew that she would never see him. How could anyone see what didn’t exist? He surely couldn’t exist. But the more she thought about it, nor could she.
To the dogs, or to the depths below? She did not know.
“Choose neither. You know the answer.” He read her mind again. She needed to figure out how he did that.
Taking a deep breath, she leapt over the edge into the darkness below.
“You are my sunshine”
The cold wind rushed around her body as she plummeted towards the endless depths below her.
“My only sunshine”
Her heart was pounding. Yet there was a sense of hidden comfort in the panic.
“You make me happy, When skies are gray”
The everything was enveloped in unnatural darkness, yet the wind continued.
“You’ll never know dear, How much I love you”
Her voice was shaky and forced. It was hard to breathe against the rushing winds.
“Please don’t take”
She couldn’t hear her own words now, the wind was too loud.
“My sunshine”
It was pitch black. There was nothing to be seen nor heard, except for the cold hurricane that roared past her. Through her.
“Away”
And then, he woke up.
Colorful vagrant little spheres
How they float so freely
Not caring where they would land
Not caring of their inevitable fate
Empty containers of air
Soaring above a harsh world
Blown by the winds to-and-fro
Seeing hearing speaking nothing
Is it bliss to soar so high?
Do they not care that they will die?
Once they reach the ground and burst
They are sacks of inanimate rubber
Is sentience a curse?
They say One thinks too much
How One loathes you balloons
You have no thought, no will, nothing
Jealousy; One ought to shoot them down
Shatter them before their time
To watch them rip apart
By the very air that gives them flight
With thought comes madness
With madness comes animosity
With such things One must live
For One is no balloon, but alive
