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Alexander was in his room, writing as always. His mind was empty. His head hurt. Even so, he couldn’t stop writing. He needed to stay occupied. He didn’t want to remember all… that. He didn’t need to.
The house was quiet. Perhaps the whole neighborhood was. It’s been like this since he moved on. But it doesn’t really matter. Those little screams in his head was getting louder and louder as the days passed by.
It was your fault, wasn’t it?”
He refused to hear them. With a tense expression in his face, he continued to write.
"You could’ve saved them.”
The voices were quiet as a whisper, but loud as a storm. He knew it wasn’t worth it. He just kept writing.
“She didn’t deserve it.”
He started to write furiously. It. Wasn’t. Worth it.
“None of them did.”
He was running out of words to write. He kept writing anyway.
“That’s why you’re alone now.”
Suddenly, he stopped writing. The voices were too loud to do anything.
“You’ll be better off dead”
“Enough!” He screamed. His heart was beating fast. His hands were trembling. He was breathing as if he had run a marathon. But the voices were still there.
That was enough.
He left that note on his desk, got out of his office and quickly went to the stairs that lead straight to his house’s roof. It was high enough to jump there and put an end to that shitty life. He knew it. He went there before, just to be sure of it.
When he finally went there, he was got by surprise.
A long, curly haired boy was standing there nearby the roof hedge, before Alexander.
Before Alex could contain himself, he just went and screamed:
“Hey, don’t do it please!”
Those words just slipped out of his mouth. Why would he care about that stranger, either way? He just couldn’t accept that someone would do this before him.
The stranger turned to him. Somehow, that freckled, young face was pretty familiar. Even though that boy was carrying a sad smile.
That boy started telling his story. “Well, you’ve probably heard something like this before.” The boy looked down. “It’s my father. He was amazing. My hero. You should have known him. I… I really thought that he was the one y’know?”
“And he’s dead or something?” Alexander asked. It couldn’t be this. It’s not like that stranger’s father abandoned him for no fucking reason.
“Sorta. At least he changed pretty much. But it was okay, people can change, after all. But then…” the boy went silent for a moment. “Then he betrayed us. He… basically showed me he was done.”
Alex anger blew up. He screamed: “For God’s sake, please, are you serious? Lord, I just can’t believe that for that stupid reason you got here before me!” The boy was surprised with all that. Alexander didn’t cared at all. “Are you upset cause you can’t have what you wanted? Just because you have a shitty father? You’re lucky that you’ve never got robbed of anything!” like I did, Alex wanted to add.
The boy was crying. His face then opened with a thankful smile. “I’m feeling better now, thank you for listening.” Said that boy.
But at the moment Alex blinked, the boy with quite long hair then disappeared.
All he could see was a flash of his dead eldest son, falling in knees to the ground, after being shot in a duel to protect his father’s legacy.
---
The next day, Alexander was determined to try to jump again. He did the same way of the last time, from his office to the roof. Nothing was going to stop him.
At least, that was what he thought. Standing in the same place of that boy, there was a girl short as can be. Despite himself, Alex called out for her:
“Hey! Don’t do it!” again, those words slipped out of his mouth.
The girl turned to see him. Again, that different stranger were familiar somehow.
The petite girl told him her story. “You’ve probably heard something like this before.” She closed her eyes. “Some troubles happened to my family, and now… It’s like nobody really wants me around them. Everyone ignores me. Everything’s stolen from me. The only thing that people see in me is my father’s mistakes.” ‘She wouldn’t dare take her own life away because of that, right?’ Alex thought. It’s not like she have passed years of her life without anyone to call “family”, after all.
Alex shouted again: “Are you kidding me?! The nerve you have to get here before me for such a lame reason!” The girl listened to him with a broken heart face. “Despite all that, you’re still loved by everyone at home! And there’s always dinner waiting at the table, right?”
“I’m hungry” said the girl while crying.
At the moment Alexander blinked, the girl short as can be than disappeared.
All he could see was a flash of his eldest daughter, in her mind breakdown, after discovering her brother’s death.
---
And just like that, Alexander spoke with some of them almost every day. He listened to each one them and could convince each one to turn away and give another try.
While himself couldn’t share his pains with anyone.
---
After many lost opportunities, Alexander decided to give another try.
Already expecting someone there with some worthless decision to jump, he went to the roof with an apathetic semblance.
But then, for the very first time, he found a woman. A woman who had the same kind of problems as him. After he had seen a few of persons, that woman was all covered in black. Black dress. Black hair. She wore a dark black cardigan.
She already knew he was there. She knew he wouldn’t say anything. He couldn’t say nothing. She decided to say it something herself.
“I came here hoping to erase all these bruises that keep increasing every time that I go home” she said. “That’s why decided to come here.”
Those words were beginning to slip out of his mouth again. Why would he care about her, either way? He already had so many lovers right?
At the same moment Alexander began to remember each one of them. There was a freckled face guy he once met. He remembered he was already on the other side. He was one of the reasons Alexander wanted to get there so soon.
Then there was that woman who wore some shade of pink almost everything he saw her. They didn’t have a real thing beside suggestive eyes and talks.
What about that red-dressed young woman? Wasn’t her some of the source of some of his problems? Maybe if he didn’t care about what could happen to her that night, most of his guilt wouldn’t even exist.
So why would he care about this woman standing in front of him?
Without noticing, those symptoms were appearing all over again. His heart was racing. He was trembling. The difference is that this time, he could barely breathe.
But he ended up saying to her something that even himself didn’t quite believe in.
“Hey… Just don’t do it” he whispered.
She turned to his direction. Alex’s symptoms got even worse when he saw how lifeless her eyes were. He saw his own eyes on hers.
“Please…” he continued unconsciously. He felt like a little child that way. Tears were rolling in his cheeks. His tries to hold them back were worthless. His knees his knees threatened to fall to the ground.
Aah, what should he do? He can’t stop that woman, he don’t have any right to stop her! God, that was new.
‘But even so, please just go away from here!’ his mind screamed ‘It’s too painful for to look at you!’
He was sobbing just like a child that way. He didn’t remember another day he felt so helpless like that.
“I guess today it’s just not my day, then” said the woman.
When Alex could finally open his eyes, that woman was standing by his side.
She grabbed his hand.
“It’s quiet uptown” said the best of wives and best of woman, crying, but still smiling at him.
Slowly, they hugged each other after so long. In that moment he felt so free that he was almost flying. Those voices weren’t there anymore.
Forgiveness, can you imagine?
---
It shouldn’t have gone that way. At least that time, he didn’t want to that to happen that way.
He looked around. There wasn’t anyone there. It was only him and those on the other side. There wasn’t any voice. Any symptom. No one to get in his way. It was his turn.
Looking at his dark black cardigan, feeling his quite long hair swinging in the wind.
That mid-aged man short as can be threw away his shot with his pistol aimed to the sky.
“WAIT!”