Make the jump.
These words did not so much flash across Rita’s mind, as course through her body, as she teetered on the cold stone ledge. Rita had been plagued with a sensation of prescient doom for many weeks, since her trust in normality all came to a head on that nondescript March morning.
But today, those numerous heavy thoughts of this missed opportunity or that failed chance, were not to darken her existence any longer. Rita’s mind was clear - crystal, one might say, while the sensation of her flowered lavender skirt pattered against her legs.
There was a gentle breeze that belied the gravity of the situation.
Except for this minute encounter with nature by her (courtesy of Laura Ashley) skirt, all else was surprisingly still at that great altitude.
Rita’s mind was the quietest of all, devoid of intent: no desire, no angst, no anguish, not even the noisy noise of demanding “oh so many whys” from a carelessly cruel universe.
For once in her short and not too shoddy life, Rita had become sheer stillness—in panting, in whimpering, in feeling emotional, even in breathing.
In fact, what began as a quivering before a leap out of faith had become her certainty of being beyond all delusions about life.
This was the way it was meant to be at the end. This was for sure the way forward. And for once, because that is all it takes—just the once, this was her opportunity to jump out of a puny existence.
So finally, absent of hesitation, she did so—with an alacrity called freedom.