A Self-Granted Wish

TW: suicide

On Friday morning she slipped on her gardening boots and proceeded her way to the garden outside of her house. She carried a pot of gardening tools that were given by her mother years ago when she was just a little kid who loves flowers for their colours instead of symbolisms. The soil beneath her feet crunched along with dried leaves from the cherry blossom tree she planted with her mom when she first moved to this house. She huffed a tired breath through her nose and took a seat beneath the cherry blossom tree. The gardening tools was released from her hands as her eyes closed.

    She fell asleep in the memory of her childhood.

    The following day, she turned on the heater and waited for the water to heat up with a timer in a shape of a duck. While waiting, she walked to the kitchen as her footstep echoed along the empty and lonely hallway of her mansion. Every inch of body was screaming for rest, every step she walks was heavy and needed to be dragged. On the hallway to kitchen, she looked to the side of her rose wallpaper with framed pictures. Most of the pictures contained two females, a middle-aged woman and a young girl with different hairstyle. She tore her gaze away from the photos as her heart started to ache from a feeling never in a whole life she could get rid off and turned away. She placed her mug on top of the kitchen counter and poured herself a cup of hot boiling water from the stove, then she opened up a packet of tea bag from the cabinet and dipped it into the water. She watched as the green of the tea leaves dissolved into the water and breathed in the light scent of the tea from the warm steam-setting the mug of tea on the kitchen counter. She walked to her arm chair and stared outside the big piece of window. She watched the rain splattered on the glass like paint on canvas, an artist drawing out his or hers emotion. 

Shivering as she took off her dress robe and set her foot into the warm water. It felt as if her surrounding had been melted down along with her when the warm water covered her like a layer of blanket. She thought, with the warm bath flowing against her skin, she never wanted to get rid of it, she just wanted to stay in the bath forever. Her eyelids begun to feel heavier and heavier as time passed by. The smell of wet soil and heavy rain was always her favorite, she would wears a raincoat her mother cutted out for her from plastic bags and danced in the rain with her beloved mother when she was young. Too bad, she knows it will never happens again. Rainy days were just another typical day for her, lonely.

    How fast could things change? Her damp hair flowing in the water brushed her shoulder and arm, causing the hair behind her neck stood, it was like strings of ropes you could named as death, trying to strangle her into the water. Each corner of the bathroom was stained with unwanted shadows, her body shook, the feeling creeped up from the bottom of her feet and up to her head. A horrific picture of the tragedy flashed across her mind. Her eyes flung open in a terror, her breathing came rapid, the tightness in her chest made her felt like if she was going to explode in no time. There was a high pitch sound, she thought she had lost her hearing, yet it took her some times to noticed that it was a scream. The familiar tone of scream that haunts her, everytime when she wishes for peace. The lady splashed a handful of colding water to her cheeks and rubbed her face. Using the bar of lavender soap laid behind her in a plate. She scrubbed so hard against her skin until it felt like burning.

    Forgetting the warming tea slowly turning cold, she sobbed into her arms, letting her tears drown in the bath. She just wished to be the one who she wished to be, she regretted those things she did not done. The soap stinged her reddened eyes, yet she did not cared-

    Because the pain she felt for the past could not compared to the pain of a sting from a soap. 

    Gasping for air when she clinged to the side of her ceramic tub. Those hands that used to be as soft as a pair of baby cheeks turned hard from the work she worked hard for to enjoy all of this luxuries. But is it worth it? No, she realised money doesn’t buys her happiness. Shaking her thoughts away, she stepped out of the bath with her right foot and followed by the other. Incautiously, the slippery of the tub caught her as she crashed to the marbled floor and waiting for the pain to sent through her veins like electric shocks. It was so painful she screamed, called out for help desperately. Afraid the shadows around her would creep up to her and drag her back into the tub and fill her lungs with water until she closed her eyes and wakes up in a different place. Suddenly, the world around her seemed so small, so tiny, even the loudest voice couldn’t send vibration to her cup of tea downstairs. 

    There weren’t maids in this giant mansion, she had fired all of them since the tragic had happened. Feeling like she only needed herself. 

    Biting the inner of her lips, she dragged herself up and leaned against the tiled walls beside her. Gaining back her uneven breath, her collarbone starting to swollen from the drop. Holding back the pain thundering along her spine and collarbone, she quickly dried herself with a towel folded neatly beside her and limped to her room.

    Cold sweat formed around her temple and slipped down her neck, her hand was shaking as she popped two pills from the bottle and swallowed it hard with the chilled water beside her bedside table. Tears couldn’t stop sliding down her eyes, she was panicking non-stop, she was so scared, terrified of almost everything she encountered. Even the own shades of her own shadows.

    I need help, She muttered to herself, her voice shaking along with her body. There’s someone I could call, there must be someone who’ll be willing to help me... The telephone in her arm, why aren’t there any names she could think of except for herself? Why aren’t there any numbers for her to dial? She realised, she had been lonely for most of her life, she shutted out everyone she could from her life. And now, when she needs anyone, she ended up convincing herself she was who she needed.

    Staring at the phone she held tight in both of her hands. It begun to ring. 

    She answered the phone and pressed it to her ear. Sucking in a big breath to stop her voice from shaking.

    “Hello, ma’am.” A voice of a man talked from the phone. “I needed to know when will be your next doctor appointment?”

    She stared into the mirror with a reflection of herself, she watched and watched. The man kept on waiting for her responds, but her ears were stuffed with her mind. Sounds were blurred, her attention were all in the feared eyes of hers from the reflection in-front of her. Cold wind brushed her cheeks lightly from the open windows. She saw something climbed up from the bedframe behind her, she felt it’s massive talon gripped her on her throat, digging it’s nails into her throat and ready to rip everything out of her. She saw the eyes of demons, glowing in the dark, she choked on her words.

    “Help…” Her voice echoed faintly in hoarse through the phone. 

“Excuse me?” The man replied with confused tone. “Ma’am are you okay?”

“Help…” She said again, “HELP!” Added with a terrific scream that escaped her mouth. Her vision spun into a curtain of fog. She couldn’t feel herself anymore.

Thud, she fell forward to the carpeted floor and she was blacked out. Afraid, so afraid of the darkness she would be living in for the rest of her life.

The man’s voice echoes through the room, “Ma’am? Hello? Ma’am, can you hear me?”

-I hope I could be alive forever in this world! It’s such a beautiful place! These melodies from the chirping noises of birds, the scent of freshly bloomed flowers, it’s like a fairytale!

It was a girl with a name she had forgotten. The little girl’s pale blue eyes gleamed with the sunlight behind her. Her dark hair tied in two separate pigtails bounced as she jumped in cheerfulness.

-Surely it’s beautiful isn't’ it? It just brings back such a great memories of me and my mom back then when I was in Ireland, she used to taught me how to make flower crowns like this! She placed a handmade flower crown with daisies on top of the little girl’s head. The little girl giggled and thanked her, saying how an amazing aunt she was.

-She sounds very nice, said the little girl.

-She is, very nice.

If the present her was the past her she would have told the little girl how terrible life is. Flowers blooms and they withers, they died at last. Fairytale may seem with a ‘happy ever after’ but what if one of the prince or princess had died? If the bird was haunt and been caged, will its melody be as beautiful in the past? 

Life is ugly, living is rotting.

After days of staying in the hospital, she was back to her lonely mansion on a wheelchair pushed by a maid assigned by the doctor. Her face was expressionless, her heart felt empty like a hole that couldn’t dig more deeper, her eyes felt dead and tired, her whole body betrayed her. 

“Miss, would you like to have a cup of tea?” The maid asked.

She looked at her with a blank stare and shook her head, she pointed her fingers to her garden.

“Is there where you would like to go?” The maid asked, she unfolded a blanket and covered the bottom half of her body with the hand knitted blanket to keep her from the chilling weather.

    The woman nodded her head.

    When she was outside, she stared at the cherry blossom tree. It’s flower plucked from the wind and laid on the dying grass under her. She traveled her fingers to the wheel and touched the damp soil coated on the wheel. She rubbed it against with her thumb and hear as if the soil was telling her they were dying too. 

    Is it the things around her she got too attached to started to die?

    Or when she’s closer to death, things around her seem to be dying too?

    Hours later, the maid came to her and asked if she needed anything or if she needed to be rested in her room. The maid asked her if she would be alright being alone. She nodded, I had always been alone and gestured her to leave her house. She heard the engine of the maid’s car, the striking yellow of her car lamp clicked open and left her quiet, lonely mansion. She pressed the armrest down as she forced her own feet to stand, the blanket slipped off her and make her way back into the living room. Her eyes locked with an antique vase with withered lilies-

Mother’s favorite flower, although the room was dark, everything was in her sight. For the first time ever, she wasn’t afraid anymore.

She would never be afraid anymore. One step nearing the vase, she lifted it up the vase and dusted it. Spider webs and dusts coated her pale fingers, it has been a long time since she took her time to clean her mansion up, and she didn’t bothered to clean anything, she’s tired.

    Then, she walked to the front of her door where keys that laid unused for years were hanging, she picked one of her car key and left her house with the massive double door opened widely, welcoming the darkness. She stood in-front of her garage, sealed shut for more than five years. Taking a deep breath into her small lungs, she pressed open the button and watched as the metal of her garage opened slowly for her. Revealing the two cars she had bought for herself back then and one car she bought for her mother’s birthday back then. The sight ached her heart, but she walked to her mom’s abandoned car and opened the door. The leathery seat of the car felt smooth and familiar under her touch, she inserted the car key and turned on the lights.

Ready for her journey to the unknown.

    She hadn’t drove since years ago, and she’s doing it again.

    She kept her eyes focussed on the road in-front of her. Somehow, the road to the unknown seemed like a map, forming around her mind. The moon was full, the stars were bright, the sky was dark.

    If I had answered your phone, She parked her car beside the highway with her lamp shone in bright yellow.

    If I had heard the last word from you, her knees did not tremble as she walked further away from the car.

    If I could turn back the time and tell you those words I wanted and needed to tell you, she stopped walking and looked down. And stop you for doing that one thing which had killed you because I wasn’t there.

    I don’t blame you, mom. Tears peaked out from her eyes, followed by another. To learn is to forgive, and I had learnt the biggest lesson in my life.

    I promise you won’t ever feel alone anymore, mom. She climbed over the of the highway. I will join you in the sea. Just like how you did when you told me “I’m tired, so tired, of all the pressure I had been carrying on for so many years.” The next day, when I saw your pale face and purple lips as they dragged you out. At here. The same exact place.

    She blinked her tears away and took a closer look of the clawing sea below her and took one last breath of the depressed life she had been living in.

    Without looking back or having the second thought, she jumped. 

    Flowing with the wind, and muttered to herself, “Finally, a wish granted to myself.”