Woman in White

Falling.

If life were to be starting from the beginning, this would be the Creation. The wind that catches my hair and moves it all around my face and I jump down to a place I cannot see, it feels like this is the first time I am really breathing. The first time that I am truly living. 

I had heard rumors my whole life, about people who lived in the lowest parts of the earth’s core, people who were genuinely happy, but to get to where they are, you must take a leap of faith and expect death. Only then will you get to experience pure joy. 

For years, I tried to understand what that meant, how could someone just accept death? How could anyone be able to act as if it was nothing at all. I think now, I finally understand. I understand what it means to take the leap of faith into the unknown, because for as long as I could remember, my life has been nothing short of terrible. 

The rumors would talk about this woman dressed in white, who would come to you in your darkest moments and speak to you of the joy that is awaiting you at the core of the earth. Some will choose to take her hand so that she can take them to be there, and others will deny her, and choose to live the rest of their life out in misery and sorrow.

I waited, every time I felt like I could just take my last breath, I waited for her to show up, because I already knew what my answer would be. I would go with her without a second thought, I wanted to be happy, and I knew that she could help me with that. She may be the only person in the world who could help me feel alive. 

Even though I had waited years for her to show up, the woman in white never came, never once did I see a glimpse of her face in a crowd, or in the corner of my room, or in the reflection of my own mirror for my daily self loathing sessions. Never once was she there to comfort me like so many people promised me she would be. 

The wind, but the wind that is now going through my hair, touching every inch of me, I can feel it. I can close my eyes and clearly see the Woman in White holding out her hand to me, with soft, warm eyes, beckoning me towards her, farther below into the unknown. All I needed to do, she would whisper, is take a leap of faith. 

Her own hair was flowing from the wind, and when I opened my eyes, I could feel it. The wind gripping at my sides, as if holding on to keep me safe from the dangers that seem to be growing ever nearer.

I realize now, the woman in white is the one controlling the wind. Perhaps she is a goddess or an illusion, I do not know, and I don’t want to, because in this moment I feel joy, I feel alive. 

The ground is growing ever closer, the cracks starting to make themselves clear, it was obvious that the wind was not strong enough to hold me, but the comforting grasp that it held me with so dearly made me feel as if it was all worth it, even if it was to just feel this embrace for only a second. 

I knew I would die. I knew from the moment I took the leap of faith that I was ending my life, and I knew that is what I wanted. All I wanted was to feel free, to feel something besides the pain and agony that had been weighing me down for years, the weights of life and burdened me until I could no longer lift my chest to breath. I took this leap of faith, not to have faith in a better life, but to have faith in knowing that my pain would end. I would pray to the woman in white, that she may see me and take away my pain, to let me finally be at rest like so many others before me. 

The Woman in White is not some goddess or saint, but the Reaper of Death, here on earth to collect the souls of those who cannot bear to live any longer. Many people fear the woman in white, begging for her to stay as far away as possible, to keep her at bay so that they may enjoy their life with their families for as long as they can. Then there are others, others like me who pity the woman in white, and so we give her our souls so that she may return at the end of the day with something to show for it. 

In a way, it is a sacrifice, to give her our souls will keep her at bay for those who wish to live. She will be calm, and not end the lives early of those who wish to live. As long as the souls of the restless give in, the woman in white will have no reason to complain about those who are happy with living. 

To take a leap of faith is to trust fully in something, to believe in something with everything you have, to have no doubt in it. The only thing that I have ever seen in my whole life, that has never failed, is death. So I took a leap of faith, putting all my trust in the idea that even though I felt miserable as I am here, my next life will give me more joy than I could ever imagine as payment for the pain I have experienced here in the mortal body.

To be the Woman in White, to watch so many take the leap of faith into the afterlife, in hopes that the world will treat them better if they are to start anew. To be the Woman in White, to watch so many be wrong.