Searching

Zahra had an insatiable desire to know. All she was was her curiosity. Maybe that’s why she jumped. She didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t planned, but it also wasn’t spontaneous. It was a thought she had had a thousand times, more than that. Every day of her life she had wondered what death was like. She didn’t want to die, but the restrictions and routine of life bored her. 

She was a failed literature major with a soft spot for fiction novels. She loved art and people puzzled her in a way she’d never truly understand. Despite the early end, university had been the best years of her life. She loved the freedom of adulthood and the anonymity of the city. The opportunity that was in front of her. 

Happily, she diligently attended each of her classes. She envied the dedication of her professors who had committed their lives  to mastering a single subject. She could not imagine dedicating her life to one topic. The garden of her interests had an attentive caretaker and therefore was forever in bloom. To witness her professors’  brilliance and be graced by their tutelage, she was willing to surrender herself to the prison of the class schedule. Classes were a joy, she tried to learn everything. She could be found in the front row of all of her classes with her chin in her palm and elbow on the desk. Occasionally scribbling notes in the lavender pocketbook that was never out of reach. 

Zahra adored the weekend. Warm days were spent in parks, slumped against trees with a book and a lavender pocketbook. She would sit unmoving for hours on end. She’d have been prematurely pronounced dead if it wasn’t for her index finger gently flicking pages; pages which would be delicately received and tucked under her left thumb. Outside of the subtle movements of her hands, a small dimple could be procured by a heart-warming or droll line. Should it be particularly quiet and a page notably somber or striking, small sighs or quick gasps could be caught by an observant ear.

If Zahra adored the weekend, she lived for the night. Once the sun fell, she was freed of the schedules, appointments and her unbreakable affection for the sun; the night presented her with what she craved most: solitude, quiet. The dark of night presented endless opportunity to her. Under the cover of the night, she was allowed to love, to be whatever she wished. In these moments she traveled, moving through identities, relationships, continents, professions, and time. Zahra disappeared into novels. The realities she tried so desperately to join blended with her dreams when sleep finally caught her.

Zahra had never received nor given the love she had for fiction. What she felt for it could not be expressed in words. Her entire life, Zahra had felt caged inside her body, a body which was imprisoned to a system bound by schedules and rules. This unfortunate sentence had to be served at university which further tied her to a single place. 

Inadvertently, she had evaded the university degree that had felt forced upon her. With her nights committed to her beloved and her daytime affair with the sun, she had no time to spare for schoolwork. She felt no need to prove that she knew what was discussed in class, so she didn’t bother to show up for exams. She viewed it as extra time to read since no new information would be shared. So after five years of university and nearly endless amounts of information accrued, but zero progress in her degree, university became too expensive to continue. 

Released from a life of schedules and untied from the university’s campus, she was finally able to explore the world. The first place she went was home to her favorite film. Before visiting, she already had a strong relationship with Tokyo. Though, from film to real life, she thought that something must have been lost in translation. The language was foreign and the people looked different, but it wasn’t dissimilar from the metropolis that housed her former university that she had just fled. 

Unsatisfied with the cities that at one time had offered her refuge. She looked for inspiration elsewhere. In the two years since unceremoniously leaving university, she had crisscrossed the globe. Which is how she found herself alone in the French Alps. 

The peaks of the Alps were the place she felt that she could be herself. With nobody else to perceive her. Above the clouds, her mind was free to wander wherever it pleased. This is why this peak was her second favorite place on the planet. It was the sixth place she had traveled after Tokyo. It was her second time here and her fifty-second trip.

The summit was unlike anything she had seen before. By this point she was almost finished with her twenty-ninth lavender pocketbook. She flipped through it, these past three months had been some of her favorite of her life. Through all the adventures, real and imagined, she had still not been able to fill the searching inside of her. 

She looked down at the clouds. In life she was restless, unsatisfied. If all the things she had done in her life hadn’t brought her joy, what would? Could anything? At that moment she realized that her dreams would never be realized in life. She had taken all she could. There was one place she had still not gone.

It would be wrong to say she was depressed. Unsatisfied and curious better described what she felt. Was there an afterlife? Would it hurt? Would the searching finally disappear? The questions swirled in her head. Eventually they pulled her off.

The afterlife was more interesting than she had thought. It had taken her a while to realize that she had even died. She hit the icy ground a few moments after she had jumped and laid motionless on the ground. She raised her head to see a bloody tangle of what remained of her body. Confused on how she had survived such a fall, she got up and realized that the cold didn’t bite like it had before. 

The answers to the questions she had had moments ago now came to her. Apparently there was an afterlife. No, it didn’t hurt. Then, miraculously, there it was, the feeling she had been searching for all her life: untethered freedom. She hadn’t died, but her life was over.

When she thought back on the life that had been, it all rushed back to her with shocking clarity. Every day could be recalled to the second. The direction of the wind during her favorite pages and beats of her favorite films. Her consciousness left her body, along with all the restrictions that life had imposed on her. 

The first place her soul went was to her favorite place in the world. She didn’t leave the Boston Public Library until she had finished all the English language books. Thankfully, since she was no longer confined to the bounds of life, she didn’t have to break for the bathroom, eating, or sleep. She was able to study the library’s complete collection in three years. 

To Zahra the past three years had flown by. She was now forever united with her true love. There were still sides to her beloved that she didn’t quite understand. She ventured back to Europe. Choosing France first, she spent time carefully learning the language. Bouncing from library to library, trying to complete the French literary discography as well. A decade later, she chose a new language. She continued on like this until time ended.

For the rest of time, this was her new reality. Zahra’s peaceful existence. Infinitely bound to her one true love.