Avoiding the Light, Fearing the Dark by, Reyna

         

         There's nothing left to live for. My mother is dead, my father is missing, and I'm all alone in the world. I look down one more time as I take one step forward, I'm standing on a waterfall about 50 feet high and the bottom seems barren except for a few sharp edged rocks and the shimmering water. I have to admit I am almost giddy to jump, to fly down towards the rocks, down towards end. Without hesitation I jump, and for a second I swear the world revolves around me, and if I had felt this at least once in the last the mother months I wouldn't be here but, now it's too late. The wind carries me down towards the end as the moon shines down on me for my grand finally. I'm finally free and before I hit the ground I begin to hum the same song my mother sang to me every night before falling asleep. I know when I'm about to hit the floor, know it's almost done, leaving nothing behind but the bitter smell of death.  
FOUR MONTHS BEFORE
             My life is perfect, right? Wrong, all wrong! You see in this world you have two states of being, dead and alive. I have to admit though I probably didn't feel like either at a time. I was just existing, just one more person placed on the face of the  earth meant to serve no other purpose in life but, to wait for death. My neighborhood alike the rest of my town is a quiet little area, everyone knew everyone,  the birds always sang, the leaves danced with the wind as the trees swung along. The children played outside and the mothers stood at the door steps admiring the vast blue sky. My family was no different,  or at least they weren't before my mother died. Before her death I would always to the smell of fresh brewed coffee and pancakes,  now I wake to the bitter smell of weeks old beer and burnt toast. When my mother died so did the joy in my house. My mother was like an angel with curly blond hair, aqua marine eyes and beautiful lips that could sing the melodious of songs that would make me forget lifes troubles. Now that she's gone it's like all my troubles have come to drown me in a sea of depression, but I know that no one was hurt more than my father.
          My father works during the nights as a security guard in a nearby city. Often times he doesn't come home for days on end, and when he does come home he's drunk, so we never really talk anymore. The last thing he ever said to me was " Abigail, you and your mother mean so much to me, I don't know what I would do without you". That night I found out what he would do without my mother. Every once in a while I look at my reflection in a nearby stream,  I don't see much resemblance. I have straight black hair and gloomy gray eyes, the only things that resembles my mom's are my lips,  except I never smile, that's what happens when you have no friends.
            I go to the same school as everyone, the same church as everyone, the same town as everyone,  the only difference is that I don't pretend like my life is perfect. I don't walk around with the same head turning confidence as every other girl, nor do I walk with the same fake smile plastered on everyone's, I'm different,  I'm not afraid to except reality. I'm turning 16 in four months, the birthday every girl looks forward to her whole life, the year most girls lose their virginity in order to be excepted amongst the other flightless chicken. It's the year they transition from ignorant girls, to women. HA! Hardly, if you ask me I think the only thing actually growing is the space between their legs. Anyways, I find it's better to have no friends. In my perspective the only friends I can get in this town would only hold me down, and that's saying something when at times I feel I'm already six feet beneath the ground. Having no friends also comes with other advantages, for example every night just after the sun begins to set I am able to venture deep into the woods, into places most girls in my town would never even dream of going.
             Every week I fell more deeply into a state of emptiness in which not even my trips into the woods can help get me out of. A few months ago I discovered a stream. Its not the only stream I have come across, but this is the only one that ends at a waterfall. At first I would follow the stream from beginning to end, over and over again. I don't know why, I guess I always hoped it would somehow change course, somehow flow in the opposite direction, rising up the fall instead of falling down but, it never did. " WHY! Why don't you go down a different path when you know what lays ahead. When you know the end is near, when there may yet be a chance to stop. What the f*** is wrong with you!?". Of course I never got an answer back from the stream, but I always asked the same question when I came to the end of the stream. Then, on the day before my birthday it hit me. The water never changed course because it knew what came next. It fell down the fall as it was supposed to not just because it was written in natures law but because the stream loved it. It lived knowing it would soon fall down the fall and begin to flow down a much smother path that lead to the sea, the sea which held nothing but peace. On the day before my birthday I found my answer. The night before my birthday I was on my way to peace.
                   That night after my walk in the woods I went home. I walked to my room and counted my steps, on most days it took me 30 to 40 steps to get to my room, today it took me 16. That night I didn't drop my stuff in the same spot I had for the past four months, I didn't cry as i took my shower, and for the first time in four long months I sang the song my mom sang to me every night before she died.  The day of my birthday  I walked with my head held high giving everyone who who hadn't spoken to me in the last four months, that i stilled exist, even if i would no longer after that day. Just like every day in the past four months no one spoke to me, looked at me, or spoke of me, but for the first time in four very long months I did not care.
PRESENT TIME 
...I closed my eyes as I hit the floor only when I opened them i wasn't surrounded by water, I was back at the top of the waterfall.  I felt a great sense of grief, one that almost surpassed that which I felt the day my mother passed away. I felt as if I had been robbed yet again of a chance to a happy ending. I began to cry. Just then a light hand brushed through my hair, I quickly turned around to find myself face to face with my mother. I didn't speak, I didn't think, I just threw myself at her and hugged her for the very first time in four months, fearing to let go and finding her gone. So I held on and so did she. Then she began to sing " Hush my dear child,  for when the sun comes out and the demons are gone, your troubles will fade, Hush my dear child for when the sun is out and the demons are gone, you will fear nothing at all, Hush my dear child for when the night is here and I am gone, you will be free". 
"Why did you leave me, you have no idea how much i needed you," i sobbed although I knew she did.
"I never left you my dear child, I have been merely waiting for you to come, I was worried when you didn't walk home with me, so i waited", she said as she stroked my hair,
"I don't understand, you have been dead for over four months, don't you know?" pulling away from her.
With the same smile I dreamed of for four months she said, " Yes, I know that but, do you not know that you are dead too"
"What!?" I took a step back, "What are you talking about, I'm not dead", she didn't say anything, she just looked at me with the saddest expression I had ever seen on her face, and at that moment I knew it was true. So I began to weep, not for grief but for joy, I was at long last free. It's strange how one can go on without knowing they have stopped, but what was strangest was how things can change in a matter of seconds, my neighborhood alike my town was screaming for help, for a sense of relief. The people thought they new each other and yet knew nothing, the children went outside to imagine a place far away from where the were and the the mothers stood at the door steps staring through the never ending glass ceiling.