Most of all, I remember the flowers. There were words spoken which I refused to listen to, crying, tissues passed around. My eyes ached with the sight of so many people dressed in black.
The flowers, however, were the hardest to forget. I had always liked roses. To me, they represented individuality. If you looked closely enough, each one was different. I liked that.
But these roses were different. One could see the vitality inside of them, each one a silent testimony to life’s resilience.
Except that life was not resilient.
After a while, I had to leave. No ceremony could capture how I felt. I was glad that our family and friends were being respectful, but, after all, the dead do not feel the need for respect. And neither did I.
I stepped into my car and drove away. I did not pay attention to the direction because it did not matter. We had loved driving together; we drove up windy mountain roads and on coastal highways; we took the dune buggies we had built and left rooster tails behind us in the desert; we burned rubber and left skid marks on the track. And now, his cold body was in a coffin. I needed one last drive while his memory lingered.
I do not know how long I drove, but eventually I parked at the edge of a cliff. The ocean raged below. White-capped waves tore relentlessly against countless jagged rocks. Droplets of rain whipped across the sky in a wind that nearly sent me over the edge. My hair stuck to my forehead and came down into my eyes. The whole scene had a fierce beauty, an unstoppable energy that sharply contrasted the numbness in my mind.
It would be so easy, I thought. So incredibly easy. I indulged in the thought process that everyone has toyed with at some point or another. And I asked myself the question that inevitably follows it: Why not?
Because why not? What stopped me? Like a hound, I prowled for the answer in my mind. Last time, the answer was clear. I had my family, and it would always be there, that beacon in the fog. I had never realized that the beacon could die out.
There was something other than the beacon, though. I did not know what it was. It confused me, and I did not like to be confused. Whenever I was, the world collapsed around me. The sky fell down, and I did not know how to lift it up.
A car pulled up next to mine. I did not have to look at it to recognize the exhaust note of my sister’s car.
“You left.” She did not ask why.
“What did you expect?”
“Just the same.” She stood next to me and looked down at the sea. “Scary, isn’t it?”
“I think it’s beautiful.”
“You would.” It was interesting how the howl of the wind and the patter of the rain sounded no different than dead silence. “I knew you’d come here. I’m guessing you didn’t think about it, but you’ve always felt attached to this place.” Once again, I refused to respond. “I know what you’re thinking about right now.”
“I don’t know what’s stopping me. I could do it. I want to. I could just jump. I should. I don’t have any family left.”
“I’m your family.”
“Shut up.”
“Listen to me.” She grabbed my wrist. I flinched, but did not pull it away. “I know you think you can mold this world into whatever shape you want. And if it doesn’t come out okay, you think you can just flatten it out and start all over. But there are some things you can’t change.” She let go. “Like the fact that I’m your family. And the fact that you’re living in a body that does not want to die.”
“But I want to die.”
“Well, this isn’t about what you want. This is about what is and what isn’t. And right now, you’re alive. For better or worse, you’re alive. And you don’t get to change that. There’s nothing you could do about it.” My sister walked back to her car.
“I could jump.”
“But you won’t.” She drove away.
I didn’t move for a long time. The waves kept breaking against the cliff and the wind kept throwing rain into my face. It struck me that even if I wanted to, I would not be able to stop the movement of the ocean or the pounding of the rain. Perhaps my sister was right, and I could not even stop the beating of my own heart or the train wreck of my mind. I felt powerless. The control I once had over my world had disappeared, if it had existed at all.
“No. I guess I won’t.” I noticed a small bush with flowers at my feet. I did not recognize the flowers, but they were white, the only ones nearby. The roots of the bush clawed for purchase on the rocky cliff as the wind threatened to tear them up and send the flowers out to sea. I knelt down. “I guess we have something in common, don’t we?” For the first time in an era, I smiled. “We just can’t seem to leave.”