(Various TWs)
Lori leaned over the bridge railing, gazing down at the wide river below. In the low lighting of this cold December night, it looked less like a flowing current of water, and more like a solid surface of inky blackness.166Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrObdJowqof
Well, at this height, it might as well be a solid surface, she thought.166Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvuNMKxj3jp
An updraft blew December wind mixed with a tinge of sea brine into her face, causing her shoulder-length brown hair to dance, before collapsing back in a tangled mess, covering her eyes and, as always, somehow getting in her mouth too.166Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqKq5PEPHTB
She brushed it back under her jacket hood and returned her gaze to below. It had finally happened; she’d run out of excuses.166Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs7qQl1tv3x
Her booklist was empty, she’d finished every season of her favourite shows, none of the artists she followed were releasing an album or single in the near future, and there wasn’t even anything she particularly wanted to buy.166Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9kx8Vs1elO
Nothing left to wait for.
Up to this point, she’d managed to sleepwalk her way through life; pushing herself forward by distracting herself with “the next thing”. As long as there was a new something on the horizon to anticipate, like a child waiting to unwrap her gifts under the Christmas tree, she could force herself through the motions a little longer. But she’d woken up and found the base of the tree empty.
Here she was, a Christmas Eve alone, kicking her feet with nothing left to do, not even her University homework. There were no parties waiting for her arrival, no close friends waiting for her phone call, no lover waiting for her return.
Nothing left to hold her back.
She steeled herself, placing her hands firmly on the guardrail, taking a final look around to ensure she was alone.
And then, she saw the gargoyle.
It appeared to be your average Hollywood depiction of a devil, all twisted horns, bat wings, and hooved feet. It was posed as if it were lunging at the viewer, bursting from the alcove it was carved into with its arms outstretched in front of it, most of the fingers missing from either weather or vandals. Although, the spray-paint graffiti covering the rest of the gargoyle made Lori strongly suspect the latter.
Looking the violated gargoyle in the eyes, her pale grey-blue meeting its dirty stone-grey, Lori felt a wave of self-consciousness wash over her.
“Um… do you mind?” she protested over the wind.
The gargoyle made no reply.
“I wasn’t looking for an audience” she muttered, turning back to the railing. “God!”
But she couldn’t escape the feeling of those stone eyes on her, pricking her right between the shoulder blades.
Angrily, Lori spun around and lashed out at the statue, painfully cracking a hand against its stony fingers and sending another piece of them flying.
Lori yelped, clutching at her now-bleeding hand. She threw a venomous glare at the statue as if it were the aggressor, but the gargoyle didn’t respond.
It just watched in silence.
Feeling more than a little stupid, Lori turned back to the guardrails, but the moment had already passed. The stinging in her hand had brought her back to herself.
“What the hell am I doing, anyway?” She sighed, a long rattling sigh as the tension escaped her, gradually turning into a bitter sobbing. Ignoring the heavy snow beginning to pile up on her head and shoulders, Lori continued to sob out 22 years of empty purposelessness, under the stony gaze of the gargoyle.
Ten Years Later
Lori stood next to the yellow line, waiting for her subway connection. Just the other day, someone had been pushed onto the tracks, so she’d heard. Idly, she wondered if it had been motivated by revenge, or simply a twisted impulse.
She surveyed the crowd packed tightly behind her. In reality, how many people really cared when a tragedy like that struck? She couldn’t honestly say she did. In the end, the vast currents of society swept everyone along relentlessly, leaving mercifully little time to think.
That’s how she’d made it these last ten years. The system pushed her along from University into a career, chained her down by student loans and rent, the momentum of living having grown so strong she didn’t even consider the alternative anymore.
Living required paying her bills, and paying her bills required living; it was the sort of circular logic society was built upon. What little she was left with after her expenses and savings went towards idle entertainment to fill her non-working hours, keeping her mind busy. A preoccupied mind was a happy mind, after all. Well, a not-unhappy mind, at least. And not-unhappiness was society’s collective goal.
It occurred to Lori that life was spent going from one waiting period to the next; waiting for her vacation, waiting for a promotion, waiting to pay off her loans… and she knew that even if one period ended, another would soon begin. After her loans were paid, she’d need a car, and maybe a house of her own. A mortgage would shackle her to life well into her forties or fifties, when she’d then be waiting for retirement, and after retirement…
Waiting for death.
Wait, that wasn’t right. Human society couldn’t be reduced to one collective death-drive, could it? There had to be…
The sound of the train approaching broke into Lori’s thoughts, clearing her head. Thankfully, society was loud enough to drown out her inner voices. Yes, thinking to much, that was the real… what was she thinking about, again?
Lori turned to watch the oncoming train, when she felt herself abruptly shoved from behind. She collided roughly with the tracks below, biting her tongue and filling her mouth with a taste of iron.
A small groan escaping her lips, Lori looked up, and saw the oncoming train.
“Oh.”
*******
Lori eventually became aware. Not of anything in particular, for there wasn’t anything, really. But she still was, against all odds.
The first thing that struck her was how good she felt. She hadn’t realized how much living weighed a soul down. She no longer felt hungry or tired, cold or hot. Her chronic backpain had vanished, taking with it her caffeine headache, her cavity, her menstrual cramps, and her full-body fatigue. Her mind felt light, no longer overloaded with the constant alerts of an unhealthy body feeding into an even less healthy mind. For the first time since she was a toddler, she truly felt not-unhappy.
It didn’t last.
Was that seriously it, she thought? That measly 32 years of preoccupation and distraction was all she got? And to have it ended so easily at the whims of an unknown and probably unpunished assailant… what was even the point?
32 years just didn’t seem long enough. She hadn’t accomplished anything yet! If she had at least reached sixty…
Wait, then what? She’d own a house and a car, and maybe some retirement savings? Was that it? Was that supposed to validate all she went through? Some return investment that was.
All the while Lori had been musing, her surroundings had gradually been changing, and she only now became aware of them.
Playing out in front of her like an unskippable cutscene was her life’s story, looping from birth to death, then back again. The full Lori Sedlák story, in all it’s uncut glory.
She found it insufferably dull.
How had it turned out this way? Surely everyone else wasn’t also trapped in this monotonous hellscape of an existence she saw playing out before her. She must have made a wrong turn somewhere.
Was it when she decided at a young age to focus on her grades? No, that was so she could get ahead of the curve. She had earned her scholarships, after all. That surely showed the results of her hard work. Was it when she went into finances in university? No, that was because it was a stable, growing industry, one that guaranteed her a job. Was it in her choice of companies? No, from the moment she’d finished University, she’d always listened to her recommendations, taken every available advancement, moving from company to company, and somehow always staying ahead of the mean wage. She’d rented because it was close to the office, took the subway because it was cheaper, avoided relationships so she could focus on her career, saved so she could retire…
She had always picked the right choice! Hadn’t she? Was it even possible to wind up on the wrong path after only picking “right” choices?
The “film” played out her final, inglorious moments, then looped again. Over and over, young Lori stretched thin from an earnest child into a world-weary adult, splattered across the tracks of Line 2.
Again.
Again.
Again.
“Stop!”
It wasn’t a scream, a yell, or even a sound. Lori didn’t have a mouth to speak with, after all. But her thoughts rang out all the same, and the cycling presentation froze on a young Lori Sedlák of 22, standing alone on a bridge on Christmas Eve.
“I want to go back!” Lori’s thoughts rang out into the pale void. “I want to help her! I want to save her from all this before it’s too late!” Her vision blurred, as if with tears.
“Please!”
And then, the scene had changed. Or, at least, Lori’s perspective of it had. She looked down at her outstretched arms of stone, half her fingers missing. She felt her wings unfurl behind her, rigid as concrete.
She was the gargoyle.
And there in front of here was 22-year-old Lori, leaning over the guardrail, steeling her nerve.
Lori knew what she had to do.
Her arms wide in embrace, she approached her younger self, her stony knees stiff and unbending.
And then, she pushed.
With a jolt, Lori of past and future were one again, spiralling crazily to the frigid waters below, sea and sky all just swirls of muddy night. Lori tried to scream, but the wind resistance made her bite her tongue, filling her mouth with a taste of iron.
And then, merciful nothingness.
The End
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