Reach

(Flash fiction)

Time thawed and the ageing process gained pace making it harder for me to catch up. From my mothers flimsy pedestal, looking back at the thirty-six years of failure, each failure a footprint leading directly to where I now stand. Things were better when I was still numb. Or before I'd tried. Before the chronic insomnia and all of its friends: the anxiety; the lockjaw and its two cracked molars; the perpetual sores on my feet which, in protest, have refused to heal; the physical weakness and the inability to harbour a still thought. All this in slow motion. Everything, two-dimensional. All so silent that the world doesn't notice. Nor will it. Time wont blink an eye. The tide wont flinch. No faith or fight left in me. So the world does end in 2012. Ready to dance the jig. Never was much of a dancer. One last move. One last step. Probably the most courageous of my life. My life: a failed career; a failed marriage, if you could even call it that, having it constantly flaunted before me, right in my face. Right around the corner and I'm supposed to just smile. Patronised by a firm handshake. Even something as simple as eating food then later shitting it out completely underlines how pointless everything is. It's fine. No one will notice. Tug the rope hard. Make sure it's tight, strong, don't fuck this up. Not this. Even you can do this right. Do it. Just kick the stool away...
Fuck! God! No! Help! Grab the rope! Help! This cant be..! Isn't right..! The rope... No... The radiator... Get your foot to it... Reach for it... Reach... Fuck... Please... Reach... God... Cant reach... Cant... Reach... Reach... Reach.

The End.


Copyright Roddy Smith 2015.