4

All of a sudden, Alfred was home again. His mind was blank to a point where he couldn’t remember whether he’d gone to work or not yesterday, given the fact that daylight trickled into the apartment through the blinds like a glow stick-yellow stream. He came to as he was standing at the window once again, peeking through a gap in the blinds. Watching the world moving without him. Watching the whites of his eyes turn red. This is the day, he assured himself. His continuous haze of a life didn’t bear anything but obstacles. Like a bystander at a crime scene, the barrier tape kept you away, banishing you into a state of mere observation, distant from everything, but mostly yourself.

Today, the breeze was sharper and had a glassy sting to it. The weather was sunny, but not too warm. Perfect. Alfred still had the black suit on that he wore to work yesterday. So he did go to work.  The chlorine water lazily splashed over the edge. Splash. Silence. Splash. Breeze. Splash. This was the day something very bad would happen to him. Finally.  He hovered over the rim of the pool, constantly switching from concrete floor to water, from life to death. The breeze grew stronger, it seemed to push him towards the water. Alfred imagined it to whisper: “Do it, get in, do it.”

Then, arbitrarily, he had to think about the poison cocktail. A very clear image of the beverage floated around in his mind, with its odd colour and the dozens of citrus adornments. He took a step back from the edge of the pool and allowed himself to breathe for a little while. Why did he order that cocktail? He never went to bars, let alone drink anything other than the occasional gin tonic. After work, he’d go straight home. Always. Alfred must’ve made the distinct decision to order the cocktail, something so blatantly ridiculous, so compulsively fun. That night, Alfred had treated himself to something. He didn’t know he could do that without any consequence. The breeze made him shudder. For the first time, he felt cold on the rooftop. The water in the pool looked daunting, like a greyish and chemical liquid cage awaiting to capture him forever. 

Suddenly, he must’ve had some kind of epiphany, a revelation as mundane as the cold rooftop cement, because he stepped away from the edge with a determination he didn’t know he had in himself. He felt the goosebumps on his arms and the wind in his hair. He felt his heart beating in his chest and the vibrations of the city; the people, the cars and buses, the subways and dogs and the music and the pigeons, and he felt everything that was so alive, so vividly present beneath his dripping wet feet. He felt, and he never felt so much at once, he never realised that not only was the world around him alive, but so was he, alive and breathing, and feeling. He was part of it all, he too belonged. He wanted to live. He deserved to live.

As Alfred Dalton climbed down the stairs from the rooftop, he felt a sort of excitement tingling under his skin. Fresh and new, as if he’d lingered in the sharp breeze long enough for it to gust away the shell that kept him in utter control, he made his way back to his apartment. Life is not guilt. Life is a poison cocktail.