Ashes to ashes

Jacinta Hannaford

The monotony was driving her insane. Like a robot, she completed her daily routine; get up, get dressed, eat meals, sleep. Get up, get dressed, eat meals, sleep. Get up, get dressed -- it all seemed so pointless now, so futile.

It wasn't like she was making a difference in the world, not even the smallest dent. In fact, she was pretty sure the world didn't even notice her presence. It was like she was trapped in a tiger's cage, the bars allowing her to see the outside world, yet containing her so that she could not participate.

No one was paying the slightest attention. So much for being immortal, she thought. She had nothing to show for herself. No work that she was proud of. She had not discovered a cure for disease. She had not achieved world peace. She hadn't even a partner to call hers, no one to remember her. If she left the world now, no one would notice. In no way would she be remembered.

Opening a notebook, she turned her freckled face to the Balinese sky, the gentle breeze fluttering her short dark brown hair, feeling the soft caress of the wind on areas of exposed skin, sucking in the polluted air. The sky was a washed out light blue, leaving the clouds a startling contrast of dark grey in the sinking sun.

There were traces of rich pinks and oranges from the sunset, and the water from the pool she sat beside lapped peacefully, almost calming. Such tranquil settings, she noted. With an ironic snort, she mused at how different life and novel were from each other. The abundant use of pathetic fallacy in books meant that the surroundings always matched the feelings and thoughts of the protagonist.

Yet here she was, in the novel of her own life, where the outside setting did not mirror her insides. It didn't describe how she was feeling.

The boundless expanse of the sky suggested the freedom to fly. The tranquility would symbolise inner peace. If only her life were a story, then she could just change her feelings. Feelings of confusion and loss. Feelings of inadequacy. A fear of failing clung to her like a thick, mystical fog. And with all these negative feelings came the God of all emotion.

Depression.

If you were to kill yourself, how would you do it? She had read this question in a book, where she distressingly identified with the disturbed youth described in its pages. The idea of suicide sickened her so much she actually gagged, yet still there was a nagging attraction.

Imagine what sort of person you would have to be to drag razors through your skin, not merely to hurt yourself, but with the intention to die. To have the ability to bite through the white, pure flesh. In a way, it all seemed rather romantic, ridding the world of yourself and your uselessness in such a dramatic way.

She had visions of herself lying in a modest position on the floor, surrounded by thick, rich blood, full of life that was once hers. People would swarm around her, finally taking notice. Maybe this was a way to achieve immortality.

She wasn't even sure why she was suffering so much inside. Her heart felt heavy with indescribable emotion, dripping through her body, so she was blanketed in a thick, immovable thing that tormented her from within, rotting her insides, while outside she continued to look like every other person. She knew what her insides looked like. Black, decayed, putrid, every part of her disintegrating.

She couldn't cut herself. If she did, she would expose her rotting insides to the world. People would know she wasn't perfect, and they wouldn't want to remember a person so destroyed.

She wasn't sure how she would like to leave the world yet, but she knew it would be done in a way to immortalize herself. A suicide note would be necessary.

Mother,

I want to be immortalized. I wish to be remembered. Yet how can a soul so darkened by sins of past be revered? I have one which has been decaying from the day I was born, my father's sins forced onto an innocent baby. I can only think of one way to find peace within myself.

She could hang herself. She could see it now; her mother screaming in anguish as she pulled uselessly at the limp figure hanging from above like an angel suspended in midair, the neck tightened by a rope twisted into a perfect noose, the body swaying slightly as a purifying wind whipped away the charred soul. But she was unsure of how to tie a noose properly, and did not want to leave the world a reminder of her uselessness by making a mistake.

I sit here, contemplating how to leave the world, yet as the outside is starting to mirror how I feel inside, shrouded with darkness, the swirl of differently coloured clouds matching my inner turmoil, I am still undecided of how to follow my father's footsteps.

Her own father had shot himself with a gun. It seemed fitting that she should copy him, seeing as her anguish appeared to be punishment for his own suicide, leaving a young woman with an unborn child. But she couldn't imagine leaving a permanent hole on the other side of her head. It might let other demons in, instead of removing the demons that already clamoured inside of her skull, scratching her from the inside.

You can do what you like with my body.

Her father had requested that his be cremated, the ashes of his body freed on Kuta Beach. It had been his favourite beach, before it had been taken over by tourists. Now hundreds of people stamped all over him, lay out on him, stretching in the sun, basking in light.

Suddenly she was running, her brown hair matted to her forehead from the wind that crashed into her as her feet navigated the small alleys. She wasn't sure where she was going or why she was running, but that didn't seem to matter.

For the first time she felt clean and pure, the wind she that she was sucking into her body somehow washing clean the stinking, decomposing hole inside. She burst out of a small alley and ran across the busy road, unaware of the beeping cars, screeching to avoid her, and stumbled onto the white sand, falling to her knees in exhaustion.

The beach was, for some inexplicable reason, devoid of people. Sobbing, she read the note she had been writing. "I don't want to be like him. I'm better than that, I'm better than him. I want to stop pretending I am him, that I posses his charred soul," she thought.

She ripped the page out of the notebook, and then continued ripping it, until it became a mass of small unidentifiable pieces of white.

She let go of them, allowing her father's emotions to fall to the sand and disappear, to mingle with her father's ashes.