That moment he begins to climb up the ledge, I run. I've never run this fast my entire life, but desperation allows you to defy your very own nature. I can feel the heat of my acceleration as it scorches my feet, prompts my heart to throb and scream, aching to get out of my chest. So this is the feeling of momentum. The burning, liberating sensation as you dash at the speed of light. A flaming asteroid plummeting towards its end.
As soon as I reach Daire, my arms immediately envelop his torso, and I use all of my strength to haul him back and pin him to the ground. By instinct, I sit on top of him, trapping his body—his life, with my knees. When my magical adrenaline begins to wear down, I madly gasp for air. My hands and shoulders begin to tremble. My chest is pounding so hard like stones against bones made of straw.
With my dry mouth, I breathe out, "Are…you...insane?!"
He turns away. There is no opposing force coming from him. His wrists that are pinned by my hands are ghost-cold. All the sunlight has been drained from his eyes, and now they are weathered, hollow. From this position, he looks like an empty vessel, as though his soul had already jumped off long before I ran to save him.
"Let me go," he says.
"NO!"
He sighs. "I meant get your butt off me. It's making me uncomfortable."
I studied him for a while before I finally got up and settled in front of him, granting him space. But I hold his shoulders, in case he makes a fool out of himself again. He sighs. "You're too close."
"Well…" I take a deep breath. "YOU'RE TOO SENSITIVE! DO YOU REALIZE THAT YOU'RE GOING AGAINST NATURE?! WHERE WERE YOU DURING NATURAL SELECTION? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOUR BRAIN SURGERY? DID YOUR FRONTAL LOBE GET EXTRACTED BY A VACUUM CLEANER?"
Breathless, I realize I have never been this angry before. I have experienced various things in my life, but I've never witnessed someone who is about to take their life before me. The enormous responsibility is still trembling in my hands. What if I wasn't able to catch him, and he falls and dies? A seventh-story building can smash your skull in less than three seconds. But death can crush a person for a lifetime. Witnessing someone's death also kills you in return. Images of the past flash before me: my father on the couch and his newspaper—my father walking towards the door—my father smiling for the last time—my father never coming back—then, fire, fire, fire. And what would happen next? What would I say to the police? To his family? What would I do after that? What would become of me?
My hold on his shoulder tightens as I resentfully pierce his eyes with these questions. But he looks away then says. "It's not my brain...it's my kidneys."
When illness comes in the form of a stone, it hits you when you're back is turned. Daire reveals to me that he has a rare genetic kidney disease that ultimately led to kidney failure. So, he doesn't have a choice but to proceed to dialysis, which probably grants him at least five years to live.
He shows me his arm, "I had my first session right after you left," he says. "We don't have the money for a kidney transplant–hell, my mother can barely even afford the hospital bills. Dialysis is so damn expensive, don't you know that? And I have to do it three times a week that she has to find a second job and work overtime to keep me alive, to pay for food, the bills, rent, my siblings' tuition fees. My father is dead, at least that's what I like to believe. And I can't help her anymore because I'm as good as dead too."
He gives me a bitter smile. "And even if I survive those five years, I'll have to do this my entire life. So I might as well die now while I'm still not dragging everyone with me."
I widen my eyes. "Well then, do you think your family will be relieved if they learn that you killed yourself for their sake? Do you think it won't make them resent themselves for the rest of their lives?"
He's quiet for a long time. And I learn that he's not the same Daire I'd see walking past the hallways. I notice that he's lost a little weight, the collar bone protruding from his flushed skin, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the almost glinting paleness of his lips. I'm afraid my fingers will slip through like he's nothing but haze. Though strangely enough, despite his frail physique, I sense the depth of his being. A part of him I've never seen before. I realize I'm looking at the real Daire Cruz for the first time.
"You really want to live so much, don't you?"
He looks at me.
"Plato once said that the soul is imprisoned in the body and claimed that there are two worlds: our world which he called the world of senses, and the real world, he called the world of ideas. He said this world is just a copy of the real one, and in order to get there, we need to die and rise from our bodies because they're nothing but a trap. I'm not surprised why he's also a sexist."
I continue, "There's another ancient ritual, Sokushinbutsu, where Japanese monks undergo a lengthy, painful process of drinking poisonous tea and have themselves sealed in a tomb alive until they die. They believe that this ritual can make them reborn into higher, divine beings, but only if the corpses successfully mummified, immortalized. There's also this Hindu meditation called Mahasamadhi, in which a yogi would intentionally leave his body to be part of the greater universe."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"No matter where you are, or the timeframe you're in, all of us have this universal hope that there's something better after death. That's why most of us would struggle so hard not to do bad things, to forget our pleasures, some even become martyrs, and that's all because we all want to wind up in heaven to live an unconditionally beautiful life we would never have on earth."
He scoffs, "So, you're telling me that I want to live so bad that I tried killing myself? That maybe just maybe, I might turn into some higher being and live the life I wanted to have?" He shakes his head incredulously.
"You may not like what I said, but sometimes suicide is a desperate expedient to live. "
Daire stirs but doesn't say anything for a while. He looks up at the starry sky. Orion's belt is shining above us, two thousand light-years away. And right now, I see it as a diagonal ellipsis since we're both lost for words to say.
Daire must have had a beautiful life before this happened to him. But I've always known that from the beginning. People who rarely have big experiences in their life are the ones that surrender easily. Whereas the skin of someone who is used to suffering thickens overtime. The longer the exposure, the higher the tolerance.
It's quite obvious, actually. A lucky person has eyes that would glisten even in the darkness. There is flair in his airy voice. The way he walks shows his lack of impatience and urgency for the future. There is ignorance basking on his horizon. Daire must have a life free of change and chaos. His mom and siblings must have loved him so much that he grew into a hero adored by everyone. The world must be so kind to him that he had never imagined it would pull everything up short like that. Thus, he tried to end it all because it would hurt so much recalling how perfect his life once was. Because death gives a sense of renewal. Death is a vortex that would transport you to a state of nonexistence where everything that pulls you, worries you, and pains you will be severed.
"But you said...you said death is beautiful."
"Are you seriously telling me that this is my fault?!"
"No." He turns away. "I was just desperate. I thought if I end it here, I won't have to deal with all of this."
I sigh, "Look, I stand by my words that death is relatively beautiful, but I'm not telling you to commit suicide!" I sternly look at him in the eye, "It took six million years for our ancestors to evolve into homo sapiens. Six million years before we get to have larger brains and build advanced civilizations. Your heart beats one-hundred thousand times a day, and your body produces two to four million red blood cells every second just to keep you alive. And out of all the four-thousand nine-hundred ninety-nine sperm cells that raced to your mother's egg, you're that one lucky sperm that won the competition. Things may not look good right now, but there are still a lot of opportunities ahead of you. The future is still promising... and you need to have a beautiful life to deserve a beautiful death."
He returns his full attention to me. "How do I live a beautiful life then?"
"I'm not your mothership. Figure it out yourself."
Daire veers back, his eyes may be glued to mine, but his mind is floating somewhere else. His tensed shoulders soften. His whole being seemed to be in regression as he folds and embraces his knees.
Without thinking, I move closer, leaning myself forward until our foreheads and the tip of our noses meet and press together. I close my eyes.
"What are you doing?" he asks, his breath warm.
"This is a traditional Maōri greeting called hongi that honors the heart and soul of another person. In the Maōri culture, it's a symbol of unity that allows two people to share the sacred breath of life. I don't know how it's appropriate to this situation, but I feel like this gesture could ease your worries somehow–and psychology says that touching offers comfort to a person so…" I sigh and open my eyes. "What I mean is...don't worry because everything is going to be okay."
We stare at each other for a moment until I realize what I've done. Heat rises to my face, and I let go and turn away.
You're really not used to comforting people, aren't you? You could've just tapped me on the shoulder and tell me it's okay." He chuckles.
I apologize and tell him to forget what I did. But he just stares at me, his eyes glistening.
"Do it again," he says.