A cool breeze swept in through the window. She observed the happy pair outside. The man made silly faces and the baby giggled with delight. She felt a familiar tightness in her chest.

The boy behind her--no, the man--continued his attempt to fix the broken chair at the kitchen table. She still thought of him as a boy sometimes. It had been so long. He often saw her as a girl instead of the grown woman she was now. She didn’t know this; he could add this to the list of things he hadn’t told her.

The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and her heart was aching. She heard him tinkering with the tools behind her. It was a familiar sound. No, it was more than that--it was a comforting sound. A few moments had passed since either had spoken.

“I wish you had,” she whispered softly and felt her chest collapse in on itself.

The clinking tools stopped for a moment. He steeled himself then looked up at her. But she wasn’t looking at him. She was still gazing out the window. She wasn’t visibly angry or upset. There was no evidence she felt the same devastation that was wreaking havoc on his insides. A little smile played on her lips as if she was envisioning what could have been. It passed over her face like a mist.

He stared at her profile silhouetted against the soft light coming through the window. He reminded himself to breathe and turned back to the chair. She walked out to the garden where her husband and baby waited for her.
​

​Harvey Franklin Jackson was enjoying his golfing holiday in Scotland away from his long-suffering wife back in Texas. In Harvey's world, women had only two functions, one of which was to look after any children that were the result of the other. In everything else they were inferior beings –in politics, in business, in the arts and in the professions, but, most of all, as drivers. Each day, Harvey sneered, swore, made obscene gestures and blared his horn at any female unfortunate to find herself in his path and being tailgated by him. But at least women drivers provided him with a series of cheap jokes to share with his friends.
 
Harvey Franklin Jackson showered, shaved and dressed, clambering into his outsized golfing gear, which today was his favourite plus-fours and tweeds: it didn't look so out of places when he wore the braces necessary to keep his trousers up somewhere near his midriff. Then he set off for breakfast in the dining room, where he demanded to see the manager because the young waitress had brought warm milk for his americano rather than cold. When the duty manager turned out to be female, he berated her further for her poor management and insisted on reporting her in turn to a male colleague. Any male colleague.
 
Thankfully, his golf today would be at an all-male golf club where women were only allowed into the clubhouse to clean the toilets. Scowling, Harvey Franklin Jackson left his hotel, climbed into his outsized four-wheel drive hire car and set off down the driveway. Turning right, the last thing he saw in life was the large family saloon coming straight towards him, and the woman driving it. Harvey had forgotten to keep to the left side of the road.
 
Mercifully, the woman emerged unhurt.

At half past 10 on a gloomy Saturday morning I find myself standing on the edge of a cliff. I look down. Only 60 seconds till I jump off, heading towards the cruel, meandering river below.

I look around. A few strange faces. Busy capturing moments of their beautiful life. Beautiful? I smirk. Then why am I here today? Ready to let go. Why do I not see any friendly face in these last few moments?

Why?

40 seconds.

Face your fear – they said. Let go of your shackles – they said. Embrace your fear, and enjoy true essence of life. Live life at it’s fullest. It would be excruciating – they never said. It would make your bones quiver, so much so that you will want to give up – they missed.

And so, here I am. On the cliff.

30 seconds. I panic.

What if this moment is the last before I jump? Before I embrace what comes next?

I see a few smiling faces. Happy. Excited. Maybe they wave?

20 seconds. I shiver.

Flashes of faces. Friends. Family. A few memories. Arguing. Laughing. Without a hint of what comes next.

10 seconds.

So this is it! Maybe it is better like this. To find myself enraptured by the wind, scarcely able to breathe, captured in an instant from hope to despair, blood thumping through your veins so fast that you feel it, is worth the last few moments of sanity.

5 seconds.

4.

3.

2.

1.

I jump.

A rush of wind gushing through. My heart beating with suffocating pace. The river seems close. Much close.

Splashes of water on my face. A lump in my throat.

I close my eyes. The end is near.

A sudden jolt.

I stop.

The rope works!

I let out a shout. A shout of joy. Of exuberance. Of conquering fear. The fear of heights. The fear of falling down. The fear of letting go.

This is worth the asphyxiating fear. Because what comes next is pure freedom. Freedom from my fear. Freedom from my own shackles. Freedom to live my life. Live, and not just breathe.

This gives hope. Hope, that even at the lowest point, all is not over. Hope, that the journey downhill will stop.

And now, I am going back up.
​

It was a sunny, normal day in Lexington, Kentucky. Little kids from down the street were riding their trikes, teens were hanging out at the park, our new next-door neighbors were arguing about what shade of beige to paint their house, and I Mary Sanentini was listening to my mom telling me to go have fun and play outside. I am resentful but I comply. Outside it is scalding hot, so hot that I feel if I stay outside any longer my skin might melt off. I walk around the side of our big three-story rental house that we rented a few weeks after my dad disappeared. My mom couldn’t bear to look at all of the stuff and relive all of the memories, so we moved, and to be honest I couldn’t live with it either. When I reach the old dingy building where we keep all of dad’s old tools and my bikes I picked the rusted deadbolt lock and open the doors. When I walk inside I am suddenly hit with a powerful wave of memories. Dad smiling at me and my mom while using his 50-year-old Stanley drill that grandpa gave him when he was a kid. Dad and I working hard building the treehouse in the old backyard. I finally realize how much I miss him. Instantly I crumple to the floor and start sobbing. It must’ve been only a few minutes but it felt like hours until I feel cold strong arms grab me. I scream and then a wet cloth was pressed against my nose. A sedative. I thought. I tried to fight it but sure enough, I started getting entangled in a haze of blackness. The last thing I remember was hearing my mom scream my name and a gunshot before the sedative overcame me.

………………………..

I awoke horrified forgetting about the terrors that occurred however long ago. I was encompassed in darkness. The only light coming from a small candle in the corner of the room. It was damp and smelled like moss in the place and I couldn’t pinpoint what the ground felt like. I crawled over to the candle where I was shocked to find a body. At first, I thought it was dead but as I looked closer I noticed that it’s chest I realized that it was heaving steadily. Please don’t be a killer. I thought as I tried to shake it awake. The person swatted at my hand for a few seconds then arose and looked me up and down. I’d recognize that face anywhere, even under the scrawny physique, ratty hair, and the crazed look in his eye from exhaustion. Both of our jaws were practically on the floor as I whispered. “ Dad.”In reply, he whispered. “Mary.”
​