Jumper
It was a Thursday afternoon when Justice found himself on the roof of his apartment building looking down to the alley below. It had been three years to the day he started suffering from depression. For two months now he had been contemplating suicide. To Justice the roof that he used to enjoy so much, and was so full of life now seemed as dead and gray as she is now. The tomatoes and flowers of the roof top garden looked withered and brown. On the sunniest of days, the say was greyest of grey. The fading retro colors of the lawn chair and umbrella no longer reminded him of his childhood but looked like something that is better off forgotten.
Justice had been standing on the ledge looking down onto the filthy pavement, and about to take that life-ending jump, when a man came through the door to the roof. Justice didn’t turn to see who came, and the man didn’t yell for him to get down. He just slowly walked over to the ledge, and sat down without saying a word. Justice saw now saw him out of the corner of his eye and said with a snarl in his voice, “What are you doing up here?”
The man calmly replied, “I live on the second floor in room number three. I have a garden up here that I came to water. What are you doing up here?” Justice didn’t answer; he kept his eyes down to the narrow path of cement that would soon be his death. “Are you going to jump?”
“What does it matter to you?” Justice shot back with tears growing in his eyes.
“Well I would hate to see another life thrown away.”
“I hardly have a life left.”
“Why do you say that?”
Justice didn’t notice the tears rolling down his cheeks as his mind filled with flash backs of the life changing day three years ago. He wanted to answer. He wanted to share his sorrow but no words would form past the lump in his throat.
“From what I can tell you don’t have much of a life, currently.” The man from room 203 went on, “But I do know that you have a great life ahead of you. How old are you? Twenty-six, twenty-eight? You still have a whole life to live, why throw it away now?”
Justice agreed with this stranger in his head. The lump growing in his throat was yelling at him to say something. Anything. When he still didn’t say anything the man filled the silence. “Well, I’m going to pick some strawberries, and if you want you can come down to my place and we can have some strawberries and cream, and maybe talk about what’s going on.” With that he got up and left.
Justice wasn’t sure what would be best. He caused of the death of the woman he loved, but she was the one who ran into the street. It wasn’t his fault that the driver didn’t see her. He should forgive himself for that fight. She was always quick to forgive. But what did he have to live for? He lost his friends, his job, and most of the time he couldn’t find the energy to go get his food stamps. What would she have to say about killing himself? What would happen when he got to the other side if he took his own life? The thought of her waiting for him, and what she might say broke his heart.
He raised his head to look at the sky. The tears in his eyes blurred out the sun. He looked behind him and saw an empty rooftop. That was it. There was nothing left for him. Then he realized that means there is plenty of room to change.
Looking down at the ground he made up his mind. Justice closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and took a step down from the ledge. Felling the soft, gravely tar roof under his feet, the sky seemed a bit brighter.
As Justice approached the third door, on the second floor, his stomach filled with butterflies. He gave a timid knock on the door and right away it opened with the man smiling at him. That was when Justice first saw that he had a very distinct, very bright gold ring in the middle of his hazel iris.
They sat down at a table beneath the large window looking out over the city. The kitchen reminded Justice of diners he saw in movies from the fifties.
“So what pushed you to the edge of the roof?” The man was putting a spoon full of strawberries in his mouth. Justice noticed the hand holding the spoon had a tattoo of a pair of wings. The wings were done in a very simple comic book style. He liked it. The tattoo seemed to give him hope and strength to talk.
“Well I guess you could say that it all started about three years ago. I was dating this girl, Chantelle. I loved her since the first day we met. She just so unlike all the other girls I know, She was confident, she wasn’t scared to speak her mind. She just blew me away. But I had this problem where I couldn’t seem to do anything right. For the last few weeks we were together, we would get in a fight every day about just stupid little things.” He looked up and saw the man looking right back into his eyes, and Feeling intimidated, looked quickly back down at his bowl and continued, “I also had this friend Chloe. Chloe was just a friend. We met a while before me and Chantelle knew each other. Well I ran into Chloe on the street just outside my apartment for the first time in a year or so. So I invited her in for a quick lunch. We had lunch, ate it, talked, and that was it. Chantelle came home sooner than I thought she would. And I guess it looked like I may have been cheating on her, so quickly she ran out. I chased her trying to explain the situation.” Justice paused now staring blankly into space, no longer aware of where he was or who he was talking to. He was hit with the emotion he felt of that day, and how amazing it felt to finally share it.
“We got outside, and she was about to cross the street when she turned around to say something. But just as she looked my way, she was hit. The driver spilt some hot coffee on his lap, didn’t see her…” tears came again. This time from the release of all the pain and sorrow he has felt for the last three years.
Three years ago Justice’s life fell apart with another lost theirs. Now, over a bowl of fruit and cream with a stranger, he found it again. Talking about a once painful subject, has given him a new start.
