A man takes one last sip of whiskey. He gets in his car and drives to his favorite place, Glenwood Canyon.
He arrives, parks his car, takes out a flashlight and a car registration from the glove box and then unscrews his license plate.
He throws his registration and license plate into the river as he walks to a particular spot
He and his wife would always spend time at when she was still alive
It's one of the highest points of the canyon and it has an incredible view of the valley beneath it
He has come to commit suicide
The man stands at the edge of the canyon thinking one last time about his life
He looks out at the massive beautiful landscape the night sky sprinkled with stars
Seamlessly converges with the stone of the canyons edge as it trips down into the river beneath
He feels a combination of wonder and pain as he's admiring the landscape a woman's voice behind him yells,
Hey! Startled, the man almost falls, but then catches himself. He turns around to find a woman appearing out of the forest
She wears a long dress and has long silvery straight hair
She's old, but sort of pretty. It's late and dark and the man wonders why she's here by herself.
She approaches the man and says "Hello". Kind of confused and thrown off, the man says "Hello" back
"What are you doing here so late by yourself?" the man asks. In kind of a snarky way
The woman responds with the same question. "What are you doing here so late by yourself?"
Again thrown off the man says, "I don't know. I guess I just needed to clear my head."
"This is my favorite spot."
You're awfully close to the edge of that cliff to be clear in your head replies the woman are you going to jump?
No, like I said, I'm just here to clear my head. I've had a long couple of days says the man
Okay, well have a good night says the woman she begins to walk away
this confuses the man
He had quickly
constructed a fantasy in his head that this woman was some deity type who appeared by fate to save him to convince him not to jump.
To change his mind about life as the woman walks away, the man calls out. Hey wait!
You never said why you're here. The woman turns around
You never said why you're here replies the woman. Yes, I did
I just told you the man says with a nervous guilty laugh
The woman gets really close to the man quickly moving from where she was right up into the man's face
Why you're really here. She whispers.
The man thrown off yet again stutters. I'm clearing my fucking head, okay!?
Why don't you believe me?
the woman turns around and begins to walk away again as she begins to walk further away the man panics at the thought of the
woman leaving without trying to save him. He yells out. Okay, fine. I'm here to jump. The woman turns around
Pardon? She asks, I'm here to kill myself. This life is awful and I'm ready to die. Okay. There you go
The woman comes back to where the man standing. What's so awful about it?
She asks, what's not so awful about it? Replies the man. It's filled with ugliness and sadness
There's tragedy, there's conflict, there's heartbreak, It's endlessly difficult for no reason, success is hard
There's no obvious meaning to anything, even just the little things.
The traffic, the cold weather, the Mondays, the way the grocery stores are lit, and the god-awful
cashiers that always look at you like they'd be better off if you weren't alive
Well, what life would you not want to jump from? Ask the woman. A life without all that obviously - says the man. A life filled
With only beauty, happiness, love and peace.
A life that's easy and fun all the time
One where there's apparent meaning to stuff and we actually know what's going on and why we're here and what the point is
One with no heartbreak, no tragedy. No conflict. No hardship. No mean grocery store cashiers, no traffic. No Monday's, no pain
Hmm. Says the woman. Everything would be perfect and I would never want to leave that life. Says the man
The man and the woman stare at each other for a second. It feels like a few.
So who are you you? You have to tell me why you're here now. The man agitatedly asks again.
The woman moves closer to him. I'm who you hoped I was.
Confused the man backpedals a little bit completely forgetting where he's standing
What do you mean? Asks the man. The woman leans in to answer and pushes the man softly on his chest.
He falls backwards off the cliff
The man awakes in his bedroom, it's a normal Tuesday morning
He thinks about how horrible the nightmare he just had was. But like most dreams, he quickly forgets and moves on
He gets out of bed and gets ready. He gets dressed, eats breakfast and leaves his house
The sky is bright pink and purple with a sunny glow that illuminates the whole world
The grass is richly green and smells like the first spring to ever take place in the universe. The birds harmonized together perfectly
Every person is smiling cheek to cheek as if their faces are pinned in such a position. The man is entirely happy.
He has no sense of sadness. Everything is beautiful with no sight of ugliness. The world has no conflict.
Everyone loves each other equally. There's no heartbreak, no hardship. No bad days. No traffic,
No mean grocery store cashiers. Life is easy and smooth and fun. The meaning of life and the nature of reality is clear and everyone
knows exactly what's going on. It's completely and entirely perfect.
A year or so goes by. The man is at home. He takes one last sip of water. He gets in his car and drives to Glandwyn Canyon
It's not too far from where he lives
He parks his car, takes out a flashlight and the car registration from the glove box and then unscrews his license plate
He throws his registration and license plate into the river as he walks to a spot
That's one of the highest points of the canyon. He has come to commit suicide
He stands at the edge of the canyon thinking about his life one last time
He looks out at the massive beautiful landscape the night sky sprinkled with stars
Seamlessly converges with the stone of the canyons edge as it trips down into the river beneath. He feels nothing
He's about to jump when a woman's voice from behind him yells, Hey
Startled the man almost falls, but catches himself. He turns around to find a woman appearing out of the forest
This woman's presence is not interesting or perplexing to the man. She approaches the man and says hello and asks him what he's doing
I'm going to jump. Says the man. Why? asks the woman. It's a waste being alive, isn't it? There's nothing to do
Everything is easy and boring I want to feel but there's nothing to feel answers the man
Well
What life would you not want to jump from? Asks the woman. A life that's interesting and exciting and actually has feeling obviously.
Replies the man. Well, what makes a life that way? Asks The woman.
I don't know, one where some stuff is beautiful, but not everything. Or perhaps everything is beautiful,
but at least you don't always notice it so you can actually appreciate it when you do
A life where you're happy some of the time, but not all the time, and some of the time you actually feel really sad, so you can tell the difference
One where everyone doesn't love each other and some people aren't really that nice at all
So you can actually feel special about certain people. When where bad stuff happens once in a while one where things are actually kind of hard,
and finding success and meaning requires some thought, effort, and creativity, so it actually feels important when you find it
One here nothing is ever perfect, but some stuff can get really close if you try hard enough.
I never want to leave that life. Doesn't it sound wonderful? Asks the man. Yes. Says the woman. It does.
The man turns around to look at the landscape over the cliff and try to imagine a life like that
The woman leans in and pushes him softly on the back. He falls forward off the cliff
Hope you see at this time. The woman says to herself