The Way Out

The first time was fumbled.

She had nothing, nothing left. A young and beautiful woman looked back
at her in the mirror. She and everyone else she knew prized beauty
highly, didn't they? WHY? What did it matter? Everyone she knew was
plain - they sought the thing she had in great quantities but when it
came down to it?beauty wasn't everything. She wasn't the most academic
of students in her school but she was clever enough to know what was
happening to her. How many exam grades had she got? Too late she found
that intelligence, a good job, was the only way out of Susuk, a small
and isolated town - what she and her friends regarded as something that
needed to be escaped from. No-one except the brightest ever left the
home town. They said they had all waited for the right moment or some
variation. What moment? It never came. It wouldn't for her, anyway. Her
will was little, her panic was great. She had to leave. She was doomed.
Only one way out.

She considered trying to drown herself but she was too scared. Ideally
she wanted to shoot herself in the head but she didn't have a gun and
neither did anyone in Susuk. It was small, safe, boring town. It
suffocated everyone. A curse. She believed in curses. They were like
karma - was that how it was spelt? She didn't know. Spelled or spelt?
Either or neither? Which? Useless spelling questions came back for her.
The knife. The knife of her brother. He had left. He'd succeeded. He
fell down the old mine shaft which he'd agreed to go to as a dare and
broken his neck. But what if someone found her before she could
die?

The bathroom - the lock. She tore into her brother's room, a spiritual,
sacred and untouched place - and unspoken code of honour, a protective
mourning seal around the room - her brother had slept in that bed. Her
brother had sat in that desk. But he was dead now. It didn't matter to
him, what mattered to the living. How she envied him. She found the
knife and ran. She was nearly there, her perfect fingertips about to
stroke the door when -

'Honey, we're home!'

Goddamn parents. It was too late, she was too far gone - she kept
going. Straight into the bathroom, lock the door, take out the
knife.
'Come down here!' cried her mother. She was paranoid about the
movements of her last surviving child. She thought the Devil was
sitting in hell, looking up and surveying them saying to himself and
grinning, 'One down, one more to go.'

'Can't a girl go to the bathroom?'

'Do you really need to go?' asked her father in a pained voice. She cut
the first of her wrists, blood trickling. She winced. Her mother heard
it.

'What was that? What are you doing?'

'Muuuuuuuum!' she whined, 'I'm having a little?feminine trouble.'

'You're not! It was over a week ago. What's happened? That's not
normal.'

'What are you DOING?' shouted her father. The two of them strode up thr
stairs. Second wrist. Knock on the door.

Please God if you're up there, if you can hear me, if you exist, help
me die?

'Open this door!'

'No!' she moaned. Bang. Door opened. Father in doorway. Silhouette
coming towards her. A new prayer.

Please God don't let me die yet?

But now it was different. There was no passion, no desperation to
leave. She'd left. She'd GONE. And now, beautiful as ever, exams barely
passed she'd gone!

It was glorious at first. The wide, wide ocean could take her anywhere,
to anything, to anyone. Its waves lapped on every coast and that
comforted her. But she'd never dreamed that the passage across the
Atlantic would be so?long. So tedious. What was the place called again?
Ireland. A place her brother had enver been, never see, never even
heard of. Excellent. She and her family would start a new life there.
That was the intention.

However this was the intention and thoughts of her mother: her husband
had died. The men in her family had ceased - ws it the palce, the past
of the mine shaft that was the curse? What had she done wrong to
deserve the karma? Of course, she believed in curses. But unlike her
daughter she believed they were avoidable. She could run from the
curse, the curse might not persist or in any case might go off to
another poor soul. After it had sucked all the men from her safe family
it might have got bored. But she wasn't taking that chance. It could go
on to other men, nameless, faceless men and take THEIR lives so that it
didn't take hers. Harsh, but true.

Her daughter was beautiful. She'd long since stopped resenting her for
something which she would enver achieve - but it was not just her
ticket to a new life it was THEIR ticket. It came in the form of
William Abignale. They had met when he had visited, as a business
venture. He was a clever, witty, intelligent man who wasn't bad in his
looks or his sensitivity which was all her dim daughter cared about. On
leaving, he had sent her mother the message. It was too long to recall
the better part of it, but one line had hit her very hard:

'I am greatly in love with your daughter and I would be most honoured
to pay for the transfer of her and you if you feel the need to Ireland,
where we will be married.'

Her daughter, desperate to leave and it seemed - in love with William -
had nodded in agreement.

Her mother's intentions might have been good or bad or greedy or
anything else for what it mattered to her daughter. She looked out over
the wide, wide ocean and wondered why she was going to Ireland - to
marry William. Simple. That was it. She had transferred to Ireland to
be bored and stuck and suffocated in a different place, that was all.
Was it her curse? Was it just her? Or was this how everyone felt, when
they did the famous, wonderful thing of SETTLING DOWN? If it was she
wanted to have nothing to do with it, if that was the case. She wanted
to find a way out, again. She felt it in her bones and suddenly the
desperate, wild anguish fled her. Numbness seized her. What was
stopping her from going over the edge of the boat? She couldn't
swim.

What was to stop her from putting one leg over the rails? Purely
experimental, of course. She did so. And what would it be to hold onto
the rails and put a second leg over? She did so. And what would it be
to fling herself upon the -

'Ah. Suicide again, I see,' said a calming, deep voice. Angry though
she didn't know why, she flicked her head to the speaker. A male, her
age, dressed in black and black himself. He leaned on the rails six
feet away from her and eyed her with sadness, interest and humour all
at once.

'What do you mean, AGAIN?' she hissed. He was still serene.

'This is your second time. You've done it before.'

'So what?'

'You don't want to be doing that.'

'I do too. I could jump right this instant.'

'But you're not.' He was half-smiling at her. He had no business to be
calm when she was anything but. It was irritating the hell out of
her.

'So what?'

'If you wanted to, if you really wanted to die you would have flung
yourself in those waves before.'

'I'm just steeling myself. Getting ready for the physical. I'm already
there EMOTIONALLY. But my legs don't want to.'

'I understand,' said the man, 'that you want a way out of this,
correct?'

'Yes.' She wished to say something snappy and short in reply but she
could not think of anything in reply. No insults seemed to penetrate
his calm armour.

'Dying might not be the way out.'

'It IS. I'm afraid that whether you trust my judgement or not it isn't
up to you so go away. I want to be alone - more spiritual for my
sending off.'

'What if you travelled the world, found a man you love - not just
William. He sounds good on paper but in the flesh you can't
relate.'Even as he said it, she knew it was true, but that didn't stop
her comeback.

'Hey, I'll have you know I DO love - wait a moment. How do you know
about William?'

He gave another one of his half-smiles, 'I know almost
everything.'

'Almost?'

'I don't know why you stuck with William.'

'Because he loves me and it is a way out of Susuk.'

'But now you're out.'

'I know.'

'So you don't have to die.' She considered this. There was no binding
contract with William. She could travel the world. Mum would
understand.

'I s'pose,' she replied sheepishly. She swung her leg back over. Then
another.

'Good. Are you okay now? You have a purpose in life, not death -
remember that.'

'I will - thank you so much - what's your name?Mister??'

'Just God will do.'

He vanished into the air, leaving her standing speechless.