I had been considering leaping off this lonesome tower for quite a while. I could have done it - I should have - but I hadn’t known that then.
There used to be water. It had caressed the smoothened foot of the tower. In the night, soft splashes had accompanied the speckled sky as my eyes grew tired. I had imagined how refreshing it would be to dip my head inside on the hot days. On the cold days, I hoped the water would carry me to some place warmer. It would have been so easy to skip over the lip of the roof. But a seed had started to grow in the pit of my stomach and made me plant my feet up here. A nagging voice had dug into my brain: “What if the water is shallow, and you break your legs as you land? What if you can’t even figure out how to keep yourself afloat? And, if by chance you do find a way, how long will it be before you drown? Or freeze? Or boil?” As long as I remained up here nothing could happen.
I hadn’t noticed the water had been fleeting, until I saw dark, obsidian-coloured spots. They grew larger and larger each day. I decided they were no longer pointy pebbles, but rows of rocks. I was so relieved to not have jumped; a stream could have torn me down and the spikes would have glided through my body like I had through the surface.
My conscious rested. Only, my mind didn’t. During the night, I couldn’t lay still. Though there was less water, it had grown crueller. The tiny waves had become monstrous mouths that devoured the rock formations and the toes of the tower in one gulp. I often waked to water gushing on my face. I feared to drown. I feared that, one day, the waves would grow so large, they’d swallow everything and tear me down into a black death.
To my luck, the water kept receding and never returned. It was as if somebody had unplugged a tub and never ran a bath again.
The grounds are dry and dusty, the sun and the wind have become the only things that changed over the course of time, and I am alone. I have always been. But the silence makes me feel lonelier than I have ever been.
There are two types of silence that rein now.
The first silence is easy to find. It is the one that is filled with wind and breath. It wraps you in a blanket, kisses you goodnight and tells you you’re safe. It whispers in your ear, to remind you that it will never leave you. It dances around you without ever coming to a halt. It waits like a child to be interrupted in its play, or to get a reaction from the ones that are around. But there is nothing left but itself. Its dance shifts into pacing, it too is getting bored.
The second silence is harder to spot. It lives within. It is the ticking of a clock, that has never been wound again. It is the stillness of a house during a blackout. It creeps inside of me, digs through my mind. I have nothing to think or worry about. My contemplations and reasonings have left me. Finally, I am certain of what will happen when I jump. I am sure I should have jumped in the early beginning. I have found knowledge, though only in retrospect. I can rest, I know so much more than before.
I know my place here. I know I am safe, and I have nothing to run from. So, I will stay and wait.
I have gained wisdom ? I wish I didn’t. I wouldn’t know so much if I would have made the choice I now regret I never took. But I believe, we all experience regret as soon as we gain knowledge – they come hand in hand, ginning. They serve certainty on a silver platter, and invite themselves in. They will never leave.
Though I know so much more, I am not certain about everything. What if the water returns, in any shape or form? I know what I must do, though what happens next is a mystery too.
The uncertainty that kept me up here before, keeps me up here still. Its essence is the same. Only now, it wears a different coat. It runs by the name of “hope”, and I give it all the blame.