The Ending

#MiracleChallenge – Week 3 : Writing Prompt no 4

It might look like nothing to you 

We can all put it on fatigue and overstrain

But my face looks like it’s been wandering the Earth since the beginning of times, my body is frail, fragile and shaken by multiple coughs. 

Everyday I take this same road, every afternoon at 4:25, I walk this street, bump into dozens of people, cough like a deadly ill and by some miracle pull myself to the top of the building after I climbed 67 flights of stairs.

My knees are trembling, my feet are hurting, my legs are arched and can’t support me anymore and I stumble. Many times I have to use my arms to stop my body from hitting the ground head first. 

I’m dizzy,  my vision is blurry, I’m dehydrated from the sweating. I look like a gross pale thin and sick man coming out of a dip in the pool. I can’t think straight, I’m eager for fresh air, for rest,  suddenly my hands feel a cold iron cross-bar, I’m so happy and without thinking and looking up I lean on it and close my eyes. 

My body slips from all the sweat and fall. I feel this breezy wind pass through my clothes and contour my body. I’m feeling too cold so I open my eyes and when I do, my body hits the floor face on in a loud noise of bones cracking and liquid splashing.

 I had forgotten that everyday I live again how I accidentally die that day. For the past century, I’ve been doing the same thing, inevitably reliving this day I got so sick but had to work anyway and check on the rooftop of this new building my company was responsible for; I was supposed to, ironically, verify the correct installation of the cross bars. Since the elevators weren’t fully operational, I had to take the staircase and because of my sickness and this unwanted exercise, I was blinded by the sweat and the giddiness and leaned on a cross bar for relief without even looking. This was how I met my demise. So cruel and so unfair, how everything lined up that day so I could join the world of the dead. 

Since then, I’d find myself taking this exact same path at this exact hour on the same conditions and once I hit the ground I would have those 5 minutes of consciousness, finally remembering everything and I would disappear into thin air, leaving nothing but little particles shining because of the dusk. 

But today something is different, I don’t feel sick and my clothes are all white. I’m not disappearing and the dusk landscape turned into a bright tunnel. I’m scared, I never experienced this before 

“Come child”, I hear. “You have now earned your remission “, is saying the deep voice. “You can now rest because you have been freed from all your stains for all eternity “. And just like that, I see the form of a hand reaching out to me; I’m confused and terrified, I don’t know what to do. Suddenly I’m being pushed, I turn around and see this humanoid form surrounded by brightness, I can’t see what it is but I can clearly see it nods like it’s encouraging me to go. I’m flabbergasted and all of a sudden it smiles, it clearly is a smile, not mistaking. I instantly feel light and like all my burdens have been lifted. I turn around and start walking toward the hand, after all “relaxing for all eternity” can’t be bad, right?