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I’m ready, I’m done with this world. I’m ready for everything to just end. I am sick of people just being horrible to each other. I’m done, I’m ready to leave. No one will miss me, I have to leave, there’s nothing left for me but more tears and more pain.
My name is Iola, and I’m ready to say goodbye.
I hold them in my hand, my relief form this world, from humanity. My parents are out and have no idea what I’m about to do. They wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t understand why I’m stood in my room wanting to say goodbye. I stare at my white walls, the walls that have confined me, I’m ready to soar free away from this place.
I lift my hands to my mouth, I’m ready. I have to be.
I lay down staring at my ceiling, ready to grow wings and fly away.
I start seeing a pink light, soft, glowing pink, growing and pulsing in a comforting way.
I felt like I was falling asleep, peaceful and whole. This is what it felt like to leave.
The lights started spinning and joining in a beautiful dance.
I felt myself floating away.
Suddenly, I felt a jolt like a rope wrapped around my stomach pulling me back, I fell down, but not to my room.
I was in a city, a city with buildings that had holes in the walls. Streets with cars burning, this city had been destroyed. In an alley to my left I saw a child. A young girl, no more than 5 years old, crouching in the remains of their home. All alone.
This is why I want to leave, because of all the things people do to one another.
A group of soldiers in camouflage gear walk down the street, barking orders and searching the streets. I willed the child to run, to get out of there. Too late though, one of the men had seen her.
He ran over to her and she shrank away.
He offered out his hands and walked slowly towards her.
“It’s ok, we won’t hurt you, we’re here to help.”
The man kept walking towards her, the girls eyes were wide with fear.
“Mama? Papa?” She cried.
The man was crying,”Their not here kid, I’m so, so sorry. Come with me, it’s ok.”
The girl reached for his hand.
And time sped up, I saw the girl and the man go home to a woman, all laughing and hugging, I saw the man signing adoption papers, and I saw the man and his wife watching their daughter play in the playground.
“I’m glad you brought her home.” The woman said leaning against him.
“I couldn’t give her to the authorities not after everything we did to her. I’m glad I resigned and saved her, I couldn’t have lived with myself otherwise. I just wish she still had her own family.” The man smiled sadly.
“We’re her family now,” the woman replied.
“Daddy!” The young girl ran up to them.
And the world spiralled again, pulling me away from the good man and his daughter.
I landed on a balcony in behind two people facing of across a table. Both were crying and somehow I knew that someone close to them had just passed on.
“Why are you back now, where have you been for the past 2 years?” A mans voice was yelling.
“I only heard yesterday, I booked a flight this morning and I tried to be there, I tried!” A younger mans voice responded.
“ But you weren’t!” The man shouted.
“I fell in love! She got ill, and I couldn’t leave her. As soon as I heard about Mum, I got her as fast as I could!” The younger man was crying,” I miss her, bro just as much as you do, I just wish , I just wish I could have gotten here earlier.”
There was no reply, but the brothers fell towards each other in an embrace. They stood there on the balcony, crying into each others arms, as stars appeared in the sky.
“I love you bro.”
“I love you too”
I was jolted away again from the heart wrenching scene of the reunited brothers, wanting to stay.
My next stop, was a funeral. There were groups of people dressed in black outside a small stone church. It felt like the middle of autumn with the red and orange leaves floating down from the trees at the edge of the graveyard.
There was a young woman crying at the edge of a fresh mound, the remains of the woman’s fiancé.
An older lady walked up behind the crying woman, looking down at the grave.
“Oh hi, your John’s mum aren’t you?”,the woman said wiping her eyes,”John said the engagement ring was yours. Do you want it back? I don’t think we’re getting married now.”
The woman’s laugh was wobbly and broke half way through into a sob.
“He gave my ring to you, I told him to give it to the right person, and I think he gave it to the perfect person. Keep my ring, its yours now.” The lady wrapped her arm around the woman’s shoulders and they cried together quietly, with the autumn leaves falling down.
After this hundreds of images flashed before my eyes, a person running into fire and pulling out someone else. A boy holding his dogs head in his hands as the dog fell asleep, tears running down the boys face. A group of friends hugging for the last time, before going their separate ways.
A man saying to his sick wife,”Thank you for 40 wonderful years as she passed away?”
Many more scenes like this passed before my eyes, scenes of happiness, and sadness. Scenes of human nature. Bittersweet.
And I woke up. Back in my own room, back in my own home. The light was gone, but I heard a voice in my head.
“See people as they are, imperfect but beautifully so. Brave and courageous, honest and noble, but terrible too. Focus on the good and the bad will disappear. Overtime.”
“Live and make the world better, don’t give up.”
The voice quietened, and I was left alone. But I was here, in my room, alive. Home.
This was the most bittersweet moment of all, bitter because I woke up, and sweet because I woke up.
I didn’t want to leave this world behind, after seeing all the worlds others leave behind, all the things that people do for each other. I was ready to make the world better.
So when I leave this world behind its better than I found it.