Deathwish 041: Melina

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“Vertigo. It runs in my veins.”

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Did you know - a mother eagle will push her baby from a cliff to teach it how to fly?

The phone rings, but my gaze doesn’t leave the landscape. With all the tall buildings, even the sky seems small. All shut-off and cropped and blue. Getting darker. The Sun slowly hides somewhere else in the world. I’m sitting in the window, my legs swinging high enough to. I roll a cigarette and light it up.

Sucking in, blowing out. Sitting on the edge of Now. I’m an art piece in motion, yet my feet rest out of frame.

Don’t.
Look.
Down.

I look down.

People walk like dots on the sidewalk. Weighting every step. Always going somewhere. Who cares? Soft smoke fills my lungs. Something climbs up my spine. Cold.

Here I am. Too heavy. Another girl locked in a tower high above the ground. Breathing smoke. Ashes dancing in the air when I flick.

Can’t leave myself by walking away. Vertigo. It runs in my veins.

If the baby eagle doesn’t get to flap itself to fly right away, mother eagle catches it in the air and flies back.

I drop the cigarette and follow it down. When it hits the balcony, there’s no sound.

What a selfish way to kill oneself. Jumping. All those ant-people will have to see your bloody mess on the asphalt. Maybe you’ll hit someone’s head. Children will hide their eyes with their hands, the image already printed in their brains.

You were a tidy woman. Why? Faster than a blink.

Mother eagle will push the baby off a third time. A final time. Now baby eagle better swing those wings, or.

Phone rings again.

I get one leg inside.

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To read the previous installment, "Deathwish 040: Alyson," go here. To participate in Deathwish, find details here.

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Melina was born in Natal - Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, and currently lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.