It is a cloudy day. The gloomy sky is cloaked with a canopy of fog and mist. 

 

"Drip... drip... drip..." raindrops fall down from the rooftop drop by drop, hitting the ground and smashing into scrapes. I gaze at the reflection of my ego on the turbid puddles.

 

"look at you--see how feeble and disgruntling you are", I tell myself. I am tired of this treadmill of nightmares. Holding my breath, I take a stride forward--bang!

 

I guess I can then rest in peace.

 

But no. I did not die.

 

"Send her to the ICU. Hurry up!” In lieu of leaving the world and embracing serenity,  again, I have caused some more troubles and agitations. I am lying on the bed, attached to a number of medical equipment that I can barely name and connected to a breathing kit through cannulas.

 

“Charging… Five hundred… Clear…”

 

By the time the defibrillator is applied to my chest, a prickling sense bolts up my spine— I feel like I am no longer confined to the physical world. Moving my fingers, getting control over my limbs, I realise I have regained “consciousness”— my free will can now break the boundaries and travel beyond my body.

 

“Poor thing… Why can she never ward off the stroke of bad luck…” tears of despair well up in my parents’ eyes, trickling down their cheeks in tiny streams, engraving the glittering scars of sadness and helplessness onto their faces.

 

I reach out my hand in the hope of wiping away the tears on their faces and giving them love and support, but it does not work that way. My hands are not solid— they penetrate through objects in the practical reality like gusts of wind. My heart is throbbed against my rib cage, then it sinks. Without life, I can literally do nothing about anything. I cannot love the ones I love and care for the ones who care for me.

 

Bitterness usurps me. I want to cry and scream but not even a tiny squeak comes out of my mouth. Not even a single drop of tear wells out.

 

Glancing out of the windows, I can see my besties sprinting towards the ICU. Their eyes are swollen and red. Their worrying faces with frowning brows are tinted with a hint of redness.

 

“Why would I have not noticed her mood swings when I was with her?” Angel murmurs with her head buried in her palms. “If I waited for her and left with her, she wouldn’t have been alone and wouldn’t have been hit by the car…” Chris holds his fist tightly against the wall. The waiting room is pervaded by the grim atmosphere.

 

“Without you, how am I supposed to persevere in face of all the hardships? Don’t you remember that you told me that every cloud has a silver lining?” Kristy whispers to thin air as she stares at my frail body.

 

Tons of memories spring to mind all of a sudden. At school, I experienced joy and tears. Together with my friends, I exerted blood, sweat and tears to strive for excellence in athletic and academic fields. Those days were memorable and cherishable despite all the rocks and the hard places that we were in. I never really realised I had such an enthusiasm for life. It was the lurking beast, depression, that took me down at one fell swoop and turned me life bleak. Is it not my fault or the fault of life itself? Is it just a matter of getting sick and getting cured? Am I not as irksome and troublesome as I thought I was?

 

I have had too much on my plate. What I need is some tranquility and space— to rethink about life and my pursuit. I stroll around in the hospital in search of silence and inner peace.

 

“Waah!” A deafening cry breaks the peace and calmness. I take a glimpse over where the sound may have originated. Delivery Room, it says. It is the place of birth. It is where a life blossoms. It is a place infused with miracles, love and passion.

 

I enter the room unnoticeably and sneak a look at the mother. Having delivered her baby, though exasperated and fatigued, she smiles at her baby gratefully as though it is a gift from God. The father, on the other side of the bed, is on cloud nine and his eyes are filled with tears of joy. 

 

When I was born, Dad and Mom must have been like this too. I —their precious only daughter— might have been treated as if I was a gift from heaven too. My heart flutters. Were I to travel back to the moment when I was to cross the street, would I still take that fatal stride?

 

Now I realise, there are plenty of lovely things in the world, and much is still yet to be explored. It is something that I have forgotten for the past few years. Life is not that bad. It is just myself that was dragged into the abyss and drowned in the sea of melancholy.

 

“Charging… six hundred… clear… bang!”

 

A blinding flash takes over me. I am blood and flesh again…