(100-word flash fiction)
The chair topples on the first kick. As if on cue, she steps outside herself.
She is amazed at how the body is wired for survival, as she watches the legs, puppet-like, kick into thin air. Chest straining, by habit, trying to suck in air, so abundant outside. Face crimsoning as blood rushes to her brain. Bells going on inside, screaming ‘Mayhem!’ ‘Mayhem!’
She loses all sense of time. And that dreary greyness that had festered inside her like a light-sucking ghost. She crackles with an aliveness her body had never felt. Unimaginable lightness fills her being.
The door opens.
~~~
Rochelle has posted a lovely image for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt.
Photo © Ted Strutz
Quite extraordinarily graphic – very well done.
Thanks Sandra
I could feel what she felt – well written.
Thanks 🙂
Could be. I hope I never find out.
Good piece.
Hmmmm… do we have a choice?
Yes: don’t kick the chair.
I meant about death…however you die.
Would you write the same description for someone drifting away in a hospice, pumped full of morphine?
Which description? In the story or the comment?
Story.
Yes, it would be a relief for them, wouldn’t it? Unburdened by a useless body, to be free of it, finally.
Stunning!
Thanks Ankita.
Sad she tried it. Sad she was saved. A really tender piece.
Thanks Patrick!
I’m awfully glad I stopped by. Great piece this – Alicia
Thanks Alicia.
Well written! Loved it!
Thanks! Thanks!
Dear Jolly,
That’s what I mean when I challenge writers with the Thoreau quote. It’s not what you’re looking at. What does go through a person’s mind in those last moments? I think you’ve captured those thoughts. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Thanks Rochelle.
That was a stunningly described scene! You made suicide sound almost … lovely. I wonder whether whoever found her could save her, though.
A brilliant take on the prompt.
Thanks Vijaya.
I love what you found in the picture, though you gave the suicide a face I didn’t expect.
Thanks Bjorn
It’s painfully graphic.
No matter how one dies, our bodies go through some kind of shutdown
Brilliantly done – great sense of sensation here, and a surprisingly positive end to a unfortunate event.
KT
Thanks KT. Unfortunate but inevitable, Death I mean.
I echo everyone’s comments done. Really well done, Jolly. Descriptive and digging deep. I got a real sense of what she thought and felt as her body let go.
Thanks Amy. I was hoping someone would get to the hidden message – ‘I am not my body’
I was there, holding my own breath… well written indeed.
Thanks Dale. That was one long breath 🙂 😛
A very enlightening last moment. I think she found the freedom she was looking for.
Yes. Thanks.
If I had a choice, I’d rather not die that way. Let it be peaceful. A peaceful death also is easier for your family. I’m so glad both my parents died peacefully. Good , even graphic, description though. Well written, J.J. —- Suzanne
Thanks Suzanne.