Readability

I have died 47 times. At least that I can remember. Only three of them were in this body, and those three happened on the same day. The first of those was the most inconvenient, but it was the one that opened my eyes and led me down this insane path of first confusion, then fear, and then the shift in perception that changed my life, but made my family think I’m crazy.

I say “inconvenient” because when I saw the girl jump from the bridge, I was already running late. I had run home on my lunch hour, something I wouldn’t ordinarily do, but I’d forgotten something and felt compelled to go get it. Of all the things I’ve suddenly remembered since that day, the one thing I can’t recall is what had driven me to take that journey and be out at a time I usually would be sitting in front of my desk eating a cheese and onion sandwich from O’Brians.

When I saw her face, I was struck by the shimmering darkness of her eyes. Looking back now, I can see that she couldn’t have been human, or at least not alive, but back then I had no idea of the intersection of universes or the unreality of time. So, when her eyes pulled me toward her, I swerved my car, startled. My mind went blank, and I couldn’t even recall my own name or where I was going.

The sound of a honking horn came from somewhere in another lane on that bridge, and I narrowly missed hitting the car in front of me. My heart pounded so hard I could feel a vein throb in my neck, and my ears felt hot. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw her again, still looking at me. The only word I can come up with to describe that moment between us is “haunted”. I’m not sure who was haunting whom, now that I think of it, but I didn’t have time to ponder.

The car in front of me pulled away, but I stopped dead. She had disappeared. I turned around in the driver’s seat, scanning up and down the bridge railing. My eyes found her just as she leapt.

“No!” I yelled.

When I took off my seat belt and opened the door, I hadn’t been thinking about the traffic around me or the pressure of annoyed drivers wanting to continue on their numbing journeys. The October air was sharp and I remember my hair whipped around my face, making it difficult to see and hear.

People must have been shouting. Looking back through my warped memories, I remember faded voices calling out to me. I didn’t acknowledge them at the time though, as it was like hearing through water when someone on the surface shouts a warning.

“Mariah!” I screamed it as I leant over the bridge’s railing and scanned the swirling surface of the water below. I don’t know where her name came from. It just found its way to my lips, and burst out in a cloud of panic. “Mariah!” I said it over and over.

The churning water brought me a vision of her pale skin and before I could reason what I was doing, I leapt in after her. The cold water shocked my skin and the soft bottom of the tidal river wrapped around my feet. I opened my eyes and although I could only see a couple of meters in all directions, I saw her.

She stood on the bottom of the river, untouched by the currents. When she smiled at me I relaxed. She turned and walked into the murky darkness