The room went dark.
She was still in there.
It was the last incident. Unnoticeable and ordinary. Most of the similar incidents that had taken place before were as insignificant as this last one; the elevator didn’t move as she pressed the 26th floor button. The automatic doors didn’t open. The janitor, singing a famous pop song didn’t say hi to her as expected. And the night before, the driver of the black BMW didn’t see her crossing the road. The toddler at the grocery store threw a tantrum and bit her hand, but the mother never apologized. The vendor of the vacuum never tried to sell her the latest model. The phone didn’t ring in the morning. The colleagues didn’t tease her cheap sunglasses and fake Rolex. Her Boss ignored the note she sent him.
People make mistakes, she thought.
Until the room went dark and the sensors of the moving objects didn’t find her.
She wondered whether she had ever existed before. She had always found herself in a mirror – pretty attractive – and people had always listened, replied, smiled, respected, and left. Her apartment was full of objects she had bought since she had moved out of her home. Her parents called her every Sunday night at 7 and told her the same words: “When would you come back home?”
She knew. It was a mistake. Leaving. The call. The silence.
She remembered passing – as always – by the playground of the kindergarten in the morning and kids always screamed as she waved at them. The children threw sand at her and laughed absently.
Children are cruel, her mother used to say when she was a child herself.
She turned on the light. She moved in the room and her silhouette followed her movements. She imagined her hands. Her fingers. Her skin. Her hair. The hollow of her mouth. The curve of her back. So many signs of life.
She opened the door. She opened the window. She gazed at the horizon of a foggy city filled with growing sky-rises and angry men. Black clouds hid the transparency of air. The traffic below was hidden under a thick layer of brown steam. A helicopter dragged an unreadable red sign behind it. Her skin was turning white.
Was it cold or warm? She didn’t know. She didn’t feel.
Why? she thought.
You’ll always find whatever you search for, her mother told her when she wasn’t a child anymore.
Did you ever look for something? she asked.
Mother chuckled, as if she had never demanded for an answer.
The room went dark again. She had lost her shadow.
When the light came back, the window was wide open and the wind had spread the white papers all over the floor. The white chair by the window had blood stains on it.
Why someone who had never existed before had to cut her veins before the fatal jump? Why did she hope to pass through the fog but not ever reaching the ground? Why did she wonder whether she was made of mist?
Unanswered questions. She was smiling at her own ineffectiveness, at the moment of her disappearance.
