Complacent, quiet and withdrawn, she went to school every day, regarded it as a monotone procedure one simply had to do and did not object. Her grades were usually high, not because she wanted them to be, but because it was right for them to be.
Friends and teachers were formalities. She had a few of them, sure. Didn’t really enjoy their company, but laughed and went out with them nevertheless, trying to conform to the norms of the school society. She couldn’t though.
Maybe it was because she was so reserved, or maybe people resented her high grades and her above-average appearance, but people never really liked her. Maybe it was because she never liked them. She regarded humans with cold indifference, never once wondering who they might be and what they might do. She preferred her own company, lived in a world of solitude, engrossed in her books. A million and one stories, a million and one lives.
It wasn’t exactly the life she never even owned, but it was a good compensation.
She never really knew what she wanted to do with herself; she never cared to find out. Her body, her existence too was merely something that had to be endured until the course of life played out. She lived silently, pausing the closure of her mouth only to eat and to murmur a few words whenever required. She lived without caring, by turning off her brain.
For, thought isn’t necessary when you are the dead.
Psychologists, psychiatrists and clergymen could not even make a dent in her shell; she was already so far gone. She swallowed antidepressants bottle by bottle, attended therapy for years and years, again, to her these were only formalities, things she had to do because she just had to do them.
She disagreed with the principle they tried to teach her, that life was good. Life wasn't good or bad, ugly or beautiful. Life could not be described by adjectives adhering to those within life. Life was an external force, a necessity, a power that was uncontrollable, that one had to bow to.
Sometimes she would wonder what had got her here, and why she had become so. She would lament the loss of her spirit for nights until she would realize the truth, that she was formed without one.
That her existence was meaningless, that she was simply a mass of atoms drifting through the endless void called the universe. She would not mark it, or change it in anyway.
So she really saw no reason to bother. She buried herself in her books, tried to forget life, or lifelessness as it was to her.
But it always called to her, demanding to be felt. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t leave it. Her body existed, and as it existed, her surroundings and her responsibilities existed. Grudgingly, she kept going. School, study, books. A simple routine she never really broke, but agreed to conform to until she was gone.
Her reading spot was the balcony. She read under the cool light of the moon, assisted only by a small non-descript book lamp.
The balcony was a peculiar place, facing the city with all its lights and glamour. Even this couldn’t affect her in any way. To her it was all the same, black and white, meaningless.
One day, she left her seat to survey this city properly and looked down the balcony.
In this black and white, monotonous monstrosity, she finally saw in color.
She saw her purpose.
Slowly she climbed the railings and let herself fall.
She lived.
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