Life and Freedom

“I hate everybody, even myself.” ,said Maria with a knife in her hand. She was a beautiful young girl trying desperately to suicide but caught herself in the dilemma of to do or not to do. It was a beautiful evening. The view of sun setting from this bridge was just breath taking. She was sitting on the side of bridge with a knife in her hand. Tears were running down from her face. A nearby passing man noticed her, came closer and sat beside her. “You taking one last nice view of sunset before you shutdown yourself forever?” ,he asked. “Why do you ask? Its none of your business” ,said Maria. He tried to speak, “I ….” , but she interrupted her and screamed, “I don’t want to talk to you. Get the hell out of here and find somebody else to entertain you.” Whilst getting up, the man replied,” I thought I could help you with that” ,and started walking away.  Despite of all the vehicle engines noises, horns, there was a scent of loneliness in the breeze. “Wait!” shouted Maria. He stopped and looked back. Maria asked, “Did you just offer me help?”. “Yeah, I did. If you don’t want my help, I am cool with that.”, replied the man. He started walking again. “But ,I…”,spoke Maria. The looked back again and interrupted her, ”be careful with that knife. Make sure its sharp enough. A blunt knife will make the job much harder. Oh! And don’t even think about jumping into the with your slice wrist. Trust me, that’s not a good idea.”
“But why?” ,asked Maria. The man came closer and sat beside her. “Can I borrow the knife for a sec?”.  He took the knife from her hands and pricked his finger. He let the blood bleed from his finger to the below vast ocean. As soon as the blood reached the water, sharks appeared. “See, that’s the reason. You’ll be dismembered by the sharks before you even know. With your legs, arms, body torn apart by sharks, you will most probably still be saved by the life guards nearby.  You can’t even imagine the pain you’ll endure. She looked terrified but ceased her emotion in herself. “I’ll just cut my wrist and stay here.” , she replied with a low fainted voice. “Nah, you need a place where you can lay low, like you apartment. Doing these kind of messy acts in public is a bad idea” “Why is it a bad idea?”  “When you slice down your wrist, lets hope knife is not blunt otherwise its going to be a difficult task. So imagine slicing your wrist all the way down, blood draining and experiencing worst pain followed by shocks and even cardiac arrest.” “But I heard that you just pass out and die”  “Oh, is that what you have been told? Well actually you really pass out,  it would take at least 10 minutes to lose enough blood that you’d pass out.”
“10 min of suffering is nothing compared to what I’ve been through”  “that’s not it, its just a chance that you will pass away” “What do you mean” “Once you actually pass out, your heart rate slows down drastically. Now that your heart is pumping slower, you’re losing blood at a much slower rate. Usually slow enough that your wound would begin to clot. Once the clot forms and the bleeding stops, your body immediately begins to try and replenish the blood lost. You’re not conscious, so all of the body’s energy can focus on trying to keep you alive. Pretty soon, you’d wake up with cold sweats, nausea, light-headedness, and the worst headache you’ve ever had in your life.” She was terrified but somehow managed to gathered all the courage and screamed, “I don’t care. If this is the price I have to pay to free myself from this cruel world, I will indeed take that chance.”. The man smiled sarcastically and replied ,”No, my dear. That’s where you are wrong. You will be rushed to a nearby hospital where your life will be saved and all your suffering will go in vain. And most probably you won’t be able to use your hand for the rest of your life as the nerves which control motion of your hand have been damaged.  Ooh and maybe brain damage will leave you paralysed for life” . Maria throws away the knife with a mixture of emotion like anger and disappointment and starts crying. “I can’t live nor even die in peace. Oh God why? “,“Why do you want to end this life of yours?”, “I am fed up of my life.  I want to break myself free from this cage”  “Ah-han, so you gave up easily just like that?” “No, I didn’t. This world suffocates me. I tried living very hard but I couldn’t bear this anymore.” ,cried Maria. “and ended up taking your own life”, he replied, ”so you really did give up, right?” The girl answered with rage, “Yes, yes, I did give up. What was I even supposed to do?” “What you were going to do,requires a lot of courage. A coward person would never take his own life.” , “really?”, “Yes. I wonder being so brave why did run away from this miserable life.” “Life has never been in my favour. It has been thrashing me since my childhood. I hate this troublesome life.”  “There are ups and down in life.” She listened to him more attentively, “Some time you may feel like you are living the best moment of your life and in the second you would feel like it’s the worst moment you ever experienced. This is life, my dear. ”. She replied, “Oh, please stop it. I am not a child whom you can easily convince. I have faced so many hardships and seen so much sorrow that I don’t even remember how does being happy feels like” . The man paused for a moment. The sun was almost set and the traffic was much less now. He began, “You know that all the difficulties, sorrow, sadness, are part of life. Just like light and darkness, both of them are necessary to realize their existence. The absence of light makes us feel the existence of darkness. Just like there is a balance in the world, no good thing can exist without its opposite bad twin.”  “I haven’t seen much happiness. Whenever I try to be happy, something goes wrong. I am now afraid of being happy.” “Nothing in this world is eternal, everything has an end. And so do all your problems.” ,. “It is in my destiny to experience sorrow only.” ,cried Maria. “Destined to experience sorrow only?” ,asked the man. “Yeah, that pre-written ugly fate granted to me which will go along my whole life. Looks like God forgot to add happiness in my stupid destiny.” “Lady, your fate may be the worst one, but your destiny is what you chose.”, “Doesn’t these two words share the same meaning?”, she inquired. “Fate is a pre-written course that will follow you all your life. But destiny, it is the outcome of how you react to certain events.”, “oh really?”, “Yes. Once a wiser man said, fate is fluid. But destiny is in the hands of men.” Her brightened face once again faded and replied, “that pre-written fate will sure do come along so despite of all my hard work and struggle, I will achieve nothing.”  “It might have been written you will succeed only by struggling again and again, and praying of course.” “Praying? Does that even help?” “Without any doubt. It comforts you internally. Prayer is such beautiful thing that it can alter anything except death.” “You think I am worthy of being happy?” “I don’t think, I believe that you are worthy of much more than that.” Her face brightened up with smile. “Oh, really?”  “Yes, why not”.  He got up and started to leave. Maria got up too and asked him where he was going. “Won’t you tell me your name?” “My name doesn’t matter. My job here is done” “I don’t understand. You are leaving just like that” “Once I was in your shoes, I hated my life, myself even everybody. Someone made me realize the importance of life, dragged me back to my life. I have been waiting so long for this day to save someone just like someone save mine.” Before she could talk further, he left and disappeared into the crowd of people.