SINE QUA NON

      It was cold in England, and it was a Wednesday. It was December, and it was 2012. The road to Wimbledon Village had been entirely blocked off by the snow. London, in its entirety, was frozen and disconnected. No one would be visiting tonight, it seemed. Outside, the rain poured down.

Seven thirty in the afternoon. Her cracked fingers were running across the broken wood of the walls. The red paint that had once masked the deterioration already present in the house long before it’s renovation was peeling off at the slightest touch. The furthest window at the end of the east wing hallway had been stripped of its glass by the storm last winter. Occasionally, the breeze would whip back her uncombed hair and her face could be seen, which was rare. It was dark now; although the sun would do her face no justice. She was beautiful, but in a distraught, tormented kind of way. Her eyes had been perpetually filled with sorrow as if they were small teardrops in glass cups of psychological pain. Once blue, they had become grey with age. She was only sixteen, but beneath the surface her old soul was perceptible, even through her thick layers of clothing and her hair that draped over her pallid face. Some strands were blonder than the brightest sun ray, whereas others were dirty and knotted. She had reached the end of the hall and had sat down on the floor in the right corner of the dining room. The bags under her eyes had become red and swollen. The freckles on her ashen cheekbones had become more pronounced than they used to be and her fingernails had been chewed off, perhaps due to stress or anxiety. Her parents had gone to a vineyard last weekend and had brought her back a wooden sculpture of a grapevine. She despised that sculpture. It had been clasped in her hand for a while now; her initial plan was to dispose of it in some cunning manner but her fingers were too frail to crush it and she didn’t have enough will power to move her body.

In the distance, suddenly, a familiar melody resonated through the walls of the decaying house and interrupted her reverie. The sweet yet eerie sound of Fur Elise reached her eardrums and penetrated through her core. She felt a rush. Almost fainting, she ran up the broken staircase and reached into her laundry basket where she had hidden her phone from her conniving little sister. She paused for a moment, fearing that it could be her boss who was speculating on why she hadn’t shown up the past three weeks. That thought vanished when she remembered that she wouldn’t have to worry about that for much longer. She halted once more. It could be her friend from the States again, calling to check up on her. She shook the thought out of her head. She wouldn’t call.  She picked up.

-         You.

She didn’t answer.

-         Are you where you usually are?

She nodded but didn’t answer. She suddenly remembered that she was on the phone and felt silly and confused for having bobbed her head thoughtlessly; however, the voice on the other end seemed to have heard even the slightest movement of her body as she tilted her head.

-         I don’t want you to do it-

She was about to intervene, but the voice knew she would, and stopped her.

-          …Alone. So I’m coming with you.

-          No, she whispered.

The phone hung up. She let the monotonous tone go on and dropped the phone to the floor. She ran to the roof and sat on the edge of her house. An hour passed by at least until she heard footsteps in the snow. Familiar footsteps. The door behind her opened and she felt a warm hand grab hers. They didn’t look at each other, nor did they speak for a while – they simply sat on the edge of the tiles and peered out in to what seemed to be nothingness. Four stories up, beneath them was a concrete platform, one that would grant immediate relief. It was said that they had tried once before and had failed. But this, this was a sure end.

            
And as the city’s grandfather clock struck nine, together, they recited:
"There is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person."

In the distance, Fur Elise plays.