One drizzling night, on the top of a building, a man stood on the edge of the abyss. The city at his feet seemed like an ocean of trembling lights, blurred by the rain, while the distant echo of life continued, oblivious to his presence. In his right hand, a cigarette was consumed slowly, its last vestige of warmth, while in the other, the screen of his cell phone illuminated his face, marking the traces of a man exhausted by irreparable pain.
On the screen, a photograph. A smile captured in time, frozen in a perfect instant, oblivious to the pain that would follow. She was there, radiant, her gaze full of promise and shared dreams, so vivid I could almost feel the echo of her laughter, like a whisper lost in the raindrops. That image, now both refuge and dagger, reminded him of what was, what was gone.
He looked at her with an expression of desolation, his eyes heavy with unanswered questions. He seemed suspended between the world and nothingness, trapped in a moment that stretched out like an eternity.
Cigarette smoke mingled with the humid air, fading like his thoughts: hazy, ethereal, impossible to catch. "What I'm about to do... Is it an act of bravery or cowardice?" the words echoed in his mind, over and over, like an endless echo.
Will I be a coward for abandoning everything? The hope, the obligations, the ties that bind me to this life... the faces of those I once loved, those who came before their death. Is it cowardice to want to escape the weight of it all? Or is it bravery to make a decision so final, so irreversible, that admits no regrets? One leap... and it's all over. One leap... and the world will go on, but not me.
The rain hit his face, cold and cutting, as if the sky itself was trying to tear him out of his trance. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling how the drops traced paths on his skin, as if they were drawing the reality in which he still existed, albeit in an alien way.
-What is right? What is wrong? It all depends on how you look at it. My prism is broken. There is no truth left, only this emptiness.
He opened his eyes and looked down. The streets looked like another world, one to which he no longer belonged. The wind roared in his ears, but he could not drown out the chaos inside him. The photo was still there, glowing on the screen, a mute reminder of his bewilderment.
He took one last puff, letting the smoke fill his lungs, and let out a sigh that carried all his exhaustion. Then the cigarette went out, blown away by the wind. He closed his eyes.
-Maybe it doesn't matter what others think. In the end, there is only me, facing the abyss of my existence.
Silence enveloped him, interrupted only by the constant whisper of the rain and the wind, which seemed to confess forgotten secrets to him. His mind was a whirlwind, each thought more intense and chaotic than the last, slowly crumbling what fragile control he still had left.
Suddenly, the wind hit him hard, snatching the phone from his hand. For an instant, the screen flickered in the air as it fell into the void. He followed it with his eyes, as if in that fall his last certainty would also vanish. Something in him broke, something he could no longer ignore.