How To Save A Life

Every second about one point eight people die. Every minute one hundred and eight people die. Six thousand, four hundred, and sixty-one people die per hour. One hundred fifty-five thousand, sixty people die per day. And fifty-six million, five hundred ninety-seven thousand, and thirty four people die per year. Now if these statistics don’t scare you enough think about the amount of people born.

I think it’s amazing how people spend their times figuring out and decide a formula to see who dies and who’s born and at what rate. If you think about it we all waste our time doing things that are just wastes. No one living and no one who has died has spent their time wisely.

Now I’m not saying that I have, cause I know I haven’t. But I can tell you that once a life changing event happened to me, I looked at time differently and spent it more wisely. Think about it, in the US the life expectancy rate for the average human is 78. Yeah, that may seem like a long time and all but really it’s not. For about 16 years of your life, you’re still but a child. For about 3 more years you're in this weird awkward transition from child to adult. Then for the rest of the maybe 37 years you're working your butt off to pay overdue bills, order take out for the kids, and pay for car repairs after another. And by the time you don’t have to worry about the kids, and the car, and all those ridiculous bills you’re too old and wrinkly to do all the things you wanted to do like skydive, or bungee jump off the tallest building in the world.

So I decided three years ago that I didn’t want to look back at my life when I’m forty and think of all the things I didn’t do. I didn’t want to have overdue bills and car repair payments to make. I did want takeout -- especially if it’s Chinese, but anyway that’s beside the point. The point is I’m tired of wasting time. I want to be a happy, old, wrinkly person. I want to live my life to the fullest and that is my goal.

Hey, so answer this for me. Have you ever walked down the street and look up to admire the nice weather and see the silhouette of a person standing at the edge of a building? Have you? Cause I haven’t… well that is till now.

So I was walking down the street with a cup of coffee and bagel in hand, minding my own business, being all cheery and happy like I always am on Monday mornings (sarcasm) and I look up and see this… this… morning ruiner! Now I was so tempted to look straight ahead of me and to keep walking forward, but I thought ahead on how I’d feel throughout the rest of my day -- the rest of my life about how I’d feel every time that I’d recall this moment. How the word ‘murderer’ would most likely come to mind each time.

With a deep sigh I throw my coffee and bagel to the ground in frustration -- getting coffee splash stains on my white work shirt in the process, and storm into the grand building. As I walked up to the front desk I brushed off my shirt as if I could swipe the stains away.

“ ’scuse me, how do you get to the roof?” I asked the nice looking reception lady.

“The roof?” She repeated.

I nodded slowly.

“Yes, that is what I said.”

She stood from her office chair and pulled down her skirt as she spoke. “And why would you need to know how to get to the roof?”

“Because I want to jump off it,” I say sarcastically and begin walking in a fast pace towards a random direction, hoping that it would lead me to where I needed to go.

“Take a right and go all the way down to the end. There’s a fire exit that’ll take you to the top.” I turn to look at her and raise an eyebrow. “What?” She asked confused.

“You’d tell a person who wants to jump off your building how to get to the roof to kill themselves?”

“Well I knew you wouldn’t so…” She smiled.

I chuckled. “Right.” As I turn to leave I call out a, “Happy Monday” and hear a laugh in response.

I make my way down the long narrow hallway that smelt of magazines and juice stains. The carpet had this cheap, ugly pattern scattered all over it posing as if it looked good. I shook my head and started jogging. I passed the elevator that was ‘out of order’ and almost cried. I huffed as I pushed the heavy double doors that presented me with a shocking amount of stairs.

By the tenth flight I felt as if I’d left my lungs 80 steps behind. “How high is this freakin’ building!?” I screamed up the last couple flights above me. I sucked in two handfuls of air and climb on all fours the rest of the way.

Once in front of the door that led to the roof I leant on it with all of my weight and ended up falling through the doorway, landing face first on the concrete floor of the roof, with a plop and a groan. I look up and saw the person closer to the edge and my anger flareed. There was no way I was going to let this person die after having to climb all those gosh darn steps.

“Wait!” I groan. They don’t. “Wait!” I repeat again breathlessly as I stood and stumbled towards them. “I just want you to know that if you jump I will personally whoop your ass when I get to hell.” They take another step towards the edge. “WHOA! NO! I’M TELLING YOU NOW! YOU JUMP I--” Now, I’m not a person for quick reactions or… well tackling but there I was running like my life depended on it toward the person who was standing on one foot with one foot out as if they were doing the ‘Hokey Pokey’.

I tackled them to the ground and become blinded by a forest of hair.

Rhode Dena

How To Save A Life