Betwixt life and thereafter

How would it feel, to stand at the edge of a hundredth-storey-building, with one leg dangling in the air and trying to balance the posture with the other, heedlessly gazing into the space below? Down there, minuscule looking people and cars parade like tiny ants through the travesty of man-made lanes and by-lanes. All of them moving in a helter-skelter direction.
The groves of trees look like patch of green here and shades of yellow there. Autumn wind is in the air. With my arms wide open I stand tall on top of the world, a burning cigarette sandwiched between my fingers and my other hand firmly clutching a whisky bottle. The cold wind incessantly lashes on my brittle, frost bitten face.
A queer flight of imagination invades my nonchalant mind. The primal desire to fly coupled with an instinctive temptation to be free plays weird hide-and-seek games with my thoughts. Standing there, I stare into the endless expanse of the horizon, painted with hues of red and yellow. Luminous clouds stretch across the end of the sky.
The moment was perfectly thrilling until a suicidal feeling makes me tremble. I shudder at the thought and an icy chill runs down my spine, and goose bumps sprinkle on my cold skin.
At a distant in the air, flocks of birds sing their way home. I wish for a gun to shut them up. Their squeaking exasperates me as though a man in deep contemplation of god was stirred out of his reverie. If I had a gun, I think, I would hide like a sniper and bring down each flying bird.
The next instant I become a river of compassion. But what if I kill the mother of a little bird who has just learnt to fly? I pity. Why should I kill harmless, innocent birds?
Smell of rose.
The images of the flower vase with dried flowers, the photograph lying by my bedside, her undergarments that she had left in the drawer and the ear rings and the necklace that lie on the dressing mirror rushes past my eyes. Her lonely pink bra still hangs on the balcony flapping in the breeze. Why the colour pink never stops fascinating women, I wonder.
I am sitting by the window side of a fast moving train, and I catch a glimpse of tall women dressed in black skirt with a knee length overcoat. Her head is covered with a black scarf and her eyes with a dark pair of goggles. As I try to capture that face, our eyes meet. I wonder what she must have thought that particular moment when our glances met each other.
What did I think about her? A passing moment. A passing glance! A stranger in a train, a woman of course, a beautiful woman with a sad face to be correct, or a widow who has visited her dead husband’s grave? I feel sorry for her.
Suddenly it is dark.
I grope in the pitch darkness, trying to figure out why I am alone. Where did all the boys who were smoking marijuana just a while ago go? Where are the shrieks of the stoned girls who were listening to heart wrenching sentimental songs?
I am alone.
I swing to and fro, but this time I let go off myself. I close my eyes and fall free, headlong down. I swirl round and round. Gravity is at its best. I can see the blurring lights, and feel the air desperately trying to keep me buoyant. I hit the ground hard. My head splatters, my brains ooze out of the skull, and a pool of blood flows down the road.
I lie dead.
I hear a scream of a little girl followed by sounds of laughter. The laughter fades away into the stillness of the night. I am cold. I feel water dripping down my face. And there is more water. I am in a sea of waves trying to breathe, trying to gasp for air.
I gasp for more air. This wakes me up to several, round, bulging eyes ogling at me. I am not at the sea shore or the road I fell unto. I am lying on the concrete floor, completely drenched. My marijuana smoking friends are glad I woke up. I had blacked out, for a minute, to be precise.
This is how it feels!
I have not been on top of a skyscraper but for my imagination. It was a moment of abject hypnosis. The hallucination was more real than I have ever come close to. I traded reality for fantasy and my stream of consciousness, as bizarre as it may seem, transported me to a world completely owned by the mind.
It felt good to be back. But perhaps, that’s how all dying people feel who never come back!