Joy

She knew how to fly without wings.

Anything seemed possible, for a split second. Her heart had wings, her eyes glittered, and she gave a feeling of epic proportions. It was worse than any drug. It could drive a person mad in search of it, and when they got their slimy, depressed hands on it, it could push them to do this that their rational mind would have kept them from doing.

The cosmos whispered their approval to her; they enjoyed playing with those weaker, like pawns or puppets. Even the stars approved, they encouraged it. Around every corner, they whispered what they thought was right into her ears, whispering what they thought was possible. There were so many reasons, they said, to prove the non-believers wrong; prove that all their worry was worth nothing.

It was yellow; a sunny, optimistic color. The feeling inhaled all the blue of sadness and exhaled out its shiny yellow. You could smell it coming, the yellow feeling. Through rain and snow, you could smell it, like summer. Once you had felt it, you had been taught to sense when it was coming. It was spring and summer mixed into one bowl: spring fever and summer freedom.

It lasted for a second, an hour, a day, a week, a year. It could infect you, tie you down, and set you free, all at the same time. Once in a while it tricked you; forced you to believe that you were free, when you weren’t. It was the best feeling. It let you fly, when only it knew that you would fall back into needing it, into a desperation and want that only it could feed.

It was nothing but an addiction, this yellow feeling. When she jumped, she thought she could fly.

The pavement was the only sensible thing in her life.