Читать книгу Ten Days - John Sheppard - Страница 19

Sam had found it difficult to get up and jog this morning, after her nightmare a few hours earlier. But, as always, jogging helped her deal with whatever was going on in her life. As she rounded one of the gentle bends in the river, she saw it. A body was floating face down.

A year ago, it would have been news; the bridges would have been crowded with people stopping to stare. Now suicides were common, and few people even noticed. Nothing seemed to surprise anyone anymore. Numbness had settled into day-to-day living; pain and losses were just expected.

The pressure of feeling surrounded, coupled with a lack of hope for the future, was taking its toll. There was also the not knowing when the end would come which could drive one crazy. As far as she knew, everyone had lost someone in the last five years. Many, like Sam, had taken loss after loss, until they felt they just couldn’t take it anymore. Hadn’t someone once said something, in some situation, about the living envying the dead? In her own mind, Sam had determined she wasn’t going to just give up. She had a plan, and it wasn’t the Option.

As Sam passed the body, she wondered about the person in the water. What finally drove them to this point? Who had they been? Five or six months ago, would they have even considered their life ending this way? If things had been different, if there hadn’t been a war, who would they have become? Who had she become? How had the war and the last several months changed her?