• Vol. 03
  • Chapter 09
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Jumping into the future

She was planning the way to the end of the horizon without considering the unpredictability of waves, as if a path of yellow bricks glistened amongst the foam and shimmering light. She believed in fate but only if it worked in her favour. If there were to be a wave that would submerge her and kill her it wouldn’t be fate, for fate in her eyes only had a positive outcome. Yet there she was, trying to look ahead with nothing but blurred vision and positivity guiding her.

Childhood, school, university, relationships, and hardships were all meant to have prepared her for this moment, but as she took a step forward the blindness tightened and the light flickering on the sea vanished. The sound of waves crashing resonated from below. The smell of fresh salt air filled her head. A cool breeze blew her hair backwards. Her senses fought one another as she considered what to do next.

There seemed to be no plan, structure or certainty to the next step. She was being asked to dive without any guarantee of air or safety. So as if she was a baby taking her first step, she found herself with two options. Either to dive and allow the current to drive her forwards, backwards, sideways or below, or to step back, allow the blindfold to slack and allow her to look ahead towards the line where the sky ended and the world began and consider what could have been. No degree taught her this. No heartbreak either. She was faced with a decision that consisted of either risk or forever unknowing. Was it a future of which no safety was guaranteed or a present that was boring, plain but consistently safe?

She jumped.

And as her head rose above the shimmering ground she understood that the current, as ferocious and merciless as it can be, felt far more reassuring than a wind that whispers ‘what if?’.

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