There Never Was

Standing on the lakeshore, she looked out at a picturesque scene. The blue green of the water met the bright blue of the sky at a perfect, nearly seamless horizon that stretched out into infinity. It is here, in the beautiful, Eastern most part of Chicago and that Maggie Ortiz has come to die.
Her serene, almost solemn voice cuts through the madness off thoughts echoing off of her psyche. The voices are quiet for the first time in a long time. Not voices as found in a schizophrenic, but the internal, eternal, innumerable sound of self judging self.

"Self-realization is the first step towards damnation. Once you're aware of yourself, in relation to others, that's when your life starts to decay. What once was endless becomes painfully temporary. " her mind said.

As she stared off into the distance, she fumbled aimlessly around in the pockes of her oversized shoulder bag. Finally, regretfully, her fingers touched the smooth contours of her sterling silver cigarette case she stole from her grandmother's house, a day after her grandmother's funeral.

She pulls out a single cigarette and lights it, inhaling deeply, the smoke gently curling around her wavy, chestnut hair like an effervescent halo.

"For the first few years, you were like everyone else. Remember the day after my tenth birthday, when he started coming into my room? It started out mild, but as time went on, you got older and he got worse." Her mind was becoming judgemental. The tone of voice was no longer her own. Instead, an unrecognizable authoritative timbre tinged the edges of her inner dialogue.

"When you found out that your father died only weeks before you were born, you should've been ecstatic. The man that ruined your childhood was gone. You should've been able to get help. You should've been able to live my life. But no…Instead, you was even more lost." The voice was cold now. Callous.

"You're already dead."

The voice stopped and silence filled the endless expanse of air, earth, and sky. Maggie was an unwelcome interlopper and the time to leave was readily apparent.

She bowed her head, stubbed out her cigarette in the soft, warm sand of the beach, and removed her shoes.

With the early light of dawn rinsing over her darkened form, she was little more than a smudge on the horizon.

A heartbeat later, she was no more.