Elation versus Panic

This is a freewritten short story called Elation versus Panic:

There she is, standing at the apex of the roof, looking down at the pavement, slick and wet below. The rain slaps around her, cold with a hint of almost-snow.

She closes her eyes and sees rainbows spiral out with jangling stars, shapes of hazy distinction and skidding glitchy sounds.

People below her gather and shout. She opens her eyes and looks down at them gesturing with panic. They think she is going to jump. She is not interested in jumping, only in looking and feeling. Sensation rushes like a beautiful buzz.

People are always asking what why who when?

She doesn’t care about these questions. All she cares for is the rush, the changing unfixed unmeaning sensation.

She likes their panic. She shares her rush with them. They interpret it with panic. Panic or elation; they are all sensation and they all put notches of experience onto our souls.

Jump into the Void

I take in a gulp of crisp cold air, filling my lungs with it. My palms stick and my heart drums heavily in my chest. The rocks beneath my bare feet have soaked in the heat of the sun that the wind steals out of the air. The landscape rolls out in front of me. Between here and there is a sea of dimpled rock. Huge ravines and gaps span outwards. I stand at the edge of one now.
One. Two. Three. Jump into the void. My muscles scream as I push upwards. The cold blue air rushes against my skin. I have become a bird. Free and light.
When I land it is with a heaviness. The rock is hard and unyielding. My skin soft and exposed.
I take a shaky breath and look back. The ravine looks darker now. Deeper. What if I had fallen? Shakily I press onwards. Put one foot forward. Now the path is clearer and the next gap a comfortable distance, I can truly soak it up. This place is so big. So empty. The sky is a blanket above. The rocks like some other world. Smooth faces with rounded bumps. Gritty under my feet but clean and gentle to my eyes. I walk slowly, extending the time between now and the next gap, the next jump into the void.

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This was the second freewritten piece I wrote for the writing workshop I attended recently. We were asked to chose a picture from a small selection and to set the scene of the picture. I couldn't believe it when I saw this one in the pile. I grabbed it and started writing straight away.

Gullible

This is an old freewritten thing I wrote some time ago:

She worshipped him. He ignored her. Never once did he answer any of her letters, yet she never lost faith in the hope that one day he might show her he loved her like they said he did. It was more their fault than hers or his. They told her that he loved her more than anything in the world, and the more she spoke with him and tried to please him the more he would love her. They told her that he liked things to be done in a certain way so she made sure to do everything in the correct way so as to please him. They told her to deprive herself of things to show him how much she loved him. In actual fact they didn’t even know him; he did not care what she did or how she did it. He thought she was stupid for being gullible enough to take all they said literally without thought or reason.