Out of all misery...

The superintendent was aiming the beam of his torch at the ladder, and then slowly upwards. Its light was jumping from step to step flickering around whenever it reached a higher level. He was sweating and slightly out of breath, not because he did not know what to expect, yet, from the intruder he was about to confront, but because of the suffocating heat that still filled the air of this summer night at this late hour.
He had heard something, while getting out of bed for the toilet. But when he had opened the window towards the pools there was no sound anymore. So he had focussed on carefully emptying his bladder, when he had heard it again, this time definitely a movement. A shadow next to the dimly lit pools. Someone was out there trying to take advantage of the silent and still waters covered only by the night air. This had happened before, though not very often, since he was well known for catching them all.
There, above him, on the level of the diving platform, the light beam touched something. There was someone hunkering down, a person.
"Oy!" shouted the superintendent through the night. "Who is that? What are you doing up there?"
No answer, which was to expect.
"There is no way out!" he therefore added.
No answer.
“Come down at once!” he ordered.
“I can’t!” said a tiny voice. A female voice.
The superintendent was still aiming his torch light at the source of this voice. Now that his eyes slowly but surely adapted more and more to the lighting conditions, he started to realise what he saw. This person, this girl, feebly trying to cover up certain body parts with her hands, was completely naked.
The very moment this instant had fully sunken into his mind, he switched off the torch light.
“What the hell are you doing up there – like this?” he asked with a rough voice now.
“I was trying to jump”, said the tiny voice.
“Well, why didn’t you, when you realised that someone was coming?”
He waited for a moment, already thinking that, again, there would not be an answer. But then the tiny voice was speaking again, even tinier than before.
“I was too scared.”
“You will have to jump eventually” he said straight away, since this seemed the only logical solution to the girl’s situation right now. “You will hardly climb back down the ladder, will you?”
This time the answer came straight away, desperate, even agonised.
“I will have to!”
And there, to his utter astonishment, the shadow of that girl above moved towards the ladder. At first, he did not know what to do, and he started panning the pools and meadows in between.
“Are you alone?” he asked, and he did not even know why.
Her answer startled him even more.
“I am always alone”, she said.
While she talked, and even after that, he looked at her again stepping down the ladder, and with every step further down her long legs and her perfectly rounded back and shoulders came more and more into focus, even in the little light that the street lamps cast over the fences of the facility.
The lower part of his body now seemed to be prepared for an obvious reaction, and he sensed danger. How old was she? Sixteen? If?
She had reached ground level now, and he realised a little too late that he was blocking the way towards her clothes, a load he had spotted earlier when cornering the intruder had still been his first priority.
“Sorry”, she whispered, about to pass him.
“Wait”, he said. “How old are you?”
What as stupid thing to ask right now!
“Seventeen”, she said.
He felt his heart jumpstart, and again there was movement in his lower parts. He wanted to ask more questions, like why she had come here in the first place, and why she had tried to jump, but his voice failed.
He made a step forward towards her, not even having decided this fully conscious. She, on the other hand, did not move an inch, she just stood there. He lifted both his hands and touched the outlines of her breasts, carefully, gently. She still did not move, but he heard her breathing now, and his body instantly felt as if it was on fire. He made another step forward, closer towards her, caressing her skin and lowering his head as to touch her shoulders and her neck with his lips, and cover them with his kisses. Her scent made him dizzy, as if he also was naked and just about to intrude.
I have been dreaming a lot, he thought. But this is something else.




© 2011