The Jump

He jumped.

No, not off a bridge. But you thought a bridge. And if you didn't think he jumped off a bridge you're thinking about it now. First, I'm controlling you. Second, you will always think about the worst case scenario.

The fact remains that he jumped.

Now you're thinking about something less serious. Maybe he's a basketball player and is taking a jump shot. Maybe he's a little kid who is bored and jumping on his parents bed. We all know that I am right. But that last bit is only because I'm controlling you.

You see how badly I need the power and the constant urge to tell you he jumped.

But, as I said before, he jumped. He jumped into the river and took a nice little swim. Of course he came out all muddied, covered in someone's feces, left over bag of chips, and empty cigarette pack. I know exactly what you're thinking--of course the cigarette pack is empty, because no smoker would leave a cigarette unsmoked before throwing the pack into the river.

Anyways, so he jumped into the river and took a swim. When he got out, the eyes of the city were on him, shocked that someone would be so ridiculous that they would throw all caution to the wind and swim through the Hudson River. At least the current was nice and strong that day to carry him all the way to Staten Island. Of course, only an idiot like that would come out the river on that lovely little island.

So he gets out and everyone is staring at him and he is being helped out the river. What a swim he had.

I know what you're thinking now too. You have no clue why I even wrote this story. You have no comprehension of why I am trying to control you with this stupid little boy who swam in the dirtiest river mother nature of made. Right?

Anyways, he had jumped off the George Washington Bridge.

A Knowledge Based Truth

It's time to return. Yet, it's time to take a step back from fiction. It's the reality of the matter that we are in it to help people. Treatment. Differential. Diagnosis. Or was that backwards? Or was that mismatched? It doesn't matter. What does matter, is that the level of stress has elevated to the point of disgrace. I recently recalled what an instructor said about a year ago: "As first years, you all care. By the time you're a third year you'll feel like a robot and all you'll be doing is looking for the right answer, disregarding the person you are treating as a person. And then you'll spend all of fourth year relearning how to be a good person." Ironically, I'm starting to see that emerge from me. And I could say I saw it coming and should have prevented it. But it's not my fault. Heck, I can't even blame the teachers or the school. It's the system.

This might end up being a bit of rant right now. But that's what I do. I rant. And clearly, it's the system. The liberal hippie mindset that we should all get four years of freedom to enjoy ourselves. Yeah, it was great. I had a blast. But seriously, what did I get out of those four years? I made it to 22, met a few interesting people, did some cool things, and learned obscure facts. But now, in another four years I'm supposed to turn around and help people. I think we can all agree, until the length of each day increases by a couple of hours, that is impossible.

Of course, it is inappropriate to go on this rant since thousands of mindless souls have succumb to this yellow brick road in the past, and thousands more will enter and stroll along in the future. But as I am on the road, I have the gifted opportunity and bestowed knighthood to just be a bit disgruntled, a bit stubborn, and perhaps ... positively a coccus.

The End of a Year

... Part fiction ... Part truth ...

We rose to the occasion. Yet, when we all woke up the following morning, it was disappointingly apparent that we still didn’t know anything. At least to me, I knew I could regurgitate facts – random factoids of a condition, a pathway, brilliancy to the human body and knowledge gained through scientific development. What I couldn’t do was present that information coherently, with the fervor and assertion that I knew what the fuck I was talking about. I couldn’t answer a question beyond the basic science. It was and is that heart wrenching standstill, where the more we learn, the more we know we don’t know one ounce of medical knowledge.

I have that arrogance about being humble. About being able to absorb a ton of information, while holding my head high and calm in light of everything that is in front of me. Unfortunately, I can’t show off to that girl next to me because she’s just as boastful as I am. This is where your close friends come in handy. They will worship your word, pity your suffering, and show some mild jealousy.

Still, tonight there is no jealousy. There is no arrogance. There is simply a ton of drunken medical students taking over the town. We’re still twenty-somethings caught in a web of maturity – a forced state we’re supposed to live in, while watching our mates suffer through some useless crap.

The above is an original piece of work by the author of this page. Any attempt to reproduce it will be deemed plagiarism.

Life We Chose

It’s not the life we chose, but the life that chose us. To Bob, that could mean wondrous things. To Steve, that could be the most devastating thing ever. Sometimes we set the bar high and get shot down. Sometimes we set the bar low and clear the hurdle effortlessly – soaring to the moon on the third jump of a triple jump.

But Bob and Steve aren’t real. I am. Yes, I am more than ink on a tree or fingertips on a keyboard. I am a person. And I have a life. But did I choose it? Or did it choose me?

Choices are all we have. And choices happen all around us. Yet, I’m at the point in my life where I have forgotten when I stopped choosing and began living. It’s that moment in time when the days move past, blurring together in a streaming flame. Mondays feel more like Saturdays and Junes are less exciting than Marches. Happiness and sadnesses are synonymous with the business of the day. Joy with oneself are figments of imaginations. Things are going swell today, awfully tomorrow, and stupendously in a fortnight.

Still, the pain at night, as my neck cringes in distress because one pillow is not enough, and two pillows are stiffening, is compounded by the fact that I don't know whether my joy is due to my own choices and if my sadness is due to life's choices for me.

My mind wrestles between periods of robotic actions, as if a pawn programmed to move one space, or two, and periods of presidential domain, dictating the bend of my toe and the thoughts of my mind.

Yesterday, I jumped from my fire escape. I took life – my life – into my hands. Leaned out the window, knocked my crotch on the window sill, scratched my ankle on the window frame, tripped and knocked my head against the railing. That's when I started to think life was grabbing me by a leash.

Strength. Personal domain.

I grabbed the fire escape, pulled myself up, leaned over, and took the plunge. Goodbye world. Hello future in heaven where, even if life takes me by the arm, it will be happy.

Well that didn't happen. Hello concrete sidewalk. Please meet my knees. Hello building shrub. Please meet my face. Hello life. Thanks for choosing to make me jump from the first floor.


The above is an original piece of work by the author of this page. Any attempt to reproduce it will be deemed plagiarism.