Give People Their Flowers While You Still Can — Or Their Bananas.
Sarah, we’ll call her that, jumped down from my floor last week: I live on the fifteenth floor of a sixteen-storey Apartment Building.
This mystery woman, “Sarah”, has been the fastest person to die after speaking with me. The experience was numbing to say the least. Worse, her blanket is still in our kitchen (since nobody wants to touch it) and thus I’m reminded daily , each time I step in there.
Whatever you’re reading now, is thus me still trying to process things. “Dear diary” vibes and what not.
Now, where do the Bananas come in? More detail: I don’t just live in an Apartment Building, I live in one owned by my school; this means students on each floor have their own rooms, but share a common kitchen and bathroom–2-star hotel style.
I don’t know how, I don’t know when and I don’t know why, but she picked our kitchen to crash for a couple of days.
As a night person, one who absolutely detests sharing the kitchen with people, for fear of needless small talk, I come out like the nocturnal owl that I am, to cook way past “bed time” (sorry, not sorry aproko doc).
So one day, I’m about to run the usual Gordon Ramsey night mode ting. But as I switch on the light, I see what is a clear female-figure laid out on a kitchen bench…at 3am.
Not sure if she’s a light sleeper or not, I decide it’s not worth it and settle for a couple of bread slices before bed.
Plus I’m not exactly comfortable being alone in the same room with a random woman at night. But I’ll stop there and let my fellow overthinkers do the remaining mental calculation of terrible possible outcomes.
After a day of completely avoiding the kitchen, I–emboldened by hunger–confidently march to the kitchen, excepting the strange woman to be gone. But alas, apparently not.
“did you just move in? Or why do you sleep in the kitchen.”
I finally break the ice.
She stops typing something on her Laptop and makes eye contact with me.
“No I’m just here for a few days till *inaudible murmur*and then I’ll be on my way.”
“sooo, how and what do you eat then? I see no pots, or food around you. Do you go outside to eat?”
I ask confused.
“…yeah”, she hesitates a bit.
“…yes I go out to buy food.”
Clearly a lie, as there were no wrappers, plates or even water bottles around her, and all she had was a huge camping backpack and a blanket (my neighbour had apparently met her before me and given her). Prior to that she’d just curl herself up on the kitchen bench and go to sleep, cold or not.
Doubting a random woman would accept already cooked food from a random man, while simultaneously being unsatisfied leaving her hungry, I go back to my room and come back with three unpeeled Bananas.
“here. You can have these.”
“no thank you”.
Excepted, so I persist a little bit further.
“really, you can have it.”
“no it’s fine.”
She insists, I retreat.
“well, if there’s anything you need let me know ok?”
“yeah sure, thanks.”
That night, like clockwork, I become hungry again and head to the kitchen, planning to cook as quietly as possible while she slept. Mostly to avoid ever interacting with her during the day until she leaves, after my embarrassing last attempt to convince her to have some Banana.
I think I fried eggs: something definitely quickly made sha. The whole time, I’m looking back to see if the sound of sizzling oil had woken her up. I couldn’t tell if she was a deep sleeper, or just ignoring all the pot clangs, because she was sleeping facing the wall. Just then she moves her head very slightly, but noticeably.
I finish cooking and open the windows a bit for some fresh air. If it gets too cold, she could always just get up and close it.
She had been sleeping in the dark, so I switched the light back off on my way out.
Around, say 7am, I here a light knock on my door. But, having just gotten into bed at 4am-ish, I don’t exactly spring up from my bed. On top of the fact that I was sleeping in only underwear, I’m definitely not a morning person as well.
I hear the presence walk away and the kitchen door open. Still I answer my door and peek into the hallway. Empty.
I don’t know who knocked, but I should have gone to check on her in the kitchen.
Having convinced myself that it’s probably nothing, I head back to bed.
Afternoon comes and I head to the kitchen, only to find my confused neighbour (same one that gave her the blanket) staring into space, with the blanket he gave her folded roughly, on the edge of the kitchen bench (where it has stayed till this day). He had also just finished talking to Sarah the day I offered her Bananas too.
“that lady killed herself man”
“what are you talking about, what Lady?”
Eyes widening as it begins to dawn on me, I ask “the lady that used to sleep right here? How?! When??”
“she jumped out the window this morning, right after screaming very loudly, the police were here this morning and asked me a few questions bla bla bla”
“wait, that isn’t possible though, right? All our windows are suicide proof”.
(by this I meant you couldn’t open then horizontally, you could only tilt them at a very small angle for ventilation.)
“apparently, she forced the lock open I guess”.
Then he takes me to the window, and truly the lock is damaged.
Still in shock, having possibly been the last person to see her, I stupidly ask if she survived a fifteen-storey jump. Of course not, there were already flowers at the spot she landed, and the Police Red Tapes were gone; meaning forensics was already here and done with the scene.
In 2018 I saw a woman get killed from my window, by her boyfriend, on January 1st. And someone had committed suicide in my same Apartment Building recently, by jumping too, from the floor below me.
But this was the only person I had ever talked to shortly before their death, to my knowledge.
I hate many things: I hate feeling powerless. But I also hate how quickly life moves on after we drop perishable flowers at the foot of tombstones and light scented candles as memorials; candle lights that eventually fade away.
But then what can one do but move on? To mourn every single dead person is to perpetually suspend one’s self in despair. The human mind isn’t exactly built for such a burden. But empathy makes me sentimental.
And so, I understand that flowers and candles are more of coping mechanisms. Essentially you’re saying “this is my grief embodied in this gesture”.
Only, flowers aren’t intrinsically synonymous with grief. Neither is the “flower” in the title of this story to be taken strictly literally here.
Show people your appreciation while they are still alive, is all I’m saying.
As for me, I can’t help but wonder if I could have done anything different to stop her. Maybe I’ll try four Bananas next time.
