"The Jumper" drabbles by Neville Hunt
No... regrets
The Jumper #16
The two men stood up. The indicator showed that the next train eastwards was due to arrive in one minute. They ambled to the platform edge, Noah holding onto Frank’s arm for safety.
“Did you ever find out the name of the scoundrel Denise took up with, Frank?”
“Denise didn’t want me to know...” started Frank, “...but Luke let it out accidentally. Norman? No, no... not a ‘nor’... more of a ‘no’. No, no, no.... Noel? Hang on, what was your name again?”
“Noah.”
The advancing train masked the sound. Noah’s swift, firm, timely nudge fulfilled Frank’s life ambition.
“NO................!”
To work...
The Jumper #15
“Where would you normally be headed from here?” asked Noah, “on a day when you weren’t trying out kill yourself of course! The hereafter doesn’t count!” He giggled.
“To work in Embankment.” was the reply
“Well now we’ve had our little chat, and assuming your desire to end it all is over for today, don’t you think maybe you should take the next train, head for work and save that job of yours?” This suggestion of Noah’s prompted a nod from Frank, who thought that maybe this fairy godfather had made some sense. He certainly felt much better about himself.
Potential loss
The Jumper #14
“But if you lose your job...?” Noah started his question, for Frank to quickly finish...
“...They lose the payout too! So now do you see that I can’t afford to wait?”
“Well if you put it like that, I can see that you might see the urgency, but it’s rather a rash thing to do for what’s only money! And what’s money... it doesn’t buy you happiness!”
“Well I would expect someone like a fairy godfather to think that way, although I’m still not convinced such a being exists!”
“Ah well!” said Noah, just a little too self-righteously .
Payout
The Jumper #13
“Explain!” demanded Noah surprisingly curtly.
“Well, The job I’m about to lose is really good. The salary’s great and the pension arrangements are terrific, even though my retirement age is still over thirty years away. But along with the pension comes a non-contributory life insurance for 8 times my salary. That would pay out over £400,000... with no suicide let-out clause either! I’m worth more dead than alive!”
“That payout going straight to your children?” asked Noah, a trifle over inquisitively perhaps.
“I wish...” said Frank, wistfully, “Denise would get it, but they should inherit in the end.”
Urgent departure
The Jumper #12
“Ah! Back to the kids.” said Noah. “I know you say your Marcie and Luke are problem kids, and I’m guessing you believe it’s Denise’s bad influence that’s made them that way, but surely you must love them a bit?”
“The tiniest bit!” Frank admitted, “but the little creeps wouldn’t miss me because apparently they both like their mum’s fancy man more than me!”
“But let’s get back to you trying to kill yourself, surely part of you wouldn’t want to leave them high and dry if you died.. penniless so to speak....”
“That’s why I must do it now!”
Doggers
The Jumper #11
“So now I come to Denise, my wife. Wife, mother and absolute slapper! The filthy creature seems to be shagging some other bloke on the side! And it’s not just on the side either; they’re shagging upside, downside, inside, outside... yeah, I do mean outside too. She and this bloke are apparently regularly seen ‘dogging’ on Ealing Common, with other filthy perverts videoing them ‘at it’ and sharing all over social media. And she makes no secret of it either!”
“Do you know who the bloke is she’s having this affair with?”
“No.... but I think the bloody kids do!”
There’s more...
The Jumper #10
“There’s more... oh yes there’s more!” continued Frank, who was now on a roll. “My kids are misbehaved little gits who, when they deign to speak to me, are the rudest brats you can imagine. Fortunately they usually give me the rude, silent treatment. Marcie, the older one’s doing drugs and the younger picks his nose and eats it, the filthy little tyke! They’re both crap at school. I blame Denise, she’s always been a right slut!”
“My, my” exclaimed Noah, “see what I said; it must be good to let it all out! Is that it now?”
“There’s more...”
Perbloodyspective
The Jumper #9
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t know everything about you.” said Noah. “But it might help you to talk about it; help you get it into perspective.”
“And you’re the Perbloodyspective Fairy are you?”
“Please yourself, but sometimes it helps to sound off!”
“Well if you wanna know, my job’s going belly-up, my work colleagues are avoiding me, so I’m in line to get fired. As well as that my regular mates don’t want to know me... they say I’m getting paranoid and boring. My car’s knackered and failed its MOT test, my back’s completely buggered......!
“Go on...”
He knows you know!
The Jumper #8
“And then there’s your family. How do you think they’ll feel? What will be the impact on them? Your wife, Denise. How devastating will it be for her? And little Marcie and Luke?... to lose any parent would be devastating for them. And of course there’s the shame it would bring down on them all....”
“How the hell do you know my wife and kids’ names?” Frank accused. “I don’t know you!”
“Don’t forget Frank, I’m your fairy godfather! I know a lot about you.”
“Well then. You probably know why I’m here. My life has turned to absolute shit!”
Reproach
The Jumper #7
“And what about the train driver? I’ve heard they never get over ‘jumpers’. It ruins their lives from then on, and that of their families.”
Frank didn’t want to listen to this. He wanted to squeeze such thoughts and realities out of his head. He felt compelled, though, to respond to this tacit attack on his macabre plans.
“They must all know the risks. They must realise that anyone could jump on the tracks anytime. It wouldn’t be their fault!”
“No, but they would never truly believe that. They would carry, or at least share some guilt”
Frank snorted angrily.
The condemned man
The Jumper #6
“Ah,” said Noah sagely, “better out than in! That’ll be your hearty breakfast!”
“What?” queried Frank. “What are you talking about?”
“The condemned man... he should always have a hearty breakfast!” said the stranger.
“I’ve not been condemned!” Frank insisted.
“Yes you have...... by you!”
Noah continued... “Let’s get back to the impact... or impacts. Aside from you impacting with the train, have you thought of the frightful impact on those fellow travellers witnessing your gruesome, sticky end, in Technicolour, and replaying it over and over. How’d you think they’d feel? And for how long?”
“They’d get over it!!”
“Really?”
Guts
The Jumper #5
Before Noah could continue, the train pulled into the station and people got off and on, ignoring the two men on the bench. It was rush hour.
“The first impact would be you, whatever you’re called, hitting that train and line almost simultaneously. Whether you’d be dead before your bones crunch, your skin tears, your guts spill out and your blood spurts out is doubtful and unfortunately we won’t get the opportunity to ask you because you’d be spattered and spread everywhere. But that’d be your choice!”
Frank immediately spilled his guts, figuratively, on the platform in front of him.
The impact
The Jumper #4
Frank merely grunted as the man, Noah, introduced himself.
“And you are?” asked Noah. Then he waited, and waited for a reply that wasn’t forthcoming. So he continued...
“You know it’s really, really messy when people jump in front of moving trains. You have no idea how much blood there is in one human body, not to mention the guts and bits of shattered bone.”
Frank shuddered at the thought and couldn’t help responding. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t see it after the impact, would I?”
“Oh so you were planning to jump!” said Noah triumphantly. “Let’s talk about that impact!”
Noah
The Jumper #3
“I don’t need a bloody fairy godfather!“ replied Frank.
“Everybody needs a fairy godfather at some time in their lives!” said the bearded man, who bore a passing resemblance to someone Frank thought he’d seen, but couldn’t remember exactly where. “Let’s talk about things... after all you can’t be in a great hurry to get anywhere... except maybe the hereafter!”
With that the man gripped Frank’s arm and led him to a bench at the back of the platform. Seeming beaten, for some reason Frank didn’t resist. They sat. Frank said nothing. He hadn’t wanted anyone’s intervention.
“Call me Noah!”
Looking like
The Jumper #2
“Thinking of jumping old boy?” the stranger asked as he simultaneously put a firm hand on Frank’s shoulder, causing the latter to turn his head quickly. “You shouldn’t do that my friend!”
In an instant, Frank realised that his plan to ‘end it all’ while minimising impact on those nearby was likely to be stopped dead. Unlike him!
“Er-er no!” Frank quickly replied.
“Well I think you were!” said the stranger, “You look like a jumper!”
Taken aback, Frank replied, “What does a jumper look like then?”
“You!”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Let’s say I’m your fairy godfather,”
Thoughtful
The Jumper #1
It was Monday, 08:30. Barons Court station on the Piccadilly Line on London Underground. The figure standing on the platform nearest where the front carriage of the train would stop was thoughtful, or so he thought. He needed the crowded platform, but didn’t want any more than absolutely necessary of the other people waiting for the train, due to arrive in one minute, to witness what would probably be his rather gorey end.
Frank wanted out. Frank saw no other way. Frank had planned it quite meticulously.
Frank didn’t expect, however, the timely or untimely intervention of the bearded stranger.
