“So after that the depths of futility became a refuge instead of something to run from, its negativeness almost comfortable in contrast to the positive horror of what living has become. But I can’t take either one any more.” She sagged against the railing. “And I don’t have to.” She pushed herself upright and swallowed a sudden dry nausea. “The middle will be deeper,” she thought. “Deep, swift, quiet, carrying me out of this intolerable-“
And as she walked she heard a small cry somewhere in the lostness inside her. “But I could have loved living so much! Why have I come to this pass?”
Shhh! the darkness said to the little voice. Shhh! Don’t bother to think. It hurts. Haven’t you found it hurts? You need never think again or speak again or breathe again past this next inhalation ….
Lea’s lungs filled slowly. The last breath! She started to slide across the concrete bridge railing into the darkness-into finishedness-into The End.
“You don’t really want to.” The laughing voice caught her like a splash of water across her face. “Besides, even if you did, you couldn’t here. Maybe break a leg, but that’s all.
“Break a leg?” Lea’s voice was dazed and, inside, something broke and cried in disappointment, “I’ve spoken again!”
“Sure.” Strong hands pulled her away from the railing and nudged her to a seat in a little concrete kiosk sort of thing.
“You must be very new here, like on the nine-thirty bus tonight.”
“Nine-thirty bus tonight,” Lea echoed flatly.
” ‘Cause if you’d been here by daylight you’d know this bridge is a snare and a delusion as far as water goes. You couldn’t drown a gnat in the river here. It’s dammed up above. Sand and tamarisks here, that’s all. Besides you don’t want to die, especially with a lovely coat like that-almost new!”
“‘Want to die,” Lea echoed distantly. Then suddenly she jerked away from the gentle hands and twisted away from the encircling arm.
“I do want to die! Go away!” Her voice sharpened as she spoke and she almost spat the last word.
“But I told you!” The dim glow from the nearest light of the necklace of lights that pearled the bridge shone on a smiling girl-face, not much older than Lea’s own. “You’d goof it up good if you tried to commit suicide here. Probably lie down there in the sand all night, maybe with a sharp stub of a tamarisk stuck through your shoulder and your broken leg hurting like mad. And tomorrow the ants would find you, and the flies-the big blowfly kind. Blood attracts them, you know. Your blood, spilling onto the sand.”
Lea hid her face, her fingernails cutting into her hairline with the violence of the gesture. This-this creature had no business peeling the oozing bleeding scab off, she thought. It’s so easy to think of lumping into darkness-into nothingness, but not to think of blowflies and blood-your own blood.
“Besides-” the arm was around her again, gently leading her back to the bench, “you can’t want to die and miss out on everything.”
“Everything is nothing,” Lea gasped, grabbing for the comfort of a well-worn groove. “It’s nothing but gray chalk writing gray words on a gray sky in a high wind. There’s nothing! There’s nothing !”
“You must have used that carefully rounded sentence often and often to have driven yourself such a long way into darkness,” the voice said, unsmiling now. “But you must come back, ” you know, back to wanting to live.”
“No, no!” Lea moaned, twisting. “Let me go!’”
“I can’t.” The voice was soft, the hands firm. “The Power sent me by on purpose. You can’t return to the Presence with your life all unspent. But you’re not hearing me, are you? Let me tell you.
“Your name is Lea Holmes. Mine, by the way, is Karen. You left your home in Clivedale two days ago. You bought a ticket for as far as your money would reach. You haven’t eaten in two days. You’re not even quite sure what state you’re in, except the state of utter despair and exhaustion-right?”
“How-how did you know?” Lea felt a long-dead something stir inside her, but it died again under the flat monotone of her voice. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. You don’t know anything about it!” A sick anger fluttered in her empty stomach. “‘You don’t know what it’s like to have your nose pressed to a blank wall and still have to walk and walk, day after day, with no way to get off the treadmill-no way to break through the wall-nothing, nothing, nothing! Not even an echo! Nothing!”
She snatched herself away from Karen’s hands and, in a mad flurry of motion, scraped her way across the concrete railing and flung herself over into the darkness.
Endlessly tumbling-endlessly turning-slowly, slowly. Did it take so long to die? Softly the sand received her.
“You see,” Karen said, shifting in the sand to cradle Lea’s head on her lap. “I can’t let you do it.”
“But-I-I-jumped!” Lea’s hands spatted sideways into the sand, and she looked up to where the lights of the passing cars ran like sticks along a picket fence.
“Yes, you did.” Karen laughed a warm little laugh. “See, Lea, there is some wonder left in the world. Not everything is bogged down in hopelessness. What’s that other quote you’ve been using for an anesthesia?”
Lea turned her head fretfully and sat up. “Leave me alone.”
“What was that other quote?” Karen’s voice was demanding now.
” ‘There is for me no wonder more,’ ” Lea whispered into her hands, ” ‘Except to wonder where my wonder went, And why my wonder all is spent-‘ ” Hot tears stung her eyes but could not fall. ” ‘-no wonder more-‘ ” The big emptiness that was always waiting, stretched and stretched, distorting-“No wonder?” Karen broke the bubble with her tender laughter. “Oh, Lea, if only I had the time! No wonder, indeed! But I’ve got to go. The most incredibly wonderful-” There was a brief silence and the cars shh-ed by overhead, busily, busily. “Look!” Karen took Lea’s hands. “You don’t care what happens to you any more, do you?”
“No!” Lea said dully, but a faint voice murmured protest somewhere behind the dullness.
“You feel that life is unlivable, don’t you?” Karen persisted.
