I can do this. Just one more step, and I'll be done. I want this, as much as I'm capable of wanting anything. This bridge is going to make everything better for everyone. At least, it's going to make things better for the people I leave behind. Mother's feelings will be hurt at first, but at last she'll be free to admit the unspoken truth that lies between us. I'm a burden. When I'm dead, she'll be able to mourn and move on, rather than spending her days worrying over me. I just hope the fall off this bridge is far enough to kill me quickly. I lean forward and look down to check the height.
Wow, that's scary.
I take a step back again. Maybe I need a minute. A few deep breaths, and I'll be used to the sight. Besides, I won't have to endure it for long, I'll be at the bottom in a heartbeat. Actually, it might be a few heartbeats, the way the ticker is pounding. I need to take a little time to calm down. I back up a few steps more. If I can sit for a while and think on it, I'm sure I'll work up the courage. There must be a bench here somewhere.
I walk away from the ledge without paying attention to where I am going. I won't go far. All I need is to sit until I get my nerve up, and then I'll be back. My knees are shaking as I walk. A few steps farther, and I'll feel better. A few steps more, and I'll be ready. Every time I try to turn back my legs shake again until I can hardly stand, so I keep putting one foot in front of the other until I realize I've been walking for hours. I'm nowhere near the bridge. There hardly seems a point in turning back now.
I don't understand myself some days. The last thing I want is to live to see tomorrow, and yet I've set myself up to do just that. The problem is the bridge. I'm afraid of heights, and I didn't know that before. Maybe there's an easier way to do this.
XXXXXXXXXX
Everything I've tried over the months has been a failure. Not only am I incapable of handling life, I can't even succeed at dying. How do I manage to be so useless and incompetent? In my prayers at night I ask God why he grants good health to someone as undeserving as myself and instead takes the lives of ordinary people. I tell him if he's looking for a victim I'm the perfect candidate. God ignores me.
The one force that doesn't overlook me is Mother. She wears herself out trying to find someone to cure my internal suffering, when I'm not even worth the bother. In order to ease her troubles, I promise Mother I will try harder at taking care of myself. Some days I even do. I talk to the doctors, I go to work during the day and out socializing in the evening. Sometimes I think I manage to trick her into believing I'm better. She doesn't know how many times I break my promise. The cuts lie hidden under my sleeves, and the empty bottles of poison in the garbage. It's a shame I was born with a hardier constitution than a rat, because I'm a rat in all but body.
XXXXXXXXXX
Was it wrong of me to have gotten married? This unsuspecting woman at my side is betrothed to misery. I have selfishly dragged another person into my struggles. I tell myself I can get through my days doing my duty to society and to my wife, and that will be enough. I'm a liar. I'm still unstable, I'm only relying on an innocent woman to prop up my emotions. I should be strong enough to face my problems on my own, but I can't. I don't know what I would do without Elizabeth. If she ever took away her support I think I really would kill myself. She wants to start our life together on a bit of land her father owned, and I agree without thinking; she is going to need all the happiness she can get with me around.
The bridge crossing her land is charming. It should be pleasant here, but when I look down my chest seizes with fear. Any height at all reminds me of my first failure at the previous bridge. My heart refuses to forget the terror in that moment, when it can't be bothered to remember more useful emotions like happiness or contentment. Stupid thing, I wish I could cut it out and throw it away, but the scars on my wrists remind me that cutting is a harder affair than the razor's edge reveals.
Still, I have to walk across this bridge twice a day, once on my way to work and again on my way home. To do otherwise would be to admit that I'm not as "cured" as I pretend. If I refuse to walk on bridges people will want to know why. Nobody can know what I tried and failed to do on another bridge long ago. Nobody wants to know.
XXXXXXXXXX
I walk over the bridge once again. Time has made this place comfortable. It deserves one small triumph in the story of my life; despite its claim time has failed to heal me.
This bridge and I are old friends now. It's the only friend I have, now that Elizabeth has left me. Begging her to stay did no good. Admitting I was on the verge of taking my own life was pointless. She told me she didn't love me. It's only a confirmation of what I've known all along: I am unlovable. If I can't bring love or fulfillment to someone, then what is the point of my life? Staying on this earth only causes hardship for those around me.
Her leaving me alone on her empty land with this quiet bridge is an invitation, and I can't resist any longer.
XXXXXXXXXX
The obituaries in the news held a brief notice. "Paul Durell, born 1862, deceased 1885 by accidental fall. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Durell."
Judith put down the newspaper. It was no accident that took the life of her son. All those doctors claimed they could cure him of his misery and self-destruction, but all they'd ever done was walk away with her money. She never should have let Paul out of her sight. While she may not have always been able to comfort him, she at least could help him control his impulses.
Where was that wife of his been at the time anyway? Why wasn't she there to stop him? It was supposed to be her duty to support him even in sickness, but that idiot was just as useless as the doctors. She was worse then them; she was supposed to love him and give him a reason to live. Instead she'd driven him to his death.
If that witch refused to give Paul a reason to live, then she shouldn't have a reason to live either. She would come to Elizabeth, not as a mother, but as a friend, and be at her side every day, until that woman finally knew how it felt to experience loss. When the poor widow could take no more, she would stand by and watch her fling herself to her death with no one to save her.