His greatest fear wasn’t falling. It was to have fallen and no one would know. He would be in the newspapers with the ugly wide font stretched over a picture he hated, bold as you please, “Missing”. Someone would be kind enough on Twitter to post a recent picture and a number to call. All of it will be useless. He did not get kidnapped. He did not go missing. He simply dropped and no one would know. There would be no body to identify.
His palm was beginning to sweat. The grip that was not really sure started to slip even more. All the death scenarios he created in his mind, none of them included hanging off a bridge hundreds of feet above. He was a ‘sleep and never wake up’ kind of guy. If someone didn’t find him anytime soon, he would learn all the ways a bone knows how to break. What a painful, unnecessary lesson. And what would Rose think?
Rose. The girl he gave his number to after months of not knowing how to speak to her. When she finally called and he wasn’t on the other end of the line, what would Rose think? Perhaps that he… Ghosted? Yes, he did but into heaven. Laughing bitterly at his own joke, his face a cocktail of tears and sweat. Everything in him was crying.
He had been hanging off for what seemed like forever. His voice was now hoarse from screaming for help but the sound of people approaching gave him renewed strength. They needed to know not to walk on the bridge else he wouldn’t make it. Neither would they. He screamed for help and heard the rhythmless sound of their feet running towards his voice. Looking up at faces he didn’t know, he warned. Don’t walk on the bridge please… pull me up from the side!
Share this post