Too Late To Live, Too Early To Die

From the moment Oliver spotted the man perched on the parapet of the bridge, he knew he wouldn’t jump.

The great suspension bridge that spanned the gorge stood still and silent, awaiting the final hour before sunrise. On the horizon, a slender band of blue was beginning to appear, outlining tiny farm houses and copses upon undulating hills.

Observing it all was the solitary man, his elbows on his knees, his head in his palms. He sat still as a statue despite his precipitous position. Oliver dared not startle him. Though he was confident he could talk him round, there was a subtle art to approaching such a delicate situation.

He inched towards him. When he was close enough to make out the brand of the man’s shoes, he called out softly: “hey there”.

The man flinched. Not the best start. He grabbed the railing with his hands instinctively and turned his head toward Oliver. Like a stunned animal, he stared at Oliver for a moment before replying “hi”. 

“Mind if I approach?” Oliver asked.

The man paused for a second. “No, you can stay there.” Oliver had no intention of yanking the man back from the precipice - he wouldn’t have the strength anyway. But the distance felt impersonal and made it much easier to mis-communicate. And that could be fatal.

“Ok, no problem,” Oliver said. He rested his arms on the railings and looked out over the gorge for a moment. A great chasm opened up in front of him, devouring his gaze. “It’s a long way down, you know”.

The man frowned at that. “You’d know that, would you?”

“As it happens, I would. A hundred metres to the bottom, give-or-take. Or, in more relatable terms, about 10 seconds of free-falling. Do you like rollercoasters?”

“I…” the man started, not quite believing how forward this strange man was speaking to him. He shook his head incredulously. “Yeah. Yeah I do.”

“I used to hate the drops. It always felt like the lower half of me was about to spring up into my chest. I threw up on one once. I wish I could say I was sitting at the back, but… well, I wasn’t too popular when I got off.”

The man stared at him, perplexed. Oliver was probing for something that would get the man to let his guard down. And he was failing.

“Anyway,” Oliver continued, “that is to say I don’t recommend what you’re considering doing.”

“Right.” The man turned his head away, tilting it down to stare into the gaping chasm below him. A gushing river swept through, and Oliver wondered if the man thought it might dampen the impact.

It wouldn’t.

“Can I ask…”

“No, you can’t,” the man said abruptly. “You don’t know or want to know anything about me, not really. You’ve come up here and made some stupid remarks about roller coasters. It’s pretty clear to me you, like everyone else, don’t care what I’m going to do or why I got here.”

Oliver detected the hint of an invitation there, but he had to tread carefully. He held his hands up. “OK, you got me”, he said. “And you’re right to be pissed about the roller coaster story. That was a little insensitive.”

The man scoffed.

“But I’m here, aren’t I?” Oliver continued. “If I didn’t care I would’ve carried on walking.”

“Right”, the man replied faintly. “Or you couldn’t have it on your conscience that you let me push myself off this damn railing and fell to my damn death.”

Oliver stalled for a second. This wasn’t his first such encounter with a person experiencing their darkest hour, and, sadly, wouldn’t be the last. He'd seen it end both ways, and, over time, learnt to cope.

“What’s your name?” Oliver asked.

The man sighed. “Tom”, he said.

“Tom. My name’s Oliver.”

He was met with silence.

“So why are you sitting up here? I mean, what really brought you here?”

“It’s better than being at home alone,” Tom replied, staring blankly toward the horizon. “I’m supposed to be at work tomorrow. Maybe they’ll appreciate and worry about me when I don’t show up. Or maybe they’ll just get someone to replace me in a few days’ time when they find out what happened. Not that it matters to you.” He stopped, looking down once more. “At least if I jump I’ll be in control of my life for once.”

Oliver gave a sympathetic smile. “Dead-end job and nothing to come home to?”

“Something like that."

“I was there once. A while ago. It felt like I had no control over anything, and anything I tried came to nothing. So why bother, right?”

No answer.

“But, well, it did get better in the end. Sometimes the solution to all your problems turns up when you least expect it. But how will you ever know if you don't give it a chance?”

“So I leave it to luck?” Tom said with a hint of mockery.

“It’s luck that any of us are here in the first place.”

“And I’ve just about run out of it,” Tom stated, slapping his hands down on the bare metal. He turned his head away once more and pushed himself forward a little, his backside now half-off the guard rail. “Nothing’s going to suddenly get better. Nobody’s going to wander into my life and make coming home from a dead-end job worth it. So guess what? In about 10 seconds time - as you rightly pointed out - I won’t care. And in no time at all everyone will get on with their lives and forget I even existed.”

Oliver sensed only anger in the man’s voice. There was a tinge of sorrow, but the man had given Oliver nothing to suggest he wanted to step down and return to safety.

And so Oliver looked away, resigned to his ineffectiveness. He observed the forests along the gorge, growing slowly, silently, patiently. He felt the cool early morning air blow delicately against his exposed hands and face. He picked out a dozen or so lights in far-off houses as the early-birds rose to get their children ready, or to get out for a jog before the Monday morning commute. High above, a flight to who-knows-where cruised along silently, streaming white smoke behind it. He wondered where they may be lucky enough to be heading; the sun-struck beaches of the Mediterranean, the awesome gorges of Norway, or perhaps the thrills of the Floridian theme parks. Oh to be up there again...

After what seemed like a lifetime, Oliver shut his eyes, tilted his head to his right, then slowly opened them again.

The man was gone.

Oliver stared for a moment. He’d been witness to this a couple of times before, and he knew what came next. His stomach dropped. An overwhelming melancholy overcame him. The whole world seemed to close in on him, asphyxiating all the joy from his being.

He had failed.

He knew he’d be able to deal with it in time; he’d done it before and he’d do it again. He wasn’t worried about that. He worried for the man’s family, his colleagues, and his friends. It didn’t matter how well they knew him, they would all blame themselves. And as much as he was truly sympathetic to whatever the man had been going through, he knew the misery he had left wouldn’t just crash into the chasm below. It would multiply outward, it would live on, as indiscriminate and brutal as a virus.

“I’ll never do it”, came a voice behind Oliver. Startled, he turned around.

There he stood, looking humbly at his feet, hands in pockets.

There he stood.

Oliver gawked at him, stunned. “You’re… alive?”

“Looks that way” the man said, looking up at Oliver. For the first time he was able to regard the man’s face. He looked to be in his mid-to-late 30s - the streaks of grey in his stubble gave that away. His black hair was cut short, likely for some office job. He had bags under his eyes, from many sleepless nights no doubt - this one included. His face seemed to droop, as if the weight of his worries was melting the skin from his cheeks.

He looked distinctly… normal, he thought.

But then, they always do.

Oliver felt the sensation of relief replace the sorrow he’d been feeling not ten seconds earlier. He let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in and shook his head, still not quite believing what he was seeing.

“I’m a coward,” Tom said looking sheepish.

“No,” Oliver retorted. “Deciding to face up to your life and continue living is the bravest thing you’ll ever do.”

Tom shuffled his feet. “I don’t know about that. I don’t feel very brave.”

“Perhaps not”, Oliver said, “but something brought you back down off that ledge.”

“Like I said: I’m a coward.”

“I think you wanted to come down for some other reason.” He paused. “I’ve found the people who’ve stepped down off that ledge have all had one thing in common; they had hope.”

Tom managed an unbelieving smile. In the distance the subtle glow of sunrise began to ascend above the hilltops.

“There was this one woman,” Oliver began. “Sarah was her name. She was sitting up here with a bottle of red wine when I happened across her. She’d broken up with her fiance around a week before we met. She was inconsolable, hysterical even. ‘The love of her life’, she said. She spoke for nearly an hour of all the times they’d enjoyed together, and how they’d planned to settle down and buy a house and have children. She was only twenty-five, with a whole lifetime ahead of her and thousands of people she was yet to meet. But logic doesn’t conquer when your whole world seems to have collapsed. Eventually she stepped down - I’m not sure what I said that did it. I think it was the conviction with which I painted the opportunities ahead of her. She seemed to come around to the idea anyway, and we hugged for a little while and I made a point to ask her to keep in touch if she ever needed me. Well, she came up here with her new husband not a month ago. Wonderful bloke. I’ll never forget the smile on her face as she gazed into his eyes…”

Oliver noticed that Tom had adopted a sorrowfull look all-of-a-sudden. “I just don’t see it happening for me,” he said. “I’m not Sarah.”

“But you believed that what I told her made perfect sense?”

Tom nodded.

“I think… maybe you should meet her. It’s up to you of course but I think it would help to see what it looks like at the top of the mountain, looking down at achievement rather than hopelessness. Though best not here, eh?”

Tom managed a smile and sniffed. “No. But I think you’re right. I think I need that right now.”

“Come, let’s watch the sun come up.”

The two men stepped up to the railings, this time their gazes firmly forward. The sky began to warm with a soft orange hue. For the first time they observed the quiet birdsong in the trees either side of them. Behind them cars trundled across the bridge, their occupants taking their time to regard the glorious views around them. The wind was gentle and cool on their skin. Oliver enjoyed the sense of peace these moments brought, before the drone of a thousand engines drowned out the day until dusk.

“There’s this rollercoaster in Florida,” Tom started. “It holds the record for the most twists of any coaster in the world. Top speeds of seventy miles-per-hour, vertical drops… that’s my favourite one. You should try it someday.”

Oliver chuckled. “I’d love to.”

***

The sun breached the skyline now, ascending slowly to witness the beginning of many more days in Tom’s life. For the first time in weeks, he felt a sense of calm. He’d come up here to put an end to the daily grind of life, work, failed romances and strangling commitments. Today, gazing over everyone else in the city, he could see the inconsequentiality and simplicity of it all. Streams of traffic flowed along the road down in the valley, hundreds of people making their way to their workplaces just to pay the rent for another month. A flock of birds scattered from the treeline to his right, off to find a slightly safer spot away from whatever had startled them - and perhaps enjoy a tasty berry or three. Then Tom noticed the moon, faint and low in the morning sky, the barren giant drifting for eternity in space, its purpose ascribed to it only by the tiny creatures of the planet it orbits.

Whatever he did today, he’d make it matter the most to himself, he decided. If he didn’t show up to work, they’d replace him with someone equally recyclable, and the board of directors (who he’d not seen even once and believed might not even be real people) would go on wringing out their profits to sustain their country estates. He could uncover the dust-ridden surfboard from the garage and head off down the coast to ride some waves - how he’d loved that as a teenager! Or perhaps he’d call his mum and drive across the country to spend some time with her and the dogs.

He let out a long sigh, at peace knowing he was back in control.

The sun rose fully into the sky.

“Thanks Oliver,” he said, turning to face the man who’d stood by him all night and re-ignited in him a long-lost feeling of warmth and optimism for the future.

A wispy outline hung in the air in Oliver’s place, swirling for a second before evaporating into nothing.