The Bridge

The Bridge

         

I chose a seat from the row before me and took a deep breath. The people here don’t know anything, the world thought that she was crazy. That’s why I need to tell you her story now, as it stands, as it was. I can’t just sit idly and let them belittle her in this way, in any way. Even if everyone is innocently saying so, she didn‘t kill herself for childish reasons.



         She said that she idolized Charles Manson, not because of what he did, but because she could never be that influential. She was upset, so I would tell her what she wanted to hear when she asked my opinion. A pebble would have had more self esteem than her, if she weren’t able to talk to me long into the night. I felt that there have been endless conversations on her idols, endless names. Jean was obsessed with power because she was helpless. I could understand though, I knew her life, she told me everything.



I met Jean in such a way we both began to believe it was fate. We both happened to wander out on the same night with the same intentions, and crossed paths on top of the rails of “Suicide Bridge” in Seattle. I must explain though, that Jeanie and I are very different people. I was probably on the bridge that night thinking that I would jump but, really only checking to see if it looked painful. I could have been easily lured out of that mind set with the promise of an ice cream sundae worth living for.



Jean, on the other hand, truly believed that she was already dead. She believed that she was misplaced and didn’t belong in this world anymore, she was only correcting a mistake made by God. There was no way anyone could have persuaded her otherwise. She didn‘t have the second thoughts I kept having because she wasn‘t taking her life, it was already gone.



It was lightly raining that night, the night we met. The wind picked up the droplets and whipped them around my shivering body. Come to think of it, I was the only one that was alive enough to shiver. Jean stood still as a statue as though the elements couldn’t touch her. Seeing her this way made me believe she was right; she was dead to this world. I hear her voice clearly and I remember the feel of the air as though I relive the memory with every moment. 

         

         Even at night in the city when all else is dark, the sky still glows a dull orange. The water below us shimmered and flowed reflecting the bridge’s street lights from where we were standing. I slowly turned my head to the right and saw her. I studied her in awe, until a feeling of dread rushed over my entire body. In all my days I have never seen a person die, and here it is, a life altering vision, standing five feet away from me.



For the longest while I thought that she didn’t even know I was there watching her. After taking a deep breath, Jean turned and looked at me. She wasn’t crying the way I was and I started hoping in embarrassment that she would think my cheeks were only wet from the rain. After a long silence she smiled gently and in a delicate voice she asked me, “Are you an angel?”



I didn’t know what to say and stared at her in confusion. I thought for a moment that I must have been looking into the eyes of a ghost. I mean, this bridge wasn’t called Suicide Bridge for nothing. Could she be a lost soul who had jumped from here years ago, unaware of how to get to heaven? Her smile faded and I realized that I hadn’t answered. “Oh, me? I‘m sorry, My name is Maya.” I said, forgetting the initial question.



When I finished stammering out my introduction she laughed softly as though she thought I couldn’t see her. “Oh, well then you didn’t come here for me. My name is Jean.” We both laughed a little bit at our own stupidity, and began talking as though we had known each other for a hundred years.



Jean told me about her life, how as a child she became an orphan. She told me how her parents both died in a fatal car accident with a drunk driver on the Aurora bridge, this bridge. She told me of the struggles that she had, trying to grow up without a real family, being bounced back and forth from one foster home to the next. When it seemed that there wasn’t a single event left out she began to talk about her beliefs. She was envious of people who could easily walk over to a stranger and spark a conversation. Talking to me was a grand accomplishment.



Jean wanted to be anything other than what she was, an outsider. She wanted to speak and be heard by a mass of people, rather than speak and be heard by her former pet hamster - Louie. That is why she talked of people like Manson or Jim Jones, and then of people like Oprah Winfrey and the Dalai Lama. “That is real power,” Jean would say, “being believable, being liked, making the entire world a part of your family.” I will never forget those words, they were the last I heard her say before she disappeared over the railing.



Now as I stand here in the parlor of the funeral home, unable to look at her face, I only want to say that I know she was never crazy. She was saner than anyone else in this room. They all think that it was her own fault, that she led herself into destruction with this sense of dissatisfaction within herself. I needed to tell her story because you can not see it for yourself. Pulling shades over your eyes because you can’t explain why the things that you don’t expect happen. Jean wasn’t looking for attention; she wasn’t pulling a stunt.



I looked over the prayer card on the desk with a name written in a golden cursive font at the top. I ran my fingers over it slowly “Maya Marie Aston”. I stepped back. “Wait, there must be a mistake. Why is my name…” Before I could finish I was cut off in my thought by a hand lightly resting on my shoulder.



         I turned to look and was overwhelmed with dread. “Jean? Your dead, I saw you fall. I saw your body hit the water and disappear, how can you be here? What’s going on?”



She smiled at me softly but her eyes were worried. “You were the one that jumped Maya. You jumped and I came to you. You told me all of your life tragedies, all of your beliefs. I merely came to guide you to heaven.”



I looked around and the mass of strangers began to look familiar. I ran across the room and gazed into the casket, looking into my own face. My body fell to the ground as though my legs had disappeared. My screams echoed from every corner of the room, and no one looked up.



“Maya”, Jean said softly, “We’ve been here for a hundred years while you’ve recited your story and basked in your guilt, and you still haven’t accepted it. You’re dead.” Jean hung her head and stared at the floor. “I was not there that night. I never spoke a word to you. After you jumped off the bridge and the river claimed your life - I came to take you away.“ I looked up at her confused, suddenly forgetting where I was. Time seemingly paused and she was not there any longer.



“Oh! I remember now” I nodded to myself. There was something I had to do for my friend Jean. I sat down in a row of chairs facing a casket in a dark lit funeral hall preparing myself to set things straight. I sighed once before beginning to tell a story I believed the world needed to hear. “She said that she idolized Charles Manson, not because of what he did, but because she could never be that influential…”