The Beckoning Precipice

A short story by Fletcher Kovich

 

John Baker could never decide when to commit suicide. Up until three days ago, the only thing that had stopped him was the lack of opportunity. But now he had engineered the opportunity. John was a doctor who worked in general practice. His surgery was in Clifton Village, only ten minutes walk from his home. But last week he told his wife he would be working in a surgery in Bristol for one week. Each morning this week he had then slipped a pair of wire cutters into his coat pocket and set off for work one hour early, driven into Bristol, crossed the River Avon and driven back up the hill on the opposite side of the river to park his car near Clifton Suspension Bridge. He had then walked across the bridge into Clifton to arrive at his usual surgery, and on each evening he had walked back across the bridge, watching every detail of the distant floor of the gorge below, as a lover eyes the object of his desire, held in limbo between the lack of the proper moment and the awesome sight he beheld. Then he had driven for an hour around Bristol to arrive back home in Clifton—lest he arrived home too early and give away his adulterous design.

There was apparently something about the bridge’s structure that suiciders found pleasing. Perhaps it was the ironically happy smile of its supporting members which seemed to so effortlessly defy that beckoning precipice beneath. Or perhaps it was the strategically placed ladders at either end of the bridge which allowed the keen sightseer easy access to the bridge’s railings which then offered ample opportunity for launching oneself into that greedy precipice. Or Perhaps it was the flimsy fence of wires that guarded the space above the railings for the entire length of the bridge, which wires had clearly been erected to restrain the curiosity of those onlookers who found it hard to resist their own morbid pining for a greater intimacy with the floor of the gorge below, wires which could be so easily be snipped—with a handy pair of wire cutters.

Yes, John had walked the bridge on three mornings and two evenings so far this week, and now he was returning across it on the Wednesday evening. So famous was the bridge’s reputation that he had previously avoided crossing it on foot, lest it be assumed he intended suicide. But now his purpose lent him an air of legitimacy, and when he first walked the bridge on Monday morning, he was startled by his sense of pride and belonging, as though he were, for the first time in his life, where he was supposed to be. He walked the bridge and watched the cast-iron lattice railings and those flimsy guard wires above the handrail (which he had previously seen from his car and had then resolved to bring wire cutters with him this week), and as he had looked down through the lattice work, he had seen for the first time the gorge’s distant floor, a view that filled him with awe as he began to truly grasp his new relationship to it, as to a lover he had never dreamt of possessing but who was suddenly gazing back at him and holding him with that glimpse into her soul; and as he walked, he watched through the lattice work, transfixed; soon he would be united, soon she would be his; but not today, today he would just enjoy his newfound feeling of legitimacy—he was where he was supposed to be; he was dong what he was supposed to be doing—but no, he would not jump today; he had four more days of the week left; first he would rehearse his jump, in his mind; yes, that was it; today was just a rehearsal.

During surgery on Monday, he could still feel that sense of elevation that had embraced him as he had first set foot on the bridge, now legitimate. He found himself wishing his patients away, wishing his day to be over, and then, at the end, hurrying, on foot, towards his own “walk of death” back across that bridge.

As he passed familiar faces in the street, he found himself wondering if these were some of the people he was slowly poisoning, or whether they were relatives of people he had already killed. When he walked the streets these days, he could not avoid this army of ghosts that seemed to populate Clifton. They were ghosts in waiting, beclouded with the shadow of death, whose hand he had ushered their way. And as he saw them, his guilt returned; his turmoil returned; he had done what he thought was right; he had merely done as he had been told but now look at just what he had done; it was all around him, impossible to escape; he had poisoned so many of those poor souls who had appeared before him, wanting help, just wanting relief from pain, from anguish; and he had done all he could, had done what he thought best—what he thought best—until he had been shown the truth—by him. But was it the truth? Who knew? He certainly did not; he did not know anything anymore, apart from the fact that he had betrayed the trust placed in him by all those people; he could have stopped sooner, when he began to suspect he was doing something wrong, but he was too weak to stop; he just continued doing the same, poisoning more and more people, and now there was nothing left for him, no other option. He increased his pace towards the bridge.

As he first walked onto the bridge on Monday evening, he stood by the wall surrounding the tower and watched the gorge below for a moment, his head lost in the turmoil of his thoughts, when he heard a voice from beside him:

“It’s a long way down.”

He looked up and saw a woman standing beside him. She looked vaguely familiar and seemed concerned, worried, as though she were sitting before him in his surgery, about to unburden herself.

“Yes, it is,” he heard himself telling her.

“You look like a kind person,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Can I tell you something?”

To him, her face seemed to be wearing a particular shade of guilt and worry which reminded him of that look that was brought into his surgery more and more frequently over recent months by the steady stream of his poison victims who had returned to confess that they had stopped their “medication” and now felt so much better. They would sit there and apologize for deceiving him; they felt so guilty about it, him being such a kind doctor; and they could not live with themselves until they had come clean; yes, looking at the guilt and worry in her face, he felt like waving her away and saying that he already knew; there was no need to say anything.

She lifted the front of her coat and showed him her leg, which was bruised and had been recently bleeding. As he looked at it, he found himself slipping into his physician persona, so much so that his right hand involuntarily twitched, as though it were reaching for his prescription pad, and he asked:

“How did you do that?”

“Climbing over my garden fence,” she told him. He looked up at her with a raised brow, and then her confession poured out:

“There was a man at my front door, trying to get in. It was terrible; I can still here the knocker. And I could see this big white thing through the glass; he was trying to deliver it but I didn’t want it, so I had to escape over the garden fence.”

John’s brow had still not fallen, so she told him, as if this explained it all:

“It was a big white thing; I could see it through the glass.”

“Why didn’t you just hide?”

“He kept knocking. He wouldn’t go away.”

John tried not to sound dismissive, nor doubtful of her sanity, as he asked: “And what do you suppose this white shape was?”

“A washing machine, of course!”

“A washing machine?”

“The one they’re trying to deliver, to help me with my leak.”

“Your leak?”

The woman seemed to be losing her patience with him:

“Yes, my leak! I have a leaking tap; it’s driving me had, and I phoned the helpline and he said to check my washing machine and I couldn’t open its door and now they’re sending me a new one.”

“A new washing machine!”

“I couldn’t say ‘no’.”

“But what does that have to do with a leaking tap?”

“It’s all connected. They’d found it in a trial, he said. The problem with the door has caused the leak.”

“But where’s the leak?”

“In the kitchen. They said it’s connected. But it will ruin me. I can’t afford to pay for it.”

“Well, just say ‘No—you don’t want it’.”

“But I’ve already said ‘Yes’.”

“Well, change your mind.”

“I can’t. I couldn’t think what to say, and now they’re trying to deliver it.”

“Just say, ‘No!’”

“I can’t!”

“So, you’re going to spend the rest of your life climbing over your garden fence?”

“I can’t open the front door. It will be there.”

“Just look and find out.”

“But they might get in.”

“Well, close the door again, quickly.”

“But they might be too quick for me. What can I do?”

“Well, look from the outside. Walk along your street and look.”

“But they might see me. I can’t stand it any longer. The man might still be there, knocking on my door. I can’t go back home. I can still hear him in my mind, knocking—I can still hear him!—what can I do?”

John felt the desire to push her over the wall, which seemed the only solution he could think of at that moment. He said, “Oh, I’ve just remembered something; I’ve gotta go,” and walked onto the bridge. In the distance behind him, he heard her shouting:

“What can I do? They’ve ruined me——”

On Tuesday evening, John walked back onto the bridge, having wrestled with his thoughts all day, and as he was midway across, his focus was on some of the now-familiar features of the gorge’s floor—familiar but seeming, as he looked down at them, an eternity away, across the flight of that dizzying leap from the suspension bridge’s handrail—as he was midway across, he became aware of some movement twenty yards behind him. He looked back and saw that same woman hurrying towards him. He recalled her distant words again “What can I do? They’ve ruined me——” which sounded in his mind as inescapable and as certain as the wind, as though those words were the accumulated cry of every one of his past victims whose dying sighs were now swirling round his head wherever he went. He turned back and quickened his pace.

After a similar encounter on Wednesday evening, he left work early on Thursday evening, so as to avoid the woman, and made his way back onto the bridge. He had reached a quarter of the way across it, proceeding as a zombie, numb, deaf, unfeeling in every sense. He was aware of his legs working beneath him but apart from this, there was no other thought in his mind. He now had no need for thoughts, for he knew what he was about to do. And as he walked, his right hand squeezed those wire cutters in his coat pocket and his eyes fixed on the guard wires ahead of him, at the exact place where he would cut. He was not even looking down at the distant floor of the gorge; he had already memorized every detail of it and now knew it so well that he had no need to look; and in his mind he had lived his leap so many times that there was now nothing left for him to think about; he had used up every thought he could and there was now only a great void within his numb mind and at the centre of that void was the picture of him enacting his leap. He reached the spot on the bridge and took the wire cutters from his pocket.

The problems had first started a few years ago when he had noticed that an increasing number of his patients were saying they had stopped using drug therapies, which they found ineffective, and had cured their problem with alternative treatments, acupuncture being the most popular. Common ailments were hay fever, depression, panic attacks, high blood pressure. Initially he had shrugged off this trend, certain that the misguided fools were somehow deluding themselves. And then another brand of nutter (which was how he regarded the more vocal members of his “flock”) started to report to him that the drug remedies he had prescribed had not only not tackled the original problem but had damaged their health, and on stopping the drug and receiving acupuncture, their health had been restored and the original illness cured. They were most concerned to helpfully disillusion him, so as to prevent other patients suffering as they had. These nutters he managed to ignore, while silently waving them out of his consulting room. And then there were the silent nutters, the “secret” nutters, if you like. One of these, a man, whom he contacted, had stopped taking his fluoxetine, which John had prescribed for depression. He contacted the patient to check on his welfare and the patient told him that acupuncture had now cleared his depression and that he had been told that his depression had been caused by the drug omeprazole which John had prescribed to him two years previously for heart burn.

John quickly put the phone down—lest he start pouring into it the vibrant language that had begun churning within his mind and then surging towards his mouth, in much the same way that particularly wilful vomit does, your stomach having suddenly found itself toiling with the digestion of some violently disagreeable food—he put the phone down and, instead, addressed his devastating tirade to the empty chair that was staring at him across his desk, which chair, he was sure, was left in no doubt about what he thought of it. And two days later, when he had finally regained his composure, he found himself sat behind his desk, dumbstruck, as a mother sat in that very chair and told him that three months ago her son had been dying of an asthma attack, when, out of desperation, she had called in an acupuncturist (who had been highly recommended by a friend of hers) who had treated him, and within minutes he had completely recovered. And after two more months of treatments, her son was now cured completely. And the acupuncturist had told her that it was her son’s medication that had been slowly killing him.

John could take this no longer. He walked out into Clifton Village for lunch, found a secluded spot, ensured that his mobile phone was set to conceal his number and then phoned the acupuncturist. They agreed to meet, but John insisted on an after-dark meeting in a location on the far side of Bristol, lest he be seen “consorting with the enemy.” John went burdened with a backpack bulging with reports of drug trials and the other supporting evidence that he had managed to put together in the two days before their meeting, all of which served no purpose but to encumber him, since the acupuncturist simply pointed out that most “chemical remedies” (as he had preferred to call them) were deliberately designed to stop the body from working in some way, which John could not deny, and that this did sometimes have the short term effect of preventing the symptom from being displayed, but that in the long term this approach could only damage the patient’s health, since the body was being prevented from functioning how nature had intended.

“But that is healing,” protested John. “You find out what’s wrong and then stop it from happening!”

“No,” said the other, still managing to remain calm, “Western medicine is too primitive to know how the body really works, so it just tries to block the symptom from appearing.”

“But that’s healing!” said John, at a loss.

“It isn’t healing. Healing is returning the body to it’s pristine condition. It isn’t randomly applying strong chemicals to stop the body from working…”

“But they’re not random——” interrupted John.

“…to stop the body from working in the hope that its functioning will be blocked to the extent that the poor patient’s symptoms can’t be expressed.”

“But that’s…. But they’re not random. They’re carefully worked out,” banging his hand down on his stack of papers. “This is all nonsense.”

“They’re random because you don’t know what you’re doing; your understanding of the body is so limited that you don’t know the full effects that you’ll have on it. Take the asthma example. Asthma is usually caused by a weakness in the kidneys, not in the lungs. But you imagine the problem is in the lungs, so you apply bronchodilator inhalers to expand the airways in the lungs which gives some short term relief, but it doesn’t tackle the underlying cause. And each time the drug is taken, it weakens the lungs and eventually the lungs become so weak that some patients die. But we cure the asthma by strengthening the kidney energy, which was the real cause of the problem. With your approach, your—understandable—ignorance ends up killing the patient.”

“Understandable—— You——”

John’s increasingly wild thoughts seemed incapable of marrying any words that he knew of; it seemed the English language possessed no garments that his riotous feelings could fit into, so instead—they must escape; they simply must—his feelings poured down into his arm and managed to find expression in the thorough cleansing of his opponent’s face with John’s beer. He then stood up and sailed out of the bar on the satisfaction of a job well done.

Over the following few months, John became haunted by two phrases that the acupuncturist had used: “stopping the body from working” and “real healing”. He could not understand the difference, but could not rid his mind of these phrases. He went back to his old text books and pored over Western medicine’s understanding of disease mechanisms and of the chemistry of the body. The more he thought about it, the more it became clear to him that the whole system of Western medicine did, indeed, seem to be based on “stopping the body from working”. He realized that he had previously known this, on some deep level, but that he had always assumed that this was healing. If there was some other approach to stop a patient’s symptoms, without chemically blocking the bodily function that seemed to be producing the symptom, he could not imagine it. Whatever this other approach was, he reluctantly toyed with the idea that perhaps that approach was this “real healing”—this mysterious, ancient system. If such a thing existed, how could it have been overlooked by modern science; how was that possible? How could a miraculous system of healing have existed for so long and still be unknown? And how on earth, he wondered, could some ancient “witch doctor”, sitting beneath a tree, with no knowledge of the detailed chemistry of the body, manage to work out this fantastic system of healing? And then he realized that it was perhaps because the ancients had had no knowledge of chemistry that they had managed to work out their system of healing. Perhaps focusing on the chemistry of the body was a limitation, in some way.

He could still not grasp what this “real healing” was, or how it might work, but he recognised that it was getting results with many patients whom Western medicine could not help at all or who were made worse by the “chemical remedies” that were “stopping their bodies from working”. But if modern medicine was doing something so wrong, which it seemed to be doing, how had the system developed into its current state? When had it gone wrong? He had always assumed that Western medicine had derived from earlier herbal medicine and was an advancement on it, but this just did not seem to make sense. Could it be that modern medicine had somehow destroyed the healing properties of earlier systems of medicine, in its efforts to improve on them?

These thoughts pursued him in a night of turbulent dreams, and then another and another, until he awoke one morning with the fog cleared and a vivid realization possessing his mind.

He realized how modern medicine had arrived at its current state. It had begun with the trend to mass produce remedies, and then, to make this more easy, the pharmaceutical companies had begun to chemically synthesize the remedies, which had led to the original herbal treatments (which may well have had real healing qualities) being greatly simplified, so as to identify a single “active ingredient” which could then be synthetically produced. This in turn had created another whole “research” industry—financed by the pharmaceutical companies—which focused on studying the known chemistry of the body to try to find ways to chemically control bodily functions, so that any functions that were seen as not working correctly could be switched off. And he saw that the acupuncturist was right here. It was the ignorance of Western medicine that was the problem. The chemistry of the body was so complex and so transient—varying from second to second—that no-one could ever claim to fully understand it, not by a long way. But Western medicine, because of the whole structure of the pharmaceutical industry that drives it, was forced to focus on blocking the body by flooding it with a single chemical. And this caused problems because they were tampering in a big way with something that they did not fully understand.

Yes, John could now see that many patients who remained on these “chemical remedies” could well have their long term health destroyed, and may gradually develop countless other conditions, due entirely to the “medication”, and, yes, that some patients may well have ended up dying as a result of their so-called medication. Though this situation would, also, be invisible to Western medicine—as it was to John himself up until a few months ago.

He became so obsessed with this vision that he could not keep it to himself. He began quizzing the other two doctors in his practice. In any spare moment, over coffee, or while passing them in the corridor, he would try out his observations on them. Did they really believe that Western medicine was heading in the right direction?

“What?—What are you talking about?”

Don’t drug treatments, if we can call them that (eliciting a puzzled look), just stop the body from working?

“What do you mean?”

We don’t really know what we’re doing. It all came to me in a dream. It’s the drug companies that have got us into this position. Can’t you see? It’s all so clear to me now (trying to get away from him; clearly he’s under some sort of stress; I hope none of the patients see him like this). It may be that medicine once was medicine, but it’s now got to the position where it’s just doing harm.

“Look, John, I think we should talk about this when we’ve got more time.”

“I just can’t sleep since I found out. Can’t you see it at all——?”

“You’re just depressed, maybe; you need counselling; or a break…”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” interrupted John. “We’re killing people; can’t you see it——”

“For God’s sake, John, get a grip. Shut up…”

“We’re killing people; or just doing harm; that’s all we can do these days.”

“….Just shut up—the patient’s will hear you! Take some tranquillizers; you’ll feel better. Just take some time off. You’re obviously stressed; that’s all.”

But john continued trying to explain what he now so clearly understood; every moment he found himself in a colleague’s company he would try again, until these moments no longer existed; they had become experts at avoiding him and they practiced their craft to perfection. And then in further stormy nights John was visited by yet more realizations and he would finally awake, exhausted but possessed by one more clear vision. He saw how his profession had become a new religion; he saw the clear analogy between its position and the position that Christianity had held in the West, hundreds of years ago. He saw how the theories that drove Western medicine were repeated by everyone, were taught to us all from an early age, were taken as gospel, were repeated by the media; he saw how every pronouncement of Western medicine was unquestioningly broadcast by the media, how it was assumed by every listener that a Western medicine diagnosis meant that the taking of the prescribed “chemical remedy” was then inevitable; it was the only possible outcome, was the only true route to “health”. To question this was insanity; you might as well claim that gravity did not exist; even school boys knew the arguments; they had tested the logic and not found it wanting; you had a “bacterial infection”, therefore you needed antibiotics, as sure as you would need an antigravity belt if you wanted to defy gravity; it was the law; it was the state-sponsored position; it was our religion, and, of course, everyone knew that it was true. Except, apparently, John. He had once known this, as everyone else also seemed to, but now, burdened and blinded by nocturnal visions, he seemed to have forgotten it.

And he now wrestled with his sanity. For, at times, he considered that he truly must now be insane; this was what insanity felt like, he was sure. He was a priest in this “medical” religion (which had perhaps replaced the old religion) but he no longer believed. His “flock” would sit before him in his consulting room, pouring out their woe, looking to him to mend their broken bodies and minds but he now knew he could only break them further; he could send them away with temporary relief but if they kept following this religion, down and down they would go. And they would have to keep coming back. If only they could grasp the turmoil that he himself were slowly suffocating in—the more people that came in through his door, the more this seemed to diminish the remaining air in his room. And his right hand had become numb. He had contracted some deep, destructive disease in the bones of his hand from merely touching his prescription pad. He nursed his hand as the flock sat gushing their woe, and merely the idea that he would soon have to touch that pad again would intensify the ache, the numbness; he could now barely hold his pen as he wrote—with ever more diseased handwriting—on the surface of the pad and tore out yet one more sentence for yet another of the grateful sufferers. They had made their agonised visit to the state-sponsored executioner and then left his surgery to deliver the sentence themselves—at least, this was how he had come to see it. But they did not know they had come to an executioner. Some suspected—he imagined—yes, he could see it in their faces as they looked at him and then glanced down at his pad with suspicion, as if watching some antiquated implement of torture but being too polite to say out loud: “You’re not going to use that on me, are you?” And yet still, they accepted his prescription and left—burdened with the decision of whether or not to swallow the poison pill.

Another of his clear realizations was that no-one who practiced this “medical” religion could now declare the truth, because there would be nothing in its place. Real healing had been abolished by the state and replaced with this system of chemical trickery that only damaged people’s long term health. But the “propaganda” was oh so clever; it had fooled him, taken him in completely. The scientific method was so convincing, and, of course the method itself was correct, but the “medical” theories that it exercised were all wrong—Yes, he could see that now. He felt he was privy to some fantastic secret which revealed that his whole professional life had been a scam and was worse than worthless; either that, or he truly had become insane. And in the last few weeks, while sitting before a patient, he would find the words in his mind: “Am I mad? Am I mad? What am I doing here?” and he would want to should out to them: “I’m mad! go away! I’m mad; why are you sitting in front of me?” but instead he would reach for his prescription pad and conform to his religion; he was a priest; he had rites to perform. In a numbed fashion he would go through the motions, and while treading the corridors of his practice, he would notice the distant glances of the other priests, monitoring him, assessing his sanity—Was he still towing the line, still administering to their flock; had anyone else yet noticed his insanity?

And on Thursday evening, he had walked back onto the bridge, and had reached the spot on the bridge that his zombie-like gaze had fixed upon. He took the wire cutters from his pocket and swiftly cut the five guard wires above the handrail. He did not hear the snapping sound of the metal wires that seemed to echo along the length of the whole bridge, and as he took hold of the handrail and lifted his right foot he became aware of a rushing sensation over his left shoulder and then felt someone gripping his arm and he heard a woman’s voice:

“Don’t do it.”

He could not properly hear her words. They seemed so distant—it was as though he were in a different world; he could not even properly feel her hand gripping his arm; he only felt the heaviness of her touch, the “finality” of it, as though this were his last remaining contact with reality, with the world, and suddenly it seemed to pull him back into that world and he looked round at her face, which, though he was returning to her world, still seemed alien to him.

“It’s really not worth it. You must have so much to live for—we all have something to live for——” she pleaded, but still seeming to him like an alien, like someone from a different race.

He did not even open his mouth to reply; there seemed to be nothing else to say—not that he had said anything—and he merely looked back to that beckoning precipice and then made to resume his climb but she gripped him now with both her arms, and shouted:

“Don’t do it!”

He looked back at her.

“What’s the point?” she asked.  “You must have something to live for. What purpose would it serve? Why are you doing this?”

He looked at her, “Purpose?” He thought for a moment, then said, “I have to stop. I can’t go on doing what I do.”

“Well, there must be some other way to stop.”

“I don’t have any choice; I can’t go on doing it.”

“Doing what?”

He did not answer, so she went on:

“Well, there must be some other way. What purpose would this serve,” pointing at the wooden handrail above the cast-iron lattice railings.

John suddenly seemed deep in thought. “Purpose?” he said, “What purpose——” and in his dream-like state he was visited by another of those visions that had greeted him at the end of many of his recent nights of turmoil. He realized how his leap into the precipice could be given a supreme purpose, and having realized this, his fate was sealed; the vision was so strong and clear and it had given him a way to, perhaps, begin to pay back for the damage he had done to the health of his “flock”.

“Yes, I can see that,” he said, in an abstracted manner. “Thank you.”

The woman smiled and relaxed her grip. In the space of a second or two, she had watched a total transformation in John’s appearance. She stared, in awe of this transformation, and now struck dumb. John simply turned and calmly resumed his walk along the bridge.

At nine o’clock that evening he sat at his computer and began composing his suicide note. He was filled with the mixture of elation and trepidation that a school boy might feel on his first day of secondary school; he had several hours with which to write the most important document of his life. He began by summarizing all that was wrong with Western medicine and its use of “chemical remedies” to “stop the body from functioning” and by ten o’clock he was making florid references to “real healing” and the evil grip that the pharmaceutical companies had on the medical profession, the media, medical science; and by three o’clock in the morning he was describing the role that he had played in this modern religion (as he had come to view it), the priesthood, whose grip on himself seemed as fundamental as the pharmaceutical companies’ grip on the very fabric of modern society. He was writing of an insidious force that had insinuated itself into the workings of our minds—as rust creeps through the structure of a great iron bridge—placing its first tentacles into the minds of schoolboys as it instructs them on “viruses,” “bacteria,” “antibiotics,” “vaccinations,” all of whose logic he had managed to transcend during his nights of turmoil throughout the previous few months. And by five o’clock he was writing how all this had driven him to plunge, willingly, knowingly—for there was no other course of action left open to him—into the precipice beneath the bridge, as the whole of society seemed bent on plunging themselves, also, into the precipice that lies at the conclusion of poisoning the whole of humanity with these “chemical remedies” that are sanctioned by the state and by “medical science” and were the very mantras of this modern-day religion that had gripped the bodies, minds, and souls of the whole of the developed world. It was the poison pill that would kill us all. And by writing his confessions in this suicide note, which had now become a four-page essay, and then extinguishing his own life so that its light might shine on this essay, he had at last found a way to begin repaying his debt.

He printed his tragic essay, folded the pages and then found in his bed the forgetfulness of a profound sleep, such that he had never known. He awoke at nine o’clock in the morning and, if he were going in to work that day and he set out immediately, he would have arrived at least an hour late but it did not matter. At breakfast, his wife seemed surprised to see him, or surprised by his appearance in some way, and she told him:

“You’re in a good mood. I’m so pleased.”

He smiled and left, taking his wire cutters and the folded pages of his essay.

On the bridge the morning air was crisp and light and blowing with a firm, steady purpose. He was surprised to see that the guard wires had not been replaced since yesterday, and off in the distance his eyes fixed on the handrail in the exact spot that he had yesterday attempted his jump. He walked the bridge like never before, with a sense of lightness and purpose that he had not known for years. That feeling from last night—of excitement and exhilaration—was still with him; he was a fresh-faced school boy on his first day of secondary school and he stepped up onto the handrail as though up onto some apparatus in the school gym.

He stood balanced on the wooden handrail, looking down into the precipice, which, for once, seemed welcoming; he knew he belonged there; he knew that his life’s purpose was to unite with the floor of the gorge, all those hundreds of yards below. In the distance he noticed the blue, flashing lights of an ambulance as it approached the Portway Road along the edge of the gorge, and he knew that in moments he would hear the sound of its siren as it passed by under the bridge. He felt the wind pushing against his back, and again it seemed to him that this were the breathless words of his many hundreds or thousands of past victims, as though the wind were their accumulated cry, their dying sighs following him wherever he now went; or perhaps—it felt so strong and tangible against his back—perhaps it was the accumulated dying sighs of every victim of Western medicine around the world, now circulating the planet, looking for expression, for someone to listen.

“—I am; I am,” he thought, “I can hear you——”

He began gently swaying forward and back, as his body tried to balance against the steady pressure of the wind, and then he remembered that woman’s voice from Monday, calling after him: “What can I do? They’ve ruined me——” And it seemed to him that this voice had now also joined all those others within the wind as it gently pushed against his back and swirled round his head.

He noticed that the ambulance was now on the Portway Road and approaching the bridge. Its sirens had started sounding and he knew that it would soon be passing under the bridge, which he realized, with alarm, might distract people’s attention from him. He needed as large an audience as possible. He needed to draw attention to his glorious essay; and the excitement and exhilaration poured through him and—like that schoolboy on his first day, calling out in class to attract attention to himself—he shouted: “Look at me!” glancing back along the bridge for any witnesses, and seeing one there, and two over there, on the opposite side, and now, there, three more people watching him, “Look at me! Watch this!” and now hearing that siren even more clearly, getting louder, wanting to steal their eyes; but he had them, “Look at this—I’m going to jump!” and after placing his left hand in his pocket to grasp his essay, to make doubly sure it was still there, he leapt into the air—as though that ambulance had been the final persuasion he had needed to coax him over the edge.

He found that he was then in a different world. Time had seemed to slow right down as he felt the cold air washing over him like angry surf that was about to break. His eyes had welled up with water to fend off the surf, which was then obscuring the floor of the gorge that was rushing towards him and he took his left arm from his pocket to wipe his eyes. He was so enthralled by this final sight that he did not see the pages of his essay fluttering above him and settling on a course towards the gorge’s edge and finally coming to rest on the side of the road only yards away from where it passed under the bridge, by which time his broken body was already implanted in the river’s mud, and as that ambulance wailed its way under the bridge, the draft from its progression lifted the essay pages and sent them swirling back above the river, where they finally came to rest in the mud some fifty yards away from John’s body and unnoticed by the thirty or so transfixed faces that were focused on that distant knot of blackness in the mud which they knew was the expired body of a man.

On the next tide, the John-shaped cavity in the mud was repaired and the pages of his essay were lifted and gradually digested by the river’s muddy water.

 

30 March 2009

 

Read my sketchbook entry on writing this story (which also contains some links relating to Clifton Suspension Bridge)