Crazy Day

From The Village Wiki

[edit] Notes From The Wiki Founder: Crazy Day by ConcernedCitizen 16:56, November 12th, 2009 (EST)

Today was a crazy day.

If you remember the suicide survivor, late this morning I followed her walking out to one of the East River bridges. I recognized it at once, as I used to bike it to work. No, I’m not going to tell you the name.

So you can bet some stuff was running through my head when I saw her hop over some cordons and barriers to sneak onto the brickwork edging. She stood, with nothing between her and the air and water far below her.

She was going to jump.

My breath caught, and I was scared I was going to witness someone’s death on my monitor.

I called Emergency Services quickly -- not explaining where I was calling from or how I knew she was on the bridge. I then took the elevator down and ran out of the building, promising a flagged cab a fat tip if he could get me to the bridge as fast as he could.

At the bridge, twenty minutes later, I found no one. No ambulance, no police, just traffic.

The cabbie left, and I called Emergency Services on my cellphone. “Someone’s already been by, they didn’t see anything,” I was told. “We’ll try to send someone by again.”

I couldn’t see her from where I stood either, but I found her behind a large pylon. She was sitting on the ledge, her feet over the side, eating a bagel. A small brown sack with a bottle of apple juice fluttered in the wind next to her. A tugboat passed underneath the bridge, but no one on it looked up at us.

“I’m not here to jump,” she told me calmly as I shuffled over. The water was far below us. “I’m just having lunch.”

I sat down about four feet away from her and caught my breath.

She scooted over. “Bagel?”

I wasn’t hungry. “No thanks.”

I shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have gone. She wanted to talk more, but I turned around and left. Ran away. And I’m not naming the bridge, because I don’t want anyone trying to find her, either.

Back at work, the new guy stopped me. “I saw you,” he told me. “Trying to talk to that woman.”

“Were you snooping around my desk?” I snapped at him.

“It was hard to miss after you took off running, and then I passed by and saw you.” He looked around and lowered his voice. “Do you know why I was transferred? Do you know what your people have in common?”

“No. No I don’t know.” I was getting really upset. With the job. The people around me. Everything.

It was halfway through lunch. I swung by Ana’s little podium and looked around. There was a picture of her with a small Maltese dog.

But no son.

My program found the picture to the right and this video, but I’m shutting it down now.

--previous note: Lunch

--index of Notes from the Wiki Founder