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of him in a manner that indicated near-complete abandonment. He
was at best a fugitive, at worst a prisoner of the mental health
system without any hope of rehabilitation. All of this on-top of the
excruciating 'existential angst' as they called it, a terribly
belittling name for something so insidious. What exactly had he left
to live for?
    The
siren cut through his thinking, someone had sent a police car out to
the bridge upon hearing of his escape. They probably thought he was
another jumper, the officer had now cut the siren and was cautiously
approaching with his arms raised.
    'Could
you step away from the bridge please, sir?' the man asked, keeping
his voice calm and low in a remarkable show of professionalism.
    You've
got nowhere better to go, have you?
    He
didn't remember standing on the bridge yet here he was, teetering so
very close to the edge. The poor man was only trying to do his job,
definitely thought he was another suicide case now. Another lost soul
that he had to talk down. Yet for some reason he couldn't bring
himself to step off the edge and put the officer at ease.
    He
looked down, was his attention so divided that he had missed the
splash of the stranger? He should probably tell the officer that
there had already been a jumper but he felt no compulsion to do that
either. Something still wasn't right here, it all felt like a dream.
    'Please
son, whatever it is you're going through we can talk about this,
okay?'
    I
have a proposition for you.
    He
thought back to what the man had said, his strange suggestion and
subsequent jump. No, he hadn't jumped, he had merely slipped away as
if it was the most natural thing in the world. How odd.
    Join
me.
    Closing his eyes to rid him of
vertigo, he fell off the edge and into nothingness.

2
Jakob
    H e felt the
wind coursing past him as he plummeted towards the water. He'd always
wondered whether he would keep his eyes open for the duration or shut
them tightly to avoid seeing his impending demise. The blackness
surrounding him answered his query, it was an odd thing to think
about given the lack of time left for him to think at all.
    It didn't feel like he thought it
would, time had slowed to a standstill and his stomach had lurched
from the inertia but he felt no sense of finality in his action. He
knew death was waiting for him with open arms yet he didn't pay it
much thought, nor did he look back over his past life reliving
moments long lost.
    If anything he felt resolve, not
in ending himself but in this singular action. He wasn't bringing
about his own destruction, he was merely following the advice of a
stranger to see where it led. It sounded so illogical when he thought
of it like that but for reasons unknown it felt like the only thing
he could do.
    His feet hit the ground with a
jolt, he hadn't noticed his body slowing, nor the absence of the
howling wind and the change in the air. There was a faint sound that
steadily grew in his ears to a bubbling crescendo. He opened his eyes
with caution and was blinded by the morning sun. A figure stood in
his periphery and he turned with a start.
    'I see you have found your feet
fairly quickly,' said the man from the bridge, looking as tattered
and dishevelled as before.
    'Who are you?' he asked him,
taking in the surroundings.
    The roaring sound was coming from
the base of a nearby waterfall that they both stared at through a
forest in what looked to be spring. There was a pleasant warmth in
the air and the scent of pine lingered in the sun.
    'Who I am is of no importance,'
the man replied, tossing a rock across the surface of the water. 'Who
are you?'
    The question stumped him. Who was
he? He had a name, didn't he? He looked down at his hands, they were
different somehow, larger and more calloused, the hands of a worker.
Or had they always been that way? There were no cuts on his arms, why
had he been expecting cuts to be there in the first place?
    'I am... Jakob,' he finally said,
uncertain as to why the name had