Opportunities, I believe, give life some sort of meaning. It’s the coldest night of the year. The night after snow quickly eradicates any sort of heat left in the town. Melted snow turns to ice. The needles of cold quickly puncture through the previously heated skin of poor travelers and thread them up to spastic chill dispensing puppeteers. The Moon reaches forth in an effort to hold on to the forest’s extending branches. Their arms are locked for now but throughout the night they drift incredibly slowly apart and are painfully ripped from each other by morning’s intrusive glance over the horizon. While the Moon is jealous of her sunshine and praise,  solace exists in knowing that She does not love the same way. While the trees depend on the Sun’s warmth they gladly share the night’s most peaceful and intimate hours with their mistress, the Moon.

I, ignorant and human, pay no attention to the scandal but instead, trail my footsteps through alleyways and onto sidewalks. I failed to notice the needles upon my departure but now feel their sting in my airways. I left the house in almost a sprint. There, hid an urgency in my mind that kept me moving farther and farther away. Now I notice the extremities of my surroundings. The cuts from ice in my throat, the black tar river that flows beneath giant crystallized sheets, the geothermal pools release steam hiding whatever lies ahead of me, and, unfortunately, the salty ice crystals, despite being warm tears just a few minutes ago, now threaten to lock my eyelids shut.

While I fail to have any quarrel with the house that I departed from, there lies the solitude I intended to escape but can only find again and again in the thick surrounding fog. The only thing around to fill my ears is my own unsteady breathing. Each one of my footsteps are small and quiet. Occasionally, I misplace a step and learn that the ground is in fact below the point I previously thought it to be. The loud thud from these steps startles me and sends my heart in a flurry. Even on nights like this, it’s odd to not find at least one person who’s making the same march as I. Paranoia blankets herself amongst my shoulders, inching those long fingernails up my neck while whispering The Worst into my thoughts. Up above the walkway, a streetlight flickers. I watch it for a time to study its rhythm. Morse Code I am sure. But even with all my strange fascinations, I never did quite learn the code myself. It’s a distress call being broadcasted from my own cranium. It’s telling the world above me that The Worst could happen and is only moments away from happening. I break concentration from the light. Just a few steps farther. Why does this happen? One step after the other. Is it my fault? Someone said it was my fault. Breathe and take another step forward. Will this always happen? Will I ever get anything different? Stop. Breathe. You can see your feet now, just keep moving forward slowly. I have been taught this lesson before, you’d think I might just learn from it. It doesn’t matter now. This mist is thinning. You can see.

Finally, I am nearing my destination. Paranoia’s grasp on me eases, but only lightly. It’s darker here. I now longer see the beacon that once sounded my distress call, but in front of me lies a lane of trees who lightly dust the air in front of me with a powdery mist. I walk under it feeling childlike and blink wildly to shake the snow caught on my lashes. Maybe once, a sense of enjoyment and wonder would jolt me out of it and turn me home to await the next day eagerly with sleds and snowmen at hand but so many years later that is not the case. I walk on. Confused. How could a child like me turn out to be this! I am far beneath what I was. Shops and restaurants tend to close early in small towns, giving the tourists no choice but to return to either musty motel mattresses  or luxury mattresses housed in the finest of tourist trap schemes. I am looking at one of those tourist traps now. A town must make money somehow. Another way to justify putting a torch to honesty.

Here I stand above a choice I make. Less ice more water. Just enough to sweep in one more. Steel feels brittle when it’s this cold. It’s quite slippery too. Stop these charades Bridge, I am going in on my o… I am the type of person who has always been clumsy. I ,at times, may fall off a sidewalk if I am not careful. If I go in barefoot the heat will escape my body faster...why did I not consider slipping off?

Of course alcohol took its own part in all this. My better judgment was left with my shoes atop the bridge,and I left soaring back first towards the ice. Typically while falling, especially backwards, one might feel fear, and maybe it was somewhere in there, but more than anything I felt annoyed and angry. The force of me falling broke the ice and hammered every bit of air out of me. The river, made out of not tar but onyx black stone cold liquid, sunk into every pore and brought everything to a halt, ensuring the success in my failed plan. For what felt like a lifetime, I sat in the river facing upstream stuck on the ice behind me. Maybe I looked like one of those tourists enjoying a midsummer night dip, but it was midwinter and I could feel myself dying. I slowed down. No feet, no legs, no fingers, no arms. They didn’t feel there but I could see them slowly losing my color and adopting that of the ice becoming an iguana in my own way. Nobody really teaches you exactly how to kill yourself but once you try, there’s something inside telling you precisely how it’s done. Patience. Breathe in and out...in and out…….in and out……... starve her. For a second, I felt something odd. I was being watched. I looked up from my body. Saw them staring at me. A couple who I knew, who probably didn’t recognize me, were staring and pointing to each other from the Tourist Trap. Why would they be out right now? It’s so dark, how could they see me? What are they saying?

One last step, I needed to submerge. Drown. But if I move they will know I am here. I didn’t want to be found this fast. Hell, I didn’t want to fall like that either but I wasn’t going to be so picky. As I felt the rest of me slow down, I felt my brain slow down as well. Just a couple thoughts at a time. Somehow it soothed me. I felt so in control. I had a choice. Let my sister and her boyfriend find me dead and cold, or get out and find my way back into our house...

I want you to know that I am better than ever at this moment. Without the decision I made to live, my friends', family, and general community would have suffered. Not because I know everyone or am well-liked or anything like that, but because I am still a human life with a soul and that is worth so much more than I knew at the time.