The Stranger From the Bridge

*three years and four months later*

“For fucks sake,” I mumble to myself as I try and quickly get all my stuff together for work, which I’m supposed to be at in half an hour, but it’s rush hour and the other side of town so I’m never going to make it in time.

“Jess, you seen my laptop charger?” I call up the stairs to my girlfriend who’s still in bed, as she still has a couple of hours before she needs to leave for work.

“Living room, by the sofa,” she calls back from where she is, still sounding very tired.

“Thanks love,” I reply back, before I manage to get everything together and rushing out of the house calling a quick goodbye to Jess. I throw my bag into the back seat of my car, and cringe when I hear the weight of the laptop which is in there cashing against the floor of the car.

“Fuck.” I sigh, but just hope that no damage is caused, and begin to make my way to work. As predicted though, the traffic is awful. There’s been traffic delays due to road maintenance for the past few weeks, resulting to a slower journey to and from work, but to make things worse for today, it’s pouring down so everyone has chosen to take their car.

Sat in my car, I impatiently tap my hands on the steering wheel, wanting the large queue of traffic just to vanish. Looking around me, I see the familiar streets of Baltimore; despite the rain, there are people still outside, but they look depressed. They’re running to get to their chosen destination to avoid getting as wet as possible.



But newspapers are being used as makeshift umbrellas because everyone always forgets to return the trusty objects back to their car after they’ve had to quick dash from the car back to their home on a rainy day earlier this year. Or the people with them are struggling to keep them the right way round, as the wind is causing particular problems for them.



But I don’t blame them for being depressed about the weather. Something so simple can really deter your mood from being jolly and spritely, to thinking negatively about anything and everything. That’s what’s happening to me right now.

Rain is just the one reminder about what happened three years and seven years ago.

“I just hate life, always have, always will if I don’t do this. Please just let me carry this out.” I flashback, and shudder from hearing the pain and how scared I was in my own voice in my head. I don’t know why I felt so confident when I said that. I wasn’t I was the opposite.

“Stop!”



“I promise I won’t judge”

“Please just get me away from here” I then here myself say again.

“Shhh, please don’t cry”

But I’m not anymore am I? I ask myself. I’m fine now right? I’m happy. I’m certain I am. I have a beautiful girlfriend; got a degree; got a decent job. I’m happy? I hope I am, because I’ve worked so hard to get to this point. But something is missing. I can’t place it.

But I am crying. Like the rain, there’s water falling down. Just instead of the air, it’s my cheek. As I realise, I wipe them away as quickly as possible and try not to think about the depressing weather. Because it really is depressing.

After my eyes have cleared from the salty, blurry mess, I focus on what’s around me again. Just not the rain. Still, after that little cry session, there’s a car sat still in front of me. Sat doing nothing, no fog lights on, or windscreen wipers going.

Then there’s a tap on the driver’s door, shaking me a little. I look to my left and see my boss stood by it with a look of concern etched onto his face. What’s he doing here? I thought to myself. But then I look properly.

Somehow I’d made it to works parking lot in the basement of my work place, and the car in front of me was actually just a colleagues who’d portably parked up about twenty minutes ago. Not wanting my boss to grow impatient with me just sitting doing nothing, I lean over to the back of the car to grab my bag from the floor, before slowly opening my door, making sure that my boss moved out of the way so he wouldn’t get hurt.

“Jack, you alright?” He asks, looking down at me, as he hadn’t given me a chance to have stood up from my seat. “You arrived about 15 minutes ago, we saw you drive in but you never came in. Has something happened?”

I like my boss. He isn’t what people necessarily portray bosses to be. He isn’t harsh on the people who work for him, because he figured that if he gives a damn about them that they’ll work better and want to stay at his publishing business, and he’ll get money. He is genuinely nice though. Cares about all his staff, which is why I just grab him and hug him, crying into he shoulder.

“Jack, talk to me.” But I just shake my head on his shoulder. “Do you want me to phone Jess to come and pick you up? You’re not fit to work today.”

“Can I have my mum?” I ask, not caring if it sounds childish, but Jess is yet to know what has happened those few years ago. Yeah, she knows that I have my bad days with depression, but today isn’t what I’d call a bad day. Today doesn’t feel bad per say. It feels like it has potential to actually have good outcomes, but I’m yet to see what they possibly could be. I just need to talk to my mum about that one day with her. Just splurge out all the thoughts which have built up in my head since I stopped seeing Joe about a year ago.

“Of course, do you want to come up to my office to get some tea and just chill for a bit.” I nod against him again.



“Okay, well sitting in here isn’t going to get us very far, so leave all your work shit in the car, and we’ll go inside. I’ll phone your mum there.” I nod again, and he then moves away from me and leaves me space to remove myself from the vehicle.

“Thank you, Martin.” I mumble to him with the sleeve of my jumper near my mouth. I’ve given up caring toady if I look professional or not.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says in front of me as we start our way up the corridor which meets at the flight of stairs to get to the main office. I then stop. Won’t everyone notice that I’m acting different today? Like, a colleague doesn’t just rock up to work without all his stuff and is a shaking mess with tear stains across his cheeks. Oh god they’re going to stare.

“I can’t go in,” I panic, feeling another spell of tears to descend again.

“Why not?” Martin asks, spinning around to look at me, and as he sees me, he retraces his steps so he’s just in front of me. “Oh Jack…” I hear him quietly sigh to himself. “Just follow me, it’ll be okay,” he insists, but I shake my head, and return my sleeve to my mouth again, and get more worked up at the idea, and not only is my head shaking, my whole body and my cheeks feels so red.

How can I go into work like this?
I can’t. That’s my answer. I stomp my foot on the ground.
I’m not leaving the place I’m stood until my mum comes.



“Why don’t you want to come out, Jack?” He asks cautiously.

“They’ll stare.” I manage to mumble out. My eyes can’t focus on a fixed point. There’s too much in this corridor. There’s photos alining the wall to the left, but posters on the right. There’s a fake potted plant in the corner. Why get a fake, all you have to do is water a real one.



“They won’t, Jack. I promise. And if they do, it’s only out of concern, because they care for you. They all like you Jack and won’t like seeing you upset.”

“I’m not upset.” I stubbornly say. I refuse to think that I could have possibly relapsed back to my previous ways when I’ve tried so hard to get better.

“Then what’s up?’

“Nothing’s up! I’m not upset. I’m not sad. And I’m definitely not depressed, whatever you’ve all thought about me!” I cry out, scared to admit the truth.



Have I just been hiding this pain. Creating an illusion of happiness, not only for other people, but for myself as well? It feels like it today.

“Okay, do you want me to phone from your cell then?” He asks.

“Please.” I say defeated. My heads down and I’m still shaking from nerves and expectations. I forget to hand him my phone, and jump when he coughs to prompt me. “Oh, sorry, here.” I mumble out again, whilst digging my hand into my back pocket and grabbing my phone out of it. I pass it to Martin cautiously, worried that he’ll find something on it.

There’s not even anything to hide. I’m just paranoid. I listen into what Martin is saying to my mother, because I’m too worried that he’ll announce some deep secret about me which I’m still yet to know.



“Hello…. No, this is Jack’s boss, Martin. Mrs Barakat I presume?”

“Ahh Joyce, thanks…. “

“I think it’d just be best to come and pick him up. He’s a little under the weather, you could say.”

I can hear my mum on the other side of the phone now. She seems like she’s nagging.



“No, no Joyce, but I found him in his car 15 minutes after pulling in, staring straight ahead into nothing….”

“Yes I understand that, but I really don’t think it’d be best if he were to do so himself. And he requested you, not Jess.” He sighs down the phone.

“Thank you, I’ll see you in a bit. Bye.” Martin says before ending the call and returning the phone back to me. I snatch it off his hands.

“What did she say?” I ask timidly.

“She’s a little annoyed because I phoned during her book club, but after I told you that you didn’t want to see Jess she clicked to something.”

“Thank you. When we she be here though?”

“You’re welcome, and she said about 20 minutes. Have you calmed down enough to come back up?”

I probably should. It’s really cold down here.

But also people are going to see me coming in. And then my mum will arrive and will almost certainly want to talk to Martin. Then have to leave with me. She looks like me, so everyone will know it’s my mum picking me up. I don’t want to look like a child.



“Can I stay down here? Like you can go back up, but I don’t want to. I’m sorry. I’m awkward I know. Wait, will I lose my job because of this?” I then panic.

“You’re free to stay here, and of course not Jack! Why would I? This is the first time that anything like this has happened, and you’re a hard worker. There’s no reason to say why you can’t stay here, I’ll just mark it down as sick, so you still get paid. How about that?” He asks, looking at me sympathetically again.

“Thank you, and you really don’t have to pay me, I’m fine, I promise. I’ll come in tomorrow early so I can catch up on everything, and will stay late. That means that I won’t be behind.” I say more to myself, than my boss.

“You don’t have to come in tomorrow. I’ll phone you at the end of the day to see how you are, and we’ll go from there.”

“That’s chill, thanks. You should probably get back upstairs. This isn’t me saying that I don’t like you, because I do. You’re a great boss, but you can’t go spending ages looking after me, when you have 20 other members of staff to see to.” I mumble out, swapping my weight from one foot to the other. I was now feeling incredibly awkward. Should I have told my boss to basically go away? I hope it was okay to, but I can’t help but feel as if I shouldn’t.

“Oh you’re right. I’ll be able to see when your mum parks up, so I’ll meet you back down here when she does. Just sit down in the corner for a bit or something. Rest your eyes, because you must be pretty tired. But I need to get going. I’ll see you in a bit,” he waves off and pivots round to head to the door at the end of the corridor which leads to the red stairs. As he does so, I say another thanks to him and turn in the opposite direction to him.

I walk over to the corner like he suggested. With my back equally balanced between the two walls, I slowly sink down, my knees ending up by my chin, and I lull my head to the right so it’s rested on the piece of plaster board.



I think to myself. That would be awkward. I stare around the empty corridor again, and over analyse the picture. The woman in it looks happy at a first glance. She’s smiling, and is surrounded by grandeur and glorious things. But then you look into her eyes, and see that the smile on her face doesn’t match the sorrow and sadness which fills her eyes. Her cheeks are pale. There’s little creasing along her forehead and the sides of the eyes. Yes she looks to be in at least her 50’s, due to the greying hair, and the way her posture is held; with a slight slouch.

Is it always this obvious when someone is sad or depressed, or am I just over analysing things. I hope it’s the latter, because I don’t want anyone, particularly my colleagues, friends or Jess to think that anything is wrong with me. The only people who actually know that I’ve attempted suicide is my parents, my sister, my boss
and Alex.

I don’t want them to think that I’ve tried. That would be awful. They’d judge me, and would probably not want to be associated with me anymore. I wouldn’t even want to associate with myself as it is; let alone knowing that information about me. I couldn’t bare for Jess to leave me for that though. It may come across selfish, but it’s one of the only times where I’d ever think myself as that. She’s been great for me, supported me towards the end of my degree when we were just friends still, and then as the relationship developed between us to something a lot more than friendship, she’s always been there. But despite the amount of trust which is held between the two of us, I can’t tell her. I’m not risking such a beautiful girl like her over something which happened years before I met her, and isn’t affecting me now.



Like Martin had mentioned, I was tired. Very tired. Crying does that to you. Even the few happy tears which have been know to shed my eyes; I’ve been exhausted after the action. Is it the actual action of doing it, or the emotion which is required to release such expression.



Will anyone be late into work? I hope not. Is it something I willing to risk my dignity for? Probably. I don’t care if I drool when sleeping sat down. They can see for all I care. I’m just really tired.

After all cares have been lost, I just close my eyes and focus on anything but me and the world which surrounds myself. I carry out the breathing exercises which I was told to do by Joe if I were to either have a panic attack, or to stubble sleeping. It’s now just the easy way to get to sleep without much effort so I do it each night.

Breath in through nose for four seconds.




Over and over until I’m asleep. Simple as pi. Deep, dreamless sleep I await.