I pretended I was the moon.

It wasn't there tonight, in the sky but somewhere else, shining down on someone who didn't need it because, as it was night-time here, it would be daytime there. It was unbelievably unfair, that one side of the earth could have both heavenly bodies at their disposal at one time when it only needed one.

So I pretended I was the moon to provide the night sky around me some comfort.

I imagined myself coming down from the sky and laying down to rest below water. How beautiful would that be, arriving at a lake, or a river, or an ocean to see the moon's pretty face shine up on you from below. I believed that if I were the moon, I wouldn't be made for soaring through the sky; I would be made for resting below a surface, the incredible amounts of water in the space between me and the air acting a heavy blanket to help me fall asleep.

What really frightened me was how certain I was of succeeding.

No risk of waking up in a hospital bed, wondering what was going on, remember everything and then feel relief wash over me, thinking thank God I was unsuccessful, thank God I chose a method that made sure I stood a chance because deep down, I didn't want to succeed.

But I didn't stand a chance. Not now. Not like this. Because no part of me wanted to be unsuccessful.

I let the wind ruffle my hair. That was the sensation I got; I LET it ruffle my hair. Or, it was the sensation I pretended I got. I pretended I had that kind of control over the wind because without it, I wouldn't have control over anything. I didn't think normal people realised how much of their sanity hung on the loose thread of having control over their lives, or at least enough aspects of it that they wouldn't feel out of control. They just took it for granted, the control they had over when they woke up, the control they had over when they took a shower, what they had for breakfast, whether they missed the bus or not, their performance at work, if they worked overtime... Who ever thought "Wow, I'm in so much control!" as they decided for cornflakes over oatmeal at the breakfast table? You just didn't notice the sheer amount of control present in a life until you lost all of it.

As I had done.

I looked out over the city lights. I wished I could see some extra beauty in them during these particular moments of my life, at this end of the greyscale spectrum that represented it. Hadn't I read about that? How the beauty of the world was enhanced when you had Decided, capital D? I hadn't really thought about why that was but now, it was crystal clear to me. It was your soul's way of trying to save you. "Look! Look how much beauty there is in this world! You do want to stay, right? Right?!" A form of self-preservation.

But my soul didn't say that. The lights seemed even uglier to me than one could expect on a crisp evening on top of a high bridge. It was because my soul didn't try to save me. It tried to encourage me. It tried to egg me on by enhancing the ugliness of the world. I tried to figure out if I wanted that to be the case. If I wanted my soul to try to save me. No... No, of course I didn't want that.

I looked back on what was behind me. There was a fence between the road crossing the bridge and the edge where I stood. The fence was so high, I had no idea how I'd managed to climb over, no memory of it. I didn't even remember what I'd felt before I came here, what had laid before the decision but judging by the tears drying on my face I had climbed the fence in a panic because I never shed a tear unless I was in an uncontrollable panic. The tears felt cold on my face as they used what little warmth my skin provided to evaporate. There were no cars on the bridge. None at all, and if one would cross, they wouldn't see me as I wore a dark sweater and dark jeans that were in no way enough to protect me from the cold but at least camouflaged me against it.

I looked out over the city lights again, then on the water far, far below. The impact of my body on the surface would be enough to kill me, to make my body burst in a million shards of glittering meat. And even if it didn't kill me it would, undoubtedly, render me unconscious, and then I would sink down and die by drowning. The thought brought a smile to my face. It was the first time I smiled in my life. Or was it? It must've been because I couldn't remember smiling, ever. But of course I must've smiled at some point during my twenty-seven years of life. At some point. At least when I was a baby.

Maybe, it didn't matter. Maybe, the most important part was that I was smiling now at least. At last.

I had stood there for a long time now. How long, I had no idea. Because who ever had any idea? "I stood at the edge of the bridge for roughly seven minutes or so before I jumped" nobody said, ever. But what I did know was it wasn't because I was afraid that I waited. I wasn't afraid at all. On the contrary, what truly scared me was the thought of not jumping. Of actually being scared because that had the potential of scaring me away. Without the complete lack of fear, I would soar through the sky forever.

Without the complete lack of fear, I wouldn't die.

I believed what finally made me decide was the cold. Or, it wasn't the cold that actually caused it per se but rather, the cold was the catalyst.

'I can't stand here all night', the cold made me think.

That thought made me suddenly washed over by a feeling that I needed to think out all of my remaining thoughts that I still had left in me to fill up the space between now and when I would die if I didn't jump. It felt like I had a pile of unthought thoughts in my head that needed to get out or I wouldn't die, I would just bounce off the surface of the water and be forced back into life. I couldn't risk it. I had to think them.

My head became a blur of thoughts, all of them trying to fit into an as short time span as possible, knowing they had limited time. My head behaved as if though it would explode and I felt a physical pain, a headache. I never had headaches. I closed my eyes and winced. The thoughts poured out through my eye sockets, made my ear drums burst so the thoughts could pour out of my ears as well and then, finally, they poured out through my nose and mouth so I couldn't breathe. I considered just waiting until the thoughts drowned me; I had already felt the discomfort so what hindered me from just dealing with it for a while longer until it took me? But it was becoming increasingly unpleasant.

The catalyst of the cold making me think I couldn't stand there all night making me desperate to finish all the thoughts my brain could ever create before dying of age making me finally decide to jump to escape the discomfort of it.

I didn't jump, really. I wondered if anyone ever did. I just took a step out. That seemed more reasonable.

And then, a feeling of force.

As if someone had caught me with a fishing hook through my heart and was fishing me in.

That hook was so strong it could probably get the moon up from beneath the water it used as a blanket.

"No..."

A pair of strong arms around my waist.

"Got him!!"

I was the moon and I was light as a feather.

"NOOOOOOOOO!!"

I would learn this later. Or, not learn it, but figure it out. That when you heard someone say "They're so strong for their size!" it wasn't strictly the truth. The person referred to, whatever their size, wasn't, in fact, remarkably strong. But the strength of someone completely freed of the straps social constructions that held you down, entailing you usually never used your full muscular strength, was unfathomably huge. Add the fact that I was a man that was tall and strong and I would never, ever understand how the two policemen could hold me down.

I was absolutely savage.

I was enraged.

I was a primitive cave man fighting a starving lion in a battle of life of death where one demanded meat and the other demanded the freedom of suicide.

I screamed.

I beat.

I kicked.

I bit.

Froth was lathering in my mouth, running down my chin as if I were a rabies-infected animal.

Maybe I was.

I wouldn't remember any of this but would be told, and I would see the bruises I'd caused on the policemen's skin, the blood.

They were heroes.

They had saved my life.

They had risked their own lives saving my pathetic excuse of one.

And in doing that, they had taken the only thing I wanted away from me.

My last piece of control.

With a fishing hook through my heart.

I was the moon and I was still soaring through the sky.