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OVER THE EDGE

Erik Wilson


��There hasn’t been a day in my life that I can remember that I didn’t think about suicide at least once. There have been many days when I contemplated it for hours, thought about swallowing pills or swallowing the barrel of a gun or swallowing my fear of heights and jumping off a roof or a bridge. There have been other days when it was just a brief, passing image in my brain, a last resort, a knowledge that, whatever happens, I can choose to end it all in a snap at any time if need be. It can come and go in a matter of seconds, but it’s constantly there, somewhere.
��The reasons why I would consider doing myself in are myriad, and mostly banal. I’m tired, I’m stressed out, I’m frustrated. I’m embarrassed. I’m bored. It’s the easy way out, the light switch of life and death. Up, down. Easy. JustÉ there. Even when I’m relatively happy, or just unconcerned about any of the daily unpleasantries of life, the thoughts of killing myself creep into my consciousness. I don’t consider it a warning signal, or a sign of mental illness or anything, it’s just the way I’m made up.
��I’ve discovered, though, that just thinking about it is the easy part. It takes commitment to commit suicide -- a fact that should be obvious just by the phrase -- and that’s one thing that’s never been a strong point for me. How apathetic is that? I’ve given up on life so much that I can’t go to the trouble of killing myself, because it would require too much effort.
��Not only that, but I’ve lost the ability to cry. I used to puddle up at anything -- a sappy movie, a particularly poignant piece of music, even certain television commercials used to get me all weepy and sniffling, but that’s gone now. I haven’t been able to cry ever since the incident at the Grand Canyon a few months back.
��Rita and I had a couple weeks off, and we drove out to Taos to see some friends. We spent the better part of a week with them, then took a leisurely drive home, by way of the Grand Canyon. I’d never seen it before, so we planned on spending a few days there. By the time we got there, though, after spending too many consecutive days at close quarters, Rita and I were sniping at each other, both just wishing the vacation was over and that we were back home, where we could ignore one another in peace. Sometimes that happened when we traveled. We knew how to push each others’ buttons, and with no one else around through miles and miles of desert driving, we pushed. And pushed. And pushed.
��She didn’t like the music I chose. She didn’t like how fast I was driving. I didn’t like her riding the clutch when she drove, or telling me how to drive or where to stop when I was at the wheel. It was all petty stuff, the kind of meaningless bickering that long-time couples engage in, but it had really gotten on my nerves by the time we got to that big hole in the desert floor. In addition to my daily suicidal thoughts, images of murder were creeping into my head on a regular basis.
��It was late in the evening when we got to the Grand Canyon. We found a motel with rooms that were too small and too expensive, and started unloading our bags into one before we discovered that the TV in the room wasn’t working. It took us another hour to get into another room with a functioning television, and by then, I was spent, exhausted and unhappy. I didn’t say two words to Rita the rest of the night, and in the morning, we got up early, ate breakfast in silence, then drove out to the rim of the Grand Canyon with a dark cloud hovering over both of us. Even in my black mood, I had to admit that it was pretty impressive. Carved by the Colorado River over millions of years, the canyon stretched down and away from me in two directions to what looked like infinity. Joshua trees, pinyon and bristlecone pines, yuccas and creosote and other desert foliage dotted the rim and various outcroppings to the floor of the canyon, where the river wound along the bottom, a dark, narrow ribbon of what looked like perfectly still water. I was taken with how red the canyon was, a deep rust almost reaching the color of blood in the morning light.
��Rita had the camera out immediately, and began snapping pictures of everything in sight. There were a few other tourists scattered about the area, oohing and aahing and taking pictures of their own. I figured Rita was good for three, maybe four rolls of film, at least.
��I found a trail that meandered along the edge of the canyon, away from Rita and most of the tourists there, and I followed it just for the sake of walking. It felt good to stretch my legs after the last couple days spent in the car, and I walked for a while without paying much attention to anything but the magnificence of the scenery all around me.
��There were iron guard rails set up at various points along the path, rails that skirted the very edge of the the canyon rim. On one side of them was the relatively solid ground of the desert, on the other side was a whole lot of air down to the bottom. I stopped at a few of those rails and leaned over them, thinking about how long a person would be in the air before he or she finally hit ground. I threw a few rocks over the edge and marveled at how long they sailed before they dropped out of sight without touching anything.
��I noticed, too, that there were plenty of spots without guard rails, places just off the path I walked where the ground simply ended, dropped off to sheer nothingness for miles. A small outcropping just below the rim caught my eye, and I stepped down some rocks to stand there for a while. It perched outward from the canyon wall, about four feet below the rim and the trail, and beyond it was nothing but clear desert air. I imagined that many people had stood there before, gazing out at the canyon, taking pictures or getting their pictures taken with the dangerous, wide open space behind them.
��There is a quality to the sky, to the air there that you will find nowhere else. The sky is somehow bigger, bluer. The air surrounds you, envelops you in its wide-open oppressiveness, the pressure making you feel like you’re swimming. It’s got a sound all its own, a subliminal drone like the hum of unseen insects or far-off machinery, a sound that echoes in your brain and reminds you of the blood pumping through your body and in your head and probably ultimately is just that, the sound of your own blood coursing through the organ of your consciousness, measured against the unlimited silence all around you.
��I have no idea how long I was standing there. It’s hard to measure time when you’re looking off into eternity. It must have been a while, though, because the sun was high in the sky when I heard Rita say “Hey!”
��“Turn around,” she commanded, her camera at the ready. She snapped a picture of me standing on my perch in the sky, then walked down to join me. There was room for the two of us to stand side by side, and not much more. “Impressive, isn’t it?” she said, taking more pictures of the canyon all around us. I agreed, but at that moment, I wasn’t thinking about the grandeur of the scenery. I was thinking about how easy it would be to bump Rita, to push her, to just give her an elbow or a quick one-handed shove from behind and watch her tumble and tumble through the air. I looked back at the trail and didn’t see anyone around. We were partially hidden from anyone on the trail who might see us, anyway. It would be a simple matter, I thought, and I could easily get away with it. She slipped, I could say. She stumbled and I couldn’t catch her in time. I told her to be careful taking pictures down there, but she wasn’t paying attention, and she must’ve lost her footing, and...
��Or, maybe I wouldn’t have to explain at all. I could jump myself, push her off and follow her down in a few seconds. I wondered how long I would sail, soar along the side of the canyon wall, before I hit bottom. Would I stay conscious for the entire fall?
��Maybe I’d just get back in the car, drive home alone and never say a word to anyone until the police showed up at my door. Any number of scenarios presented themselves to me in that moment, and I could see advantages in each one. Just a two-handed push, hard, at Rita’s shoulder blades, and it would be all over in seconds. Simple. Quick. Easy. Push.

* * *

��I haven’t been able to cry since that day. I’ve tried, too. I’ve put on that John Prine song that always gets to me, the one about the old people, and nothing. Watched movies that brought me to tears more than once, and stayed dry-eyed the whole time. Nothing. Nothing makes me cry anymore.
��I haven’t said anything to Rita about not being able to cry, and I doubt that she’s noticed. Of course, I’ve never told her that I think about suicide every day, either. There are a lot of things I don’t tell Rita.





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