Chapter 1 - The Bridge
There they both stood at the crossroad of life, each drowning in her sorrows, groaning in words that cannot be explained, contemplating if she should take that jump into the dark abyss of the lagoon, completely unaware that someone else was just a few feet away, also in that same helpless state. "Am I doing the right thing?" "Will my soul be accepted by God?" "Will it be painful?" "What about my children, how will they cope without me"? "What about my aged parents, can they survive it?" "Anyways, what do I care, they will surely live with or without me." "I've made peace with myself and that's all that matters right now." "Have I really made peace with myself?" These and many more, were the warring questions going on in both their minds.
Somehow, they both turned at the same time, to look at the cruel world they plan to leave behind and locked eyes. Was it sheer stroke of luck or was it divine orchestration? Whatever it was, it somehow pulled them together. They walked closer to each other and stood side by side, facing the dark lagoon. "Can't decide to also make the jump, right?" Winnie asked. "People who have done it before made it look so easy, but, it's not as easy as it looked", Clara replied. "You can say that again. By the way, I'm Winifred, but you can call me Winnie", Winnie turned to shake the hands of the woman beside her. "I'm Clara", Clara said as she shook the hand of Winnie.
"Care for a smoke?", Winnie asked as she brought out a pack of cigarettes from her pants pocket and handed it to Clara. Taking one stick from the pack, Clara let out a light chuckle, " were you planning to finish that pack at the other side"? Winnie laughed out loud as she said, "well, you never can tell if you'd need it over there. What if you still meet crazy ass idiots there like we have here". They stood silently for what seemed like an eternity, with only the puffs from both their cigarettes floating and disappearing in the wind.
They both turned and sat on the ground, with their backs resting on the railings of the bridge. It was way past midnight already. "So, what brought you here? Man trouble? Kids, health"? Clara asked. "Hmmmm....you can say, all of those", Winnie answered. "What about you"?, she asked. "I don't even know why exactly I am here, trust me. When I left the house, it felt like it was the right thing to do." Clara answered. Winnie turned to look at her with a bit of curiosity. But then she thought to herself, "you never can tell why people do these things".
"How about we tell each other our stories and then hold hands and take that jump", Winnie said. Clara turned to look at her and said, "sounds good. After all, we'll never even see each other again after this so it won't be such a bad idea to talk to a stranger. So, you go first. Why are you here?"
