try. It's wet and slippery and, there's nothing to hold onto out there. You could take me over the side with you if I tried to stop you. You must have some reason of your own for not jumping. You're still there.”

I ...

"I'm just making . . . thinking about my life. I'll do it. you're right. I'm still scared I might be wrong. Death is so final, so eternal. And I'm so afraid. There might just be a reason for me to live."

I walked the final twenty feet to her side. She stood, head bowed, quietly sobbing. I laid my hand on her shoulder to steady her, and studied her lineament for some small clue to help me save her. Her soft golden hair brushed my hand. She was tall and delicately thin about twenty-five years old. But the palid glow of the moon on her skin made her look as old as death.

"Let's sit down. I can't hold you steady." Obediently, almost abstractedly, she sat.

As she regained her composure a strange look spread across her face. The aloof and frightening look of someone already dead by proxy. Someone who had no reason for being, and therefore was not.

She looked up into my face. She had deep set eyes, and her long curling lashes made them seem nearly beyond sight, and beyond the prying rays of the moon. But even her eye shadow could not conceal the purple bruise festering under her left eye. She noticed my staring. Even now she was self concious.

"Now tell me all about it," I said. "Tell me why."

She hesitated. "It's a long story. Too long. And before I finish, you will want to push me off instead of letting me jump. That's my problem. I'm so God awful lonely. Everybody hates me. Everyone wants to kill me."

I couldn't picture anyone hating her or wanting to kill her. She was so lovely and fragile. "I certainly do not want to kill you. I'm out here risking my life to stop you from doing it yourself. Now try to make sense."