My friend Russel

My name is Eloise Pearson and I am going to write about suicide. I do not want to commit suicide, just talk about it. I met a person on a roof one night and he was really depressed. I walked up to him just before he was about to jump and asked him one question, why? He said to me “I’ve got nothing left for me. I have no friends, no family and no one understands me.” I said to him, “Look I know that someone out there who cares for you. You just haven’t found the right person.” He shook his head and grimaced. He looked at the city below. We were on a skyscraper in a city. I won’t tell you which. He looked back at me and said, “You are the only person who has ever looked at me as a person.” He then goes on to talk about how he is getting bullied at his dead-end job and how he recently lost the only person who ever cared about him, his mother. I sat on the ledge next to him, listening to his story. He gradually sat down next to me. “There is this girl that I work with that I like but I don’t think she would ever like a guy like me.” He sounded very dejected. I finally got a good look at his face. He looked like he hadn’t shaven in a few days and his hair wasn’t coiffed in any way. He was wearing a suit that he probably had on since he left work. It was covered in dirt and decay. He couldn’t have been more than thirty years old but he looked like he had been drinking heavily. We just sat there for a moment, looking at the city. He sighed and started to speak. “I really like this city. I would love to have a family and raise kids here someday. But that’s never going to happen.” His tone shifted rapidly from having some hope for a brighter future to him getting ready to take the drop of death. I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “If you want to jump that’s up to you, but if you really want to have that lovely family that you were just talking about, I would love to get a drink with you in a few years. I hope that you will take me up on this offer. I also think that the woman you described, the one you like, I think she likes you too but doesn’t have enough courage to ask.” I patted his shoulder and stood up. I walked to the door to the roof and waited. He just kept staring at the city at night, lights dancing below, police and ambulances wailing as they rush to somewhere else. He sighed and stood up. I started turning around to leave because he looked like he was going to jump. I heard one footstep. Then another, and another. I turned back around and there he was, looking sheepishly at the ground. “Are you being serious about getting drinks with me in a few years?” I nodded. “Well can I at least get your phone number so that I can call you to set up the time and place?” He still looked sheepish. I nodded and handed him my phone number. He took it and put it into his phone. We walked back down the stairs and went our separate ways.

A few years later, I get this phone call from a man named Russel. He said that I saved his life from suicide and wanted to get a drink and for me to meet his wife and twin girls. I told him sure and left to go to his house. It wasn’t very far away. I knocked on the door and the man that I had met on that roof, now clean shaven and wearing a cleaner suit, opened the door and gave me a big smile. His wife, the woman he had described from his workplace, was standing next to him and two little girls were there as well. He introduced me to his wife and we shook hands. I then treated them to a nice dinner and, of course, a drink. His wife stuck to her soda and the twins had apple juice. We chatted and we exchanged the story of me saving him from certain death. After the evening was over, we went our separate ways and I still get pictures of his little girls, though now not so little, and heard that he had gotten a promotion and was now the CEO of the company he had been stuck behind a desk job at.