Harry doesn’t want to drink any more water, any more energy drinks. As a result, he feels light-headed. Unbelievable as it may seem, there are moments when he barely knows where he is. He slaps himself on the chest to keep awake.
Cooper approaches a big bridge that spans a big river, with a big city on the other side. When we were growing up, this scene was what we always envisioned as the opening credits of our new life. Even those of us born in the city imagined this. Whether we were driving ourselves or in the back of a yellow cab, the city would spread out in its infinite wonder, each window glittering with invitation, the skyscrapers pointing like arrows to the heights we might attain. For most of us, it didn’t play out as easily, but there was still the thrill of those opening credits that carried us through the harder times, that sustained our faith in a city that often didn’t show much faith in us. Even as we were dying, we’d remember that first arrival, or we would remember how we’d pictured how the arrival would be, or we would conflate the two things—the memory, the dream—into one reality, and that would seem to us like a long time ago, but still a time worth visiting.
As Cooper nears the city, we can’t help but feel a little of that excitement, a little recognition of the escapes we made, of the finish line we crossed, only to find so many other finish lines waiting after it.
We watch Cooper’s car in the parade of headlights. All those cars. All those pilgrims. But Cooper’s car breaks free. His headlights change direction. We watch as he pulls out of the toll lane, narrows onto the local roads. Right under the bridge, right near the joint where it juts from the land and into the air, he pulls over. Turns off the ignition. Steps out of the car.
He’s parked illegally and doesn’t care. The sign right there says NO PARKING AT ANY TIME. He shuts the car door without locking it. Then, without looking back, he heads for the bridge. We peer in and see his wallet on the passenger seat. The phone charger. Some receipts and change. He’s left everything behind, except for his phone, which he’s taken with him.
Our first reaction is, Don’t leave your wallet in an unlocked car.
Then we step back. We have to step back. We have to stop thinking about the city, remembering the city. We have to focus. Up until this moment, there was room to believe he was heading in another direction. But now there’s only one direction.
We yell at him, yell after him. Even though we no longer have voices, we scream at the top of our lungs. We crowd ourselves into a mangled chorus, and in anguish we hear the nothing that comes from our lips. We try to block him, and he walks right through us. We try to pound on his car, raise an alarm, but we can’t do anything.
Cars pass by. He is, to them, just another teenage boy. Out for a walk. Crossing the bridge. They see him throw something into the river. They don’t realize it’s his phone.
We try to catch it. We cannot catch it.
He feels the railing under his hands. No. The railing is under his hands, but he doesn’t really feel it. He walks toward the center of the bridge. It will take him about two minutes to get there. Maybe three. He’s in no rush. He watches the dark water undulating far below.
He cannot see his mother crying in her bedroom. No matter what his father says, she will not let go of her phone.
We howl at him. Beg with him. Plead with him. Yell at him. Explain to him. Our lives were short, and we never would have wanted to have them be shorter. Sometimes perspective comes far too late. You cannot trust yourself. You think you can, but you can’t. Not because you are selfish. You cannot live for anyone else’s sake. As much as you may want to, you can’t stay alive just because other people want you alive. You cannot stay alive for your parents. You cannot stay alive for your friends. And you have no responsibility to stay alive for them. You have no responsibility to anyone but yourself to live.
But I’m dead, he would tell us. I am already dead.
No, we’d argue. No, you are not. We know what it is like to be alive in the present but dead in the future. But you are the opposite. Your future self is still alive. You have a responsibility to your future self, who is someone you might not even know, might not even understand yet. Because until you die, that future self has as much of a life as you do.
We can see that future self. Even if you can’t. We can see him. He is made up not just of your present soul, but of all our souls, all our possibilities, all our deaths. He is the opposite of our negation.
You are not worthless, we shout to Cooper. Your life is not disposable.
You think there is no point.
You think you will never find a place.
You think your pain is the only emotion you will ever feel. You think nothing else will ever come close to being as strong as that pain.
You are certain of this.
In this minute—in this, the most important minute of your life—you are certain that you must die.
You see no other option.
You need to wake up, we cry.
Listen to us. We fruitlessly demand that you listen to us. We shit blood and had our skin lacerated and broken by lesions. We had fungus grow in our throats, under our fingernails. We lost the ability to see, to speak, to feed ourselves. We coughed up pieces of ourselves and felt our blood turn to magma. We lost the use of our muscles and our bodies were reduced to collections of skin-encased bones. We were rendered unrecognizable, diminished and demolished. Our lovers had to watch us die. Our friends had to watch as the nurse changed our catheters, had to try to put aside that image as they laid us in caskets, into the ground. We will never kiss our mothers again. We will never see our fathers. We will never feel air in our lungs. We will never hear the sound of our voices. We will never feel snow or sand or take part in another conversation. Everything was taken away from us, and we miss it. We miss all of it. Even if you cannot feel it now, it is all there for you.
Cooper is nearing the center of the bridge. Cars continue to pulse past him; when a truck rolls by, he can feel the bridge shake, can feel the air displaced. This he feels. Even if he has closed himself into his decision, he is still in the world.
The last minute.
The last thirty seconds.
Our ends were never this precise.
We want to close our eyes. Why can’t we close our eyes? We who did nothing more than dream and love and screw—why have we been banished here, why hasn’t the world solved this by now? Why must we watch as Cooper steps up to the railing? Why must we watch as a twelve-year-old puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger? Why must we watch as a fourteen-year-old hangs himself in the garage, to be found by his grandmother two hours later? Why must we watch as a nineteen-year-old is strung up on the side of an empty highway and left to die? Why must we watch as a thirteen-year-old takes a stomach full of pills, then places a plastic bag over his head? Why must we watch as he vomits and chokes?
Why must we die over and over again?
Cooper lifts himself into the air. Here we are, thousands of us, shouting no, shouting at him to stop, crying out and making a net of our bodies, trying to come between him and the water, even though we know—we always know—that no matter how tight a net we make, no matter how hard we try, he will still fall through.
We die over and over again.