Two Free Men

by Sheila Heti

Written for McSweeney's Issue 28, the fable issue.

*

A depressed man and a suicidal man were hanging out near a very tall wooden bridge over a muddy ravine. The depressed man was pacing below it, looking down – for depressed people never look up, only down. And the suicidal man was standing up on the bridge’s edge, talking himself into jumping.

Just because one was above and one was below, doesn’t mean they didn’t have similar problems, or similar reasons for being there. Both were living in a very strange country where every man’s first obligation was to be “free.” What this meant was: any time they felt themselves falling in love, they had to remind themselves that the proper thing to do was pull back. After all, a better girl might come along – and if they missed that opportunity, it would be like missing life itself.

And although they were living in the very same city, their lives there were provisional. After all, job opportunities might arise in other cities, meaning they’d have to pack up and go. So although they had apartments and friends, they were only half-there in their homes, and half-there among their friends. The other half was ever on edge, in case something should call them away.

All of which, if you look at it, is a very lonely way of being.

And they were. One was suicidal, and the other was depressed.

Well – and these things don’t only happen in stories! – at last the suicidal one stepped off the bridge, and he fell through the air with increasing speed, and expanding in his mind was the thought, “I don’t want to die!” – when he collided in an awkward way with the depressed man, who’d been pacing, collapsing them both to the ground.

For a minute the men lay there groaning, rubbing their heads and elbows and knees, but once the shock began to subside, they raised themselves to look at each other. Two sets of brown eyes adjusted focus, then blinked. They were surprised to see how similar the other man was – in colouring, in physique, in expression. It was like meeting one’s own double. The suicidal man found this particularly shocking: his plan had been to end one life – and now he was confronted with two.

A feeling came from inside the depressed man, surfacing like a rubber duck thrown into the sea: “I did something in this life! I saved a man from dying!” And then, without having a chance to correct himself or pull back, he decided: “I was put here under this bridge by fate. This man is forever in my charge.”

He said to the suicidal one: “You don’t have to worry. I will never leave your side. I’ll always be nearby to catch you.”

Now, the suicidal man ought to have been repulsed. Not even a woman – no matter how fervent her professions of her love – had sincerely promised to be by his side forever, or said that he was her charge.

“I will always catch you from falling,” the depressed man reiterated, for saying it twice is a pact. Then he said it a third time, for three times is a promise – and he felt himself getting less depressed each time he said it.

The suicidal man, hearing these words clearly, felt a smile rising in him. He couldn’t help it.

He replied, feeling a purpose growing within him too, “And I will keep jumping and falling.”

*