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He was cold. His chest burned, the muscles in his back ached dully, lacking the strength to shiver. He barely remembered what it felt like to be warm.
The wind on top of the Brooklyn Bridge was strong and icy and yet it didn’t feel as unforgiving against his skin as it should. John raised a hand and tried to feel the air stream between his fingers. They felt numb.
How had he gotten here?
His hands barely registered the touch of the railing as he stared into the depth of the deadly waters below. He remembered the fear of falling, followed by the crash and endless cold filling his burning lungs.
He had jumped.
Even now he couldn’t tell if the decision had been made by the drunk, desperate part of his mind, or by the rational part that had saved himself and others multiple times. As soon as his feet left the ledge and gravity took hold, he had regretted his decision.
Too late.
It should have been too late.
So how could he be here?
There was a prickling sensation between his shoulder blades and John turned his head. The bridge was crowded, despite the time of night. People were hurrying past him, heads tucked into the collars of their jackets. Nobody even glanced in his direction. Nobody except for one man, wearing an anxious expression, that was limping towards him.
Their eyes met and the man froze. His eyes grew wide behind thinly framed glasses and his mouth fell open. The words, if he was speaking at all, got lost in the wind, but John knew intuitively what the man had asked.
How?
‘Who are you?’ he tried to say, but his voice sounded strange, as if it was broadcast through a radio with a weak signal. ‘What’s happening?’
Panicked, John took a step, away from the railing and bumped straight into the woman that was passing him.
Except that he stepped straight through her.
John scrambled to step away. His hands flew to his chest, patting himself down. Solid. He felt solid. At least to his own touch. His body tingled strangely where the woman had passed through him. Or had he passed through her?
‘Am I dead?’
The words floated up and disappeared without getting an answer. Then John remembered the man and he turned around, finding him still staring at John. As if he could see him.
The man looked terrified. He blinked. Then he turned and limped away from John as fast as he could.
‘Wait!’
Without hesitation John rushed after him. He tried to swerve around people as much as possible, but without being seen that proved to be impossible. Multiple times the pins and needles hit his arms when he couldn’t sidestep a person. The man with the limp increased his pace, as if he was fleeing.
‘Please!’
John braced himself and charged, groaning at the horrible sensation as he ran through the remaining crowd that separated them.
‘Please, if you can hear me, wait!’
The man’s shoulders tightened. John was close enough now to see part of his face. To see the streaks of tears on his cheeks and the horrified look that he had seen so often before in battle. Eyes that had seen death.
Shocked, John slowed his pace, falling behind.
The man limped away as if he had the devil on his heels, off the bridge, off the streets, into the park where the nightly crowd didn’t surround him anymore. He found an empty bench and sat down. Immediately he burrowed his face in his hands. Silent sobs were stifled by the man’s hands. Ragged breaths that spoke of grief and loneliness and false hope
John sat down next to him. The bench made no sound, didn’t bend or creak at the added weight.
‘You can see me,’ he said quietly.
The man jerked upright, eyes wide in fear and shock.
John held up his hands. ‘I’m not gonna hurt you. I just want to talk.’
The man shook his head .He tried to speak, but his voice caught. Another tear slid down his cheek.
John studied him quietly for a moment. ‘You were looking for me. On the bridge.’
The man nodded. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket. His lips quivered. ‘I hoped I wouldn’t be too late.’
Too late.
A fall that took seconds that felt like an eternity. Water taking him, enveloping him, pulling on him in a hold that wouldn’t give.
John forced his attention back to the man next to him. ‘Who are you?’
A tiny, watery smile played over the man’s lips. ‘You can call me…’ he paused. ‘Harold. I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while now, John.’
‘You know my name.’
‘I’d hoped-‘ Harold swallowed. ‘I’d hoped we’d meet under different circumstances. I was waiting for the right moment to offer you a job.’
John was stunned. He’d been homeless, seeking his faith in a bottle rather than trying to make anything of his pitiful life and this man had been keeping tabs on him?
‘What kind of job?’ he managed. As is that was the most important question here.
Harold bent his head. His eyes were shimmering with a new flow of tears. ‘I know when people are in danger. Don’t ask me how. It’s how I knew you were in danger too.’
‘That’s impossible.’
A tiny, secretive smile.
‘No,’ John repeated firmly. ‘Not even I knew-‘
‘The signs were there.’
John saw that Harold was speaking the truth. Or at least believed that he was. And that he felt responsible somehow for what John had done.
Oh god.
What had he done?
Too late.
John took a sharp breath. Only to realize that he hadn’t been breathing at all. The motion was there, but the sensation of air filling his lungs stayed out. Panic grabbed at him again and only then he realised that something else had been off too. His heart should have been hammering against his ribs. Instead everything was still.
What had happened? Why was he still here? Why could Harold see or hear him? What if he could never leave?
‘John, I’m so sorry.’
Harold’s words acted like an anchor, pulling John back to the present. He touched his own chest. Solid. He pinched his arm. A strange sensation that was not quite pain.
‘John?’
His attention shifted back to Harold’s concerned expression. His voice was hoarse when he tried to offer a small amount of comfort. ‘It’s not your fault.’
Both men stared out over the river. Harold was crying silently. John discovered he no longer had the ability to produce tears.
‘It’s not your fault, Harold,’ he repeated more strongly.
It seemed like those words opened another door in Harold’s memories, because the tears kept streaming down his cheeks. His expression spoke of grief so raw and unprocessed that John reached out to comfort him in a way that words never could.
His hand landed on Harold’s shoulder. Soft, grounding pressure.
Solid.
Wide eyes looked up at him. ‘I thought you were dead.’
John stared at his hand. ‘I am.’
‘But then-‘
A floating feeling blossomed in John’s head, spreading to his chest and he was falling again. Crashing. Sinking.
His hand fell through Harold’s arm.
Pins and needles exploded where John’s hand passed through a body that was no longer solid to his touch. Not quite pain, but something similar.
Something was pulling on him.
John could feel it, a prickle at the base of his skull, a silent yearning he hadn’t felt in years. A gentle coaxing to let go.
‘John?’
He was floating. His body no longer subjected to the laws of gravity. The strange, familiar feeling pull got stronger. He felt lighter than he ever had and yet-
‘John, don’t leave.’
John looked down. Harold had reached for him, but he immediately pulled back his arm, looking embarrassed by the action. His eyes were wide behind his glasses and he looked torn.
‘Please.’
There was a second pull, more grounding. The more of John’s attention shifted to Harold, the stronger it became. He was no longer floating upwards.
‘Harold- I’m-‘ It was suddenly difficult to form words through the conflicting forces warring inside him. John touched is own chest again. Solid. Cold. ‘It’s too late.’
Harold reached for him again and John realized he was getting closer.
‘You’re still here.’
Harold’s voice was brittle, but there was a stubbornness behind the words, a refusal to believe that John would go.
John stared at the hand. Could he?
Tentatively John extended his hand. The ground came closer. He only had to reach out.
Was there a chance he could stay? Did he want to stay?
‘John, please.’
‘You said a job,’ John said, his voice strangely light. ‘What kind of job?’
Hope flooded Harold’s eyes and John’s chest tightened. ‘To keep people safe.’
‘Safe,’ John repeated. ‘How?’
‘By figuring out who or what is going to harm them.'
‘Like me?’
Harold swallowed and his expression wavered. ‘Yes.’
The pull became stronger. John’s limbs filled with lead, pulling him down. He stretched out his arm, stopping just shy of Harold’s hand.
‘Why?’
Harold’s fingers twitched, but he didn’t close the gap. ‘Because, John, nobody is irrelevant.’
John’s legs hit the bench. There was still no creaking, no bending under his weight, but it felt different from before. The floating feeling had disappeared. The pull faded to a barely noticeable tension. His chest felt a little less tight, a little less cold.
‘Okay,’ John whispered. ‘I think I can stay a little bit longer.’