Free On The Bridge by Ada Uzoije Page A

she had helped him take his life because she loved him so much and couldn’t bear watching the doctors keep him suspended in hell for the ego of their profession. Doug understood.
    She was normally online early in the morning before she went to work, and soon Doug was getting up early to chat with her. They had long conversations about suicide and how to cope with having seen one. Suicide Queen felt that people had every right to commit suicide if they wanted to, and didn’t feel at all guilty that she had attempted it. Her opinion was that she had good reason, at least to herself, for doing it and that what one feels comes before the opinions of others who did not share your pain, though she did admit that, in hindsight, she was now glad that she’d failed, no matter how deeply disappointed she was to wake up two days later in hospital.
    “Yeah, I guess it was a foolish thing to do, but I was very young and very hurt – in pain. You know, in a way I was like my uncle. I couldn’t bear it, and hadn’t the maturity to know it wasn’t permanent,” her words ran over the screen as she typed in obvious certainty.
    Eventually, Doug felt comfortable enough to share his nightmares with her.
    “My God, dude, that’s just creepy,” she answered in her green cloud on the instant message screen. “How long had you been having them?”
    Doug told her that it had been weeks since they started.
    She paused for a few seconds and then advised her new young friend on it.
    “You should go s ee your doctor and just tell her about it, just so she knows, right?”
    “ I get your point, but going back to Dr. Lamaskaya means I’d have to tell my parents and there’s just no way. I can’t talk to them about it, especially my dad,” Doug explained.
    “Okay, then just go with it, Icarus” she said finally, “and you never know, maybe if you stop fretting about it, it’ll finally go away, ya know?”
    Ah, the wisdom he so loved! She always made him feel better.
    A few days later, while chatting, Doug decided to tell her otherwise, though. He did not want to talk about the nightmares anymore.
    “And how are we doing, Doug ?” Krista joked in her caring way.
    “Good, I’m good,” Doug replied, trying to be glib about it all.
    “Hey, by the way, how are you dealing with the bad dreams?” she asked.
    “ Oh, they’re gone now,” he lied to sound stronger and healthier.
    “Gone? That’s gre at!” she cheered his progress. “You know, it’s no cause for alarm, really. You just keep taking your meds and soon you’ll forget you ever had them.”
    “ I know,” said Doug.
    “After I assisted my uncle, you know, to leave, the guilt was killing me. I’d dream bad things too, about how I cut off his oxygen and the horrible sounds he made just before the end and such…” she paused a moment, “…I blamed myself for his decision to die and to tell you the truth I had nightmares for months after. My future was uncertain and I had all this guilt.”
    “But you got over the bad dreams. They disappeared, right?” Doug fished for approval.
    “Totally. ” Krista typed back.
    “Yeah, I haven’t had them for a few days now, so that’s off my back as I predicted,” he fibbed and felt the responsibility of his nightmare report disappear from their discussions, hopefully for good now.
    Doug figured that he was coping well enough, despite the nightmares. His obsession with suicide was much greater than obsessions he’d had before with learning about something new that had caught his interest, he had to admit. He remembered that once he’d spent a week trying to learn everything he could about selenium - its use as a preventative substance and a cure for cancer and many other conditions.
    They’d had a talk at school about mercury poisoning and how the increase in mercury in the environment was a very serious problem. The guest speaker mentioned that increasing selenium intake could combat poisoning, and with that young