Hero
Martin still feels his heart racing when he thinks about it. Three weeks now, and the image hasn’t faded—the woman on the bridge, leaning forward into nothing.
“I just happened to be walking past,” he tells his colleague over coffee. “Pure chance, really. Five minutes later and…” He shakes his head, doesn’t finish the sentence.
The whole thing happened so fast. One moment she was there on the wrong side of the railings, the next he was running, calling out, grabbing her wrist just as she let go. The weight of her nearly pulled him over too. His shoulder still aches from hauling her back up.
“She was crying,” he says, stirring sugar he doesn’t need. “Kept saying sorry, over and over. Poor thing was obviously having some kind of breakdown.”
The paramedics had been brilliant. Professional, gentle. They’d wrapped her in a blanket, talking in those calm voices they use. Martin had given his statement to the police, left his number in case they needed anything else. He’d wanted to follow the ambulance, but what would have been the point? He wasn’t family.
“I keep wondering what pushed her to it,” he continues. “Money troubles, maybe? Relationship gone wrong? You never know what people are going through, do you?”
His colleague nods sympathetically. “Good thing you were there.”
“Right place, right time.” Martin’s chest warms with quiet satisfaction. “The officer said I probably saved her life.”
He’s been walking that route to work every morning since, hoping he might see her again. Not that he expects to—she’s probably getting the help she needs now. Counselling, medication, whatever works. The system kicks in once someone reaches out, doesn’t it?
Sometimes he imagines bumping into her months from now, somewhere ordinary like the supermarket. She’d be with friends, laughing about something. She’d recognise him and come over, tears in her eyes but good tears this time, to thank him for giving her another chance.
Martin finishes his coffee and checks his watch. Nearly time to get back to work.
“Makes you feel grateful, really,” he says, standing up. “For the ordinary stuff. Having something to get up for in the morning.”
The Light
I was so close.
For the first time in months, everything felt quiet. The voices in my head—Mum’s disappointment, the debt collectors, my ex telling me I’m useless—they’d all gone silent. Below me, the water looked soft as velvet. Above, something warm was calling.
Then his hand clamped round my wrist.
“It’s alright,” he kept saying as he pulled me back over the railings. “You’re safe now. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Safe? I wanted to laugh, but I was crying too hard. Safe meant returning to the flat I can’t afford, to the job that’s killing me slowly instead of quickly, to waking up every morning with that weight on my chest like I’m drowning in air.
The paramedics were kind. They asked gentle questions while checking my pulse, my pupils. I gave them the answers they needed to hear. Yes, I have a GP. No, I don’t want to hurt anyone else. Yes, I understand there are people who can help.
They didn’t ask if I’d felt peace for the first time in years. They didn’t ask about the light.
At the hospital, I sat in a beige room with a man who meant well. He talked about coping strategies, support networks, medication that might help with the “intrusive thoughts”. He gave me leaflets with phone numbers and sent me home with an appointment for next week.
The man from the bridge—Martin, the police said—left his number in case I needed anything. Such kindness. He really did mean well.
Back in my flat, I stare at the ceiling and try to remember what the light felt like. Already it’s fading, like trying to hold onto a dream. The bills are still scattered across my kitchen table. The job interview I missed is still missed. The loneliness still sits in my chest like a stone.
Everyone keeps telling me I’m lucky to be alive.
I nod and smile and say the right things. I take the pills that make me feel wrapped in cotton wool. I attend the appointments where we discuss my “progress”.
But late at night, when the world goes quiet, I remember how close I was to something beautiful. And I wonder—would he have stopped me if he’d known everything?
The Rescue
There once was a traveller who came upon a woman drowning in a river. Without hesitation, he plunged into the rushing water and pulled her to shore, where she lay gasping and shivering on the muddy bank.
“Thank goodness I arrived in time,” the traveller said, wrapping her in his cloak. “You are saved.”
But as he helped her to her feet, he noticed something peculiar. Though she stood safely on dry land, her eyes remained fixed on the water with a longing he could not comprehend.
“Why do you stare so?” he asked. “The river nearly claimed you.”
The woman was quiet for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely a whisper: “You pulled me from the water, but the drought that drove me there remains.”
The traveller looked upstream and saw, for the first time, the parched fields stretching endlessly beyond the riverbank. He saw the withered crops, the cracked earth, the empty wells. He understood then that she had not been drowning, but drinking deeply from the only source that promised relief.
Years later, when people praised the traveller for his heroic rescue, he would nod politely and say nothing. But late at night, he would think of the woman’s words and wonder: had he saved a life, or simply returned suffering to a world that created it?
Moral: true rescue begins long before the moment of crisis, in the patient tending of ground too dry to sustain what grows there.
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