(News item: San Francisco is considering constructing barriers on the sides of the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides. Critics complain that the barriers would detract from the bridge’s beauty.)
Harold trudged up the ramp from the Presidio to the entrance of the toll way. He headed toward the pedestrian walk, trying to remain low-key and draw no attention to himself.
As he started hiking toward the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, Harold took grim satisfaction in the knowledge that Sarah would suffer when she realized how much pain she had caused him. She’d be sorry when he was gone.
Harold was startled out of his inner sanctum by an obstruction in his path. Spread across the sidewalk was a booth and a turnstile. A woman with her hair tied in a tight bun and a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose sat behind the counter. She held up one hand to gesture Harold to a halt.
“Sir, you must fill out this form.” The Suicide Disclosure Statement had a number of questions in fine print, front and back. The woman handed him a No. 2 pencil.
Name and address of the applicant, plus contact information for the person to be notified. Well, of course, Harold thought-that makes sense. He certainly wanted this to get back to Sarah. Do you have a will? No. He muddled his way through the rest of the questions as best he could, and then returned the form and the pencil to the woman in the booth. He started to continue on his way.
But the turnstile was locked; it would not turn.
“Sir, this form is not complete. I can’t release you yet,” she said. “For instance, you didn’t enter the zip code for your life insurance agent. And I’ll need more than just a first name and four-digit extension for the personnel officer at your current place of employment. And you’ve left some of the questions completely blank.”
Harold sighed and returned to the counter, tackling the form again. He couldn’t remember the zip code, so he made up the fourth and fifth digits. He tried to provide plausible responses to each question he’d previously left blank, even though the answers wouldn’t make a lick of sense to anyone who was truly familiar with his situation.
But one question puzzled him completely.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but why do you need to know whether I’m jumping at high tide or low tide? What difference would it make, and how am I expected to know the difference anyway?”
The woman’s forehead creased in an obvious show of impatience. “Sir, if your body is in the water while the tide is coming in, you’ll end up in the Bay. If the tide is going out, you’ll be in the Pacific.”
“So?”
She muttered to herself angrily before answering. “If you go out to sea, this will remain quiet. It’ll be just between you and the sharks. If you’re in the Bay, you may be making news.”
Harold’s expression brightened. “I might prefer that,” he said. “After all, I’ll want people to know.”
“So if a young girl on vacation with her parents sees your mangled, bloated body floating in the Bay and is scarred for life by the horrifying memory, you won’t mind being blamed for ruining her life?”
Harold stroked his chin. “Gee, I hadn’t thought about that.”
“It seems like you haven’t thought this through in a number of different areas,” the woman snapped. “Now, to another matter, to whom are you assigning power of attorney?”
Harold’s face was growing red with anger. “I’m not assigning power of attorney to anyone.”
She slapped the pencil down on the counter. “Sir, the Golden Gate Bridge did not become the world’s Number One suicide destination by relaxing its standards and allowing sloppiness. Now you just sit yourself down and complete this form properly, or else I won’t let you proceed.”
Now Harold was furious. “You’re even worse than Sarah! You can have your precious bridge. I don’t have to take this kind of treatment from you or anyone else. The deal is off. I’m going home.”
With that, Harold turned on his toe and set off at a purposeful pace back toward the Presidio, where he had parked his car. Inefficient bureaucrat, he cursed silently. I’m going to write a letter to her supervisor.
Back at the booth, the woman gathered up Harold’s unfinished paperwork. She wrote his name on the tab of a manila folder and inserted it into a desk drawer labeled, “Successes.” Then she returned her attention to that day’s crossword puzzle.