He wasn’t always this way. While most of his friends went off to university to further their academic education, he started out on a measly basic salary trading currency. The company was small, the commissions were substantial and he moved up quickly. He had money, friends, a life. He was somebody.

But The People of Choice are everywhere.

They can get to anyone.

This Nobody wakes up, as he usually does, whenever he wants. No alarm clock or buzzing of a mobile phone. He stares up at the ceiling or sideways at the bedroom door and wills himself to get out from beneath the covers. His eyes are open. He won’t go back to sleep.

‘Get up, you loser,’ he speaks aloud, psychotically, and clenches both fists as though that will adrenaline him into action.

But he remains enveloped by the quilt and the recognition of his own inadequacy.

It’s normal for him now.

Regular.

Vanilla.

Blah.

He dreamt of them again last night. For the final time. The image of them dropping, falling, jumping, vaulting, flopping, slipping off the side of the bridge.

Descending.

Cracking.

Ending.

It replays in his head like a deeply scratched vinyl record. No sooner have their necks snapped than they are back on the ledge preparing to leap. And he can’t click out of it. He can’t wake up. He can’t get out of his bed.

In his waking state, they are on his mind. Not replaying their final choice to move on to another state of being. Not their decision to extinguish their existence. But they are there.

Just there.

Always there.

And he sympathises with them. While others were aghast on that train, or screaming in shock at the sight they only wished they could forget, he felt a release of pressure. Like he had nine new friends outside that carriage window.

So, when he reads those four words on the first sheet of paper in the post, it may as well say:

You’ve.

Won.

The.

Lottery.

But he’s not interesting. Not worth talking about. Don’t discuss him.

He’s not one half of a loveless marriage or a struggling artist, a poet who believes his words are worth hearing or reading. He’s not a spoilt little girl with everything in life she could need, pissing away her future, worrying about things that need not be worried about; his values are not a pretence for attention.

He’s a guy that was in the wrong place at the wrong time, took the wrong path, wrong road.

He’s a Nobody.

Perhaps every act of The People of Choice requires the attendance of a Nobody.

Someone who thinks this is a good idea. Someone who wants to do it.

Until they step up to the edge.

59