Watching I was on my way to the south side of the river today, to hang oot and aboot with Bento, and consequently, embark on the great black hoody goose chase, when I reached the bridge and was informed I could not cross it. A man was on the bridge at that point, highly distressed and suicidal, and the EMS were trying to talk him out of it.

I've never seen the bridge that empty before. As I stood and tried to figure out what was happening, it was dead quiet, and all I could see were two figures talking, and a cruiser parked halphazardly across the two lanes that are usually full of cars hurtling across the water at breakneck speeds. Below where the cruiser was parked was the middle concrete bridge pillar, the one with all the accumulated river debris piled up beneath it.

In the moment that I stood there watching and thinking, and really, feeling quite sad for the guy, my silence was interrupted by excited conversation between a family and a security guard that stood not too far away. They wanted to know where they could get closer to see the spectacle, as the zoom lense on their camera seemed to be ineffectual to see the action with. With cheery excited faces and laughing, they thanked the security guard who seemed quite pleased with himself, before leaving to "get close enough."

After they'd gone, he looked at me and said, "don't you want to see better too?"

"No. I don't. Sort of a shame how this is some sort of sport, isn't it?"

It was like he didn't even hear me. I'm finding out that a lot of people just tune out to morality lately. Like they've conditioned themselves to be morally autistic. Instead of acknowleging what I'd said with any sort of emotional response, he just looked at me and said,

"Man, that guy must be fucked up."  ¶ 1:04 AM