With both fists, Maria pounds on the door until her knuckles start to bleed. Walking around the house, she checks for an open window but finds none. Upstairs, she hears a window open and a furious man screams at her.

"Get out of my sight before I call the cops! You will find your
things on the lawn. There isn't any reason for you to come inside. You don't live here anymore. I changed  all the locks anyway. Go now!"

Maria looks up at the angry man in the window and wants to throw a rock at him. What a vile man.  She looks at the pile of clothes on the lawn and cries. Turning around, she leaves it all on the lawn.

"I don't care."

Maria runs down the street in tears.

The air is electric on that summer night. The wind sweeps through the street as Maria holds back tears and runs. North, south, who cares? In a  attempt to flee the danger behind her, she defies the threat of thunder and the black skies above. The clouds are heavy and in a moment the world will be bursting with torrents of rain.

Maria finds a bench and sits down to think about what she is going to do. She arrives home to find all of her belongings thrown on the lawn and the doors locked.

"You have no heart!"

"I don't belong in this world, this time, this existence. There must be peace on the other side if this world is so very painful for me to bear."

The black clouds burst into torrents of rain. Jet black hair clings heavily to her body. Her clothes are soaking wet from the rain. Maria starts to run. Funny, at this moment of crisis she remembers how her Dad would take her to the bridge in the center of the city to talk things over. Which college to apply to, which career path and other important decisions. Now with her father dead and gone, she has no one to share her confidences. No one who cares . She was utterly alone. She can't bear it. A world without love is not a world she can wake up to day after day.

She hears the thunder in the distance and watches as a flash of
lightning crashes down in the distance.

"One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three-one thousand. It's three miles away, right now. I love thunder. It is such a liberation. The rain clouds burst free and release all of their anger on the earth washing it free of anxieties and problems, making the air electric and fresh. It is exhilarating to watch. Like the gods have control of the four corners of nature, wind, rain, fire, and earth. The lightning can strike you at any time and if you are at the wrong place, you can be the target for the gods wrath. I love to close my eyes and put my face to Heaven and feel the rain on my face. I defy the rain, the thunder, the lightning to find me."

She disappears into the darkness despite the rain and the danger of lightning.

Soon enough, Maria finds her bridge. The bridge that is so special to her and her Dad. A huge suspension bridge in the middle of the city overlooking the river. She took the suspension wires in her hands and recall how comforting this bridge has been to her in the past. Today,however, it is painful. She holds on so tight to the wires that her hand starts to bleed. The blood dripps down her arm and onto the sidewalk, but Maria doesn't care. She feels numb and just as the blood is flowing out of her body, her zest for living wanes.

Walking to the middle of the bridge, Maria looks down at the
waterfall and the rocks below . The water looks powerful. The rain clouds so black and beautiful. The world so wonderous around her. So alive. It was a sweet irony wanting to end your life when the world is screaming life all around you. The crashing of the water and the rain excites her.  She hops over the safety bar and holds on for a moment.

The thunder crashes. Maria takes a deep breath and looks up to heaven, the rain, blesses her with its soft sweet kisses, said Yes, go
ahead, Jump.... It only takes a minute... It's so easy.. Go ahead..

JUMP!

She leapsinto forever. Peace. A black, velvet peace and blue
skies forever and her Dad.

The air wisps by her head and she plummetsdown, down, down..

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Crash!

Crashing onto the rocks below, Maria looks up to heaven once more, feels the warm kisses of rain on her face and smiles.

This is the last thing she remembered before everything went...

Black.

She floats above her body in the blackness.

"Where is the light? Isn't there  a better life out
here somewhere?"

She listens intently for a sign. An answer.

She hears only silence.

There is only blackness enveloping her.

Her panic increases and once again, "Dear God, Where are you? Where is the light??"

She falls deeper into the black void where the silence is
deafening.

Maria is certain of only one thing...

The sound she is hearing is the bloodcurdling sound of her own screams.