Joe walked home as usual, a slightly built fellow, shoulders hunched over, hands buried deep in pockets, eyes glued to the ground. He didn’t notice the heavy dark clouds racing in, or the fact that it was beginning to rain. One more black cloud in his life couldn’t possibly make the slightest bit of difference. He was tired of it all, life sucked and he wanted out. Today was the worst day of his life. He had been fired. Downsizing they called it, but a hatchet job would be a better name for it. He couldn’t figure it out, he had given them the best years of his life, only missed 8 days in the 32 years he had worked for old Walt Williams. Walt had died last year, and a large corporation had taken over. Now this. What in hell was he going to do. He didn’t stand a chance of getting another job at his age. Work was scarce in this God-forsaken neck of the woods. Everyone was cutting back.

     His whole life was a bust. Nothing he ever tried to do had turned out right. He had lost his first love to his best friend’s good looks, and rock hard biceps. His first wife had left him, and his children were God knows where, doing God knows what. Well, he was tired of this merry-go-round, and he wanted off. As he crossed the bridge over the inlet, he stopped, peered down into the murky darkness of the water. Tears mingled with the raindrops, and fell into the blackness. He rested his head on his hands. He just couldn’t take any more. Car after car sloshed by, drenching him to the skin, headlights strobed, piercing the night. He turned away from their searching globes, and leaned over the bridge. In the darkness of an abutment, he waited for the home bound traffic to thin, and then slowly lifted himself up onto the rough cold parapet, the sharp wind buffeting his body, as he struggled to get his legs over the side. The cold rain swirled into his face, stung his eyes and mixed with his own tears. Please, Lord, no more pain.

     A heavy gust of wind caught him off guard as he clambered from sitting to standing, teetering on the edge, then his careening body for an instant frozen in the glare of headlights, his cry of despair echoing thinly into the night. The splash roared in his ears, knives of water and mud surged up his nose, and then nothing but a sharp thudding pain in his spine, as he landed upright, waist deep in mud, the breath knocked out of his body. He gasped trying to suck in air, but the pain held him in its vice-like grip, and he couldn’t breathe. Icy water swirled up around his armpits, and the murky brackwater snotted out of his nose and trickled down his throat.

      The Goddamn tide was out. The water was only a few feet deep, but the tenacious mud held him in a solid deathly grip.

     Voices drifted downward. “Look! There! Down there” he heard a woman yell. Flashlights played over his head, and a few minutes later, he heard the scream of an ambulance, and sirens of the fire trucks as they rushed to the scene. Anguish overwhelmed him. Now the whole town would know…he couldn’t even do this right. He tried to move, but nothing seemed to work. Breathing was almost impossible. Wallowed in the thick mud, he was stuck, there was nowhere else left to go. As pain overwhelmed him, he sunk into blackness.