I fell. That’s what I would say, I fell. And they would believe it, because they can’t care more than I do.

On a summer afternoon, I’d do it. Standing on the edge of a bridge, and watching the water flow under me. When the sun dipping past the edge of the horizon colors me and my whole world something like piss and blood – A reminder of what my life was, and will be – that would be the perfect time to do it.

I would fall, but it never works, does it? Not off bridges, where water lives to catch the souls who thought it would be a quick death, only met with denial (kindness to some), the river’s embrace. It would be the thing keeping my soul afloat. And my body too, of course.

And you would never tell what I had just attempted if you had caught me floating down the river. Two boys could be wading through the water, hands keeping their pants up, racing their paper boats beside me, and say: “Look at that lady – no, man playing in the water!”

And if I had heard them, maybe I would try again. Drown myself on the spot. But I would be oblivious, my ears submerged, and I would keep going down the river, as the paper boats, speeding by me with their paper propellers, catch on to each sleeve of mine with their little paper hooks. And the little paper captains would leave their little paper command decks to thank me.

Little paper people. They would find my hulking arms a good bridge and use them as passage to the boat cross to them, and some would stay on my chest to mingle, to have picnics with their paper families. And the paper mothers would say, “Oh how broad this lady – no, man’s chest is! How wonderful for our picnics!”

Little paper kids. Joyously rolling down the small bumps I call my breasts. And their paper parents scold, “Stay away from those hills, giants sleep underneath them.”, and the children respond “Giants? No, mosquitos maybe.” The paper families would laugh. (O’, the wit of these youth)

The captains would find the end of my use. After using my sturdy, thick skull and protruding brow bone to smash through the rocks in their rough path ahead until clear waters, they unhook from me, with a parting gift of some hundreds of dollars. Paper dollars – No! Not paper dollars like our paper dollars; Paper dollars like: Monopoly money. It would fall off me into the water anyways, maybe get blown away by wind, and I would fall asleep.

And I would wake up. To men. Men prodding, with sticks. Men pointing, with hands and flashlights. All around, whispering to each other. “Why is this man (for I was so clearly a man) dressed this way?” “Surely, a cross-dressing freak.” And I heard no soul ask if I was okay. And I would think: Maybe I did succeed: After all, this was very clearly hell. And Hades must have seen it fit to group me with the rest of the men.

But it was just another day. I fell. That’s what I said, I fell. And they believed it, because they care even less than I do.