He stood up at the edge and looked down.  It was hard to see what was down there between the tears that clouded his eyes and the thoughts that clouded his  brain.  The wind blew right through him but he didn&rsquo t notice.  Above him the sky was dark and cloudy, because it was like that a lot in this part of the world during this time of year.  No one was looking down at him and still he wondered.

“I’m tired,” he said.

He looked down at the street again, watching the people below.  It wasn’t as hard to get onto the ledge as he thought.  It wasn’t as hard to keep his balance.  The city spread out behind him and before him and around him.  Lights were coming on.

“I said I’M TIRED!”  He shouted and he gritted his teeth and glared up into the sky.  Drops of rain spattered into his eyes and he blinked them away and fresh tears mixed with rain.

He stared straight ahead.  The building was taller than most of the others.  He saw more lights and he saw cars.  He knew that inside those buildings and inside those cars no one knew or cared who he was or what he was doing.  Somewhere, beyond, in places where trees stuck out of the ground like gnarled fingers instead of manmade fingers of metal and glass, the leaves were turning colors. 

“I want to come home,” he said.  “I’m tired of fighting.  I’m tired of hurting.  I’m tired of being here and I want to rest.  Is that OK?  Can you please tell me that it’s OK?”

The wind blew.  It was a cold wind and almost constant.  It picked up the coldness from the air and then magnified it by brushing past the wide expanse of water just to the east.  He didn’t feel it.  He didn’t feel any pain on the outside.  All of the pain was inside.  And in there it was absolute.  Even the fingernail of his little finger was filled with pain as if, by some trick of alchemy, it had been transmuted from a deposit of calcium into a deposit of ground glass.

“You never answer,” he said.  “You just leave me here.  You shrug your shoulders and nothing happens.  I just sit here, alone, in the wilderness.  How long do you want me to wander?  Tell me it’s OK to rest now.  Please.  I’m so tired.”

His voice broke.  He heard only the wind.  He heard a car horn.  He thought, perhaps imagined, he heard laughter somewhere, carried on the wind or, perhaps, the wind itself was laughing at him.  It tore the words from his mouth and tossed them to the side. 

“Fine then,” he said.  “If you won’t come down here to me and give me an answer, I guess I’ll come to you.”

He blinked his eyes.  He wiped his forehead.  He closed his eyes.  He tried to listen.  He hoped he would hear something, somewhere, perhaps on that wind, that would give him an answer.  There was nothing. 

“I’m not fighting anymore,” he whispered.

Then he stepped forward.