The water gapes ahead of me, steely as the clouds lowering overhead like thousands of filthy sheep. I’m caught between the two—the clouds and the frigid, February river—and I consider jumping. I want to jump. Nothing is stopping me except the knowledge of how I would shriek as I plunged, the gasps that would be torn from my lungs upon hitting the water, the rush of regret that I fear would come both sudden and too late. I would count myself lucky to only break a leg. And, pathetic, wait for them to rescue me. So I could live.

I can hear the sirens as they scream toward where I stand, on the edge of the wooded cliff, the Charles River sluggish below. The clouds press in. The woods press in. The police press in.

It’s nearly unbelievable, except it is happening. How did I end up here when I had so much promise? Everyone said so, not only me. But when they spoke, they spoke with an edge. Scarily bright...I don’t know how she does it, I could never...I’ve never seen anyone quite like her. Compliments, if one chose to take them that way.

There are fifty-three synonyms for ruthless, all of which have been applied to me. This makes me feel unladylike, but perhaps that’s the point. I’ve always been someone other people admire, not emulate. Or befriend. I try to shrug it off, but in this moment, trapped between two unforgiving horizontal planes, I cannot imagine—or is remember the right word? Funny not to be sure—what it is that I do at home, alone, on, say, some Saturday afternoon or a lazy Sunday morning.

My work consumes me. Not like a drug, despite the rumors. Like what other people call love. Love, like in a fantasy novel where the main characters are willing—nay, happy!—to sacrifice all they have for their beloved, to abdicate their kingdom, to kill their father, murder their mother, exact revenge for the wrongs foisted upon their beloved, taking those wounds so closely to heart it’s a wonder any of their own self remains. Only, in this case, my work does not love me back with such abandon.

Abandon: to leave, to erase utterly. A strange word to use in conjunction with love, except as it applies here. I’m utterly erased in my dedication, my devotion, my abandon to my work, and yet, there is nothing at the other end that would take the smallest of steps to right any wrong done to me. In essence, I am the one abandoned—abandoned precisely because of the abandon with which I devote myself to my work.

Right now, on this cliff, I could abandon my life, but I know myself too well. I know that I would jump feet first for a better chance of survival rather than plunge head down to rock and water. I pride myself on never making half-hearted attempts, and I won’t start now, never mind that the sirens have gone silent as they park, never mind the scrabbling footsteps rushing toward me, never mind the clouds pressing so close their slightest nudge could tip me over.

Instead, I spin away from the cliff’s edge, drop down onto one knee, sling the machine gun from across my back, and, as the police pour from the trees, rake them with abandonment.

********************

Three hours later, I’m behind bars in the Cambridge police station. Humiliating, but I’m alive. It turns out they came prepared with helmets and body armor. I’ll admit, when my gun jammed unexpectedly, abandoning me, they showed admirable efficiency. We all knew I never stood a chance.

Contrary to popular belief, this cell is neither filthy nor squalid. The acrid scent of disinfectant lingers, as does the faintest odor of piss from the metal toilet, but I suppose there’s nothing to be done about that. The temperature is acceptably warm—much warmer than either the icy river or the outside air, or the temperature at which I keep my home. With nothing but a bare bench to sleep on, I don’t have to worry about bed bugs mating in the mattress or lurking in the linens.

My reluctance to abandon myself to abandoning life stems from my concern for my work. Trapped here as I am, I have nothing to do besides worry about it. Did they wreck my experiments when they stormed my lab, as I assume they did, if for no reason other than to have sufficient cause to capture me? Although the machine gun certainly escalated things, they knew what they were doing in their pursuit. More to the point, what I was doing.

And what was that exactly?

Wouldn’t you like to know?

You wish I would abandon all my stories to you. You feel your idle curiosity outweighs my right to—my need for—privacy. You claim that by confessing all, by “getting it all out,” as you say, I would unburden myself. You say, appealing to what you see as my grandiosity, my desire for fame, that I could enable complete strangers to abandon themselves for a while, to retreat from the minutia of their ordinary lives, allow them to live vicariously through me. I scoff at that, which you don’t take seriously.

“No,” you say, leaning forward in your unpleasantly blue uniform. “I’m serious.” Your brown hair and eyes are as sludgy as the Charles.

I want to spit at your seriousness. In fact, I almost abandon myself to it, but the other cop, the one at the door, sneezes, reminding me of his presence. If I can so quickly be taken out of one world when it is my dignity—my very life—at stake, how much more quickly will any possible audience be removed from my story?

Abandon themselves to it indeed.

A fat lot you know.

You don’t deserve these words I’ve written. As a matter of fact, you don’t deserve a single word, and so I stay silent, not bothering to fix you with a glare but rather checking the dirt under my fingernails. I find a hangnail and start to chew it off, then catch your eye. I pull instead, ripping my skin. Blood springs bright beside my nail. Your eyes flick to it and I hope the red blood reminds you of your colleagues at the cliff. I stick out the tip of my tongue and casually spit the fleck onto the metal table before me. The drop of blood wells larger. You look at it again and I know you’re thinking of hepatitis, AIDS, all those too-easily caught blood-borne pathogens.

I look at my blood and I look at you. A direct stare now, challenging. I’ve still not spoken. I lift my hand to smear the blood—that gets your attention. You call to the guard at the door.

I abandon myself to the pleasure of your nerves as the cop shackles my wrists behind my back and wrestles a plastic glove over my bleeding hand.

Round one to me.