Life Savers

The spring rains came in more ways than one. Despite the warmer weather, there was a girl who walked around campus with her sleeves pulled decisively over the heels of her hands. I often wondered about her. She walked everywhere with her head down, eyes focused so firmly on the pavement. She didn't make eye contact with anyone; she didn't look at her phone. Focused so firmly on the ground she seemed stuck in her own head, like she was too caught up in thought to notice anything but the ground under her feet.

What was it that she thought about so intently? She didn't seem to duck from the rain, didn't shrug up her shoulders from the freezing winds, just kept her arms crossed and her head down, focusing on what was in front of her. Maybe that's all you can do sometimes. Just focus on what's right in front of you. She only ever wore long sleeves--maybe she was living her own metaphor. She didn't duck from the rain because she was constantly under her own cloud. She didn't shrug up her shoulders because her world was colder in comparison. Things could always be worse and it was all she could do to block out the world and just focus on what was right in front of her.

She had depression, I decided. It wasn't hard to come to this conclusion but once I did, it made all the sense in the world. Who keeps that much to herself? Who wears sleeves so pulled over the heels of their hands? I was raised a Catholic so I know what happens if you kill yourself. I hear in other religions (but I forget which ones) they believe in reincarnation. I bet if suicides got reincarnated they'd turn into something like worms. I'm not one to say if they're the scum of the earth, but if they can't handle the complexity of this life, maybe they'd do better being simple.

I saw her standing in the rain one day--standing perfectly still and turning her face up towards the crying sky. How beautiful--what an image--using the rain to make her feel alive. I put on my slicker and went out to talk to her.

"Hi," I called though the pattering of rain on asphalt. "I couldn't help but notice you're, uh, you're standing in the rain."

"Isn't it beautiful?" she said. It was the first time I'd seen her smile.

I didn't know if I agreed, so I said, "You know, people are there for you, right?"

She looked at me with bright, surprised eyes. "What?"

I stuttered. "You've been depressed, haven't you? I see you walking in the rain keeping only to yourself, tugging your sleeves, watching your every step. You keep your head down like--I thought you were..."

She shook her head with a mild grin. "No, you must be mistaken," she said, brushing a wet tendril of hair from her face, and gesturing to the corpses crushed into the pavement. "I've been trying not to step on the worms."