BREAKING NEWS 15 year old kid's suicide attempt!

On Tuesday evening, young Michael Sullivan jumped from the abandoned Anderson and Laurence building on Bay Street as an anxious crowd watched below.
"Save the life of my child!" cried his mother, Laura Sullivan.
An elderly bystander, William Taylor, fainted from the shock of the scene and several others attested to the tense energy present that day: “When I saw the boy, I couldn’t believe it! Surely it would be a miracle if he survived!  All I could think of was to call the police!” (Edna Croft)  “What’s becoming of kids these days!”, a sentiment expressed by Richard Laidley, surely shared by many at the scene.

In times such as these, one may ask themselves how a child could have such disrespect for the law and our loyal police force. Don’t they know that the police have much more important matters to take care of? How crime runs rampant in this age? You may ask yourself these questions, but remember, youth these days have a very different understanding of the world they live in. At this young age, many don’t truly comprehend the concept of consequences to the risks they take, a situation potentially caused by the prevalence of drug use so many parents fear today.  If there’s one lesson to learn from this tragic event, it is that parents must be vigilant when it comes to their own precious children. We must remember the importance of instilling a strong respect of the community in the future generation and protect them from the dangers of the modern world, for we do not always fully understand the possible outcomes of our own negligence in parenting. Surely we can all hope that the unity of the community can uplift our children and keep them from such sorrowful fates.

Our condolences to the family of Michael Sullivan and especially, his mother Laura.
Any wishing to attend the memorial on Tuesday the 17th of June may contact the editor of The Daily News at our office at 615 Jefferson Ave.

I - Stillness

I had often climbed up onto the roof of the A & L building in the secluded Seaview district. Older kids notoriously came up here to smoke, if they were classy, or to hang out and talk somewhere undisturbed if they were Alternative. I was neither, of course. Firstly, because I wasn't quite old enough to be in that crowd, but more importantly, because I had no one to come up here with for either of those sophisticated and acceptable activities.
I'd been venturing up here for awhile in the late afternoons, just to watch the sun cross the sky over the water, dipping ever closer to the night. Before spring storms, the thunder’s unyielding force sounds far off, prefacing the staccato strikes of lightning, and for a moment I am truly alive in the natural world.
I sit encompassed by the stillness, simultaneously a part of and apart from everything in sight.
Hello Darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again.

I wonder if my mother worries when I come home so late. But why would she? Why would my absence matter more than whatever it was she spent her days doing recently that kept her so isolated and her presence so ephemeral? The blood bond of family? Maternal love? Maybe in another lifetime.

Dear God, make me a bird, so I can fly far. Far far away from here..
Lines that had stuck with me ever since I saw that movie a while back, enmeshing themselves with my own self awareness until I felt that wish as keenly as if I were truly living in the hell it referred to. I knew I wasn't. After all, my situation was largely self-induced wasn't it? Who else to blame but myself, for the tangled mess I couldn’t escape.

Only the smell of smoke and sea foam as I close my eyes.

II - Chaos

But I don't suppose it matters so much as I sit here on this ledge 20 stories up, no longer watching the sea, but the unusual bustling human activity below me, all those people suddenly and shockingly aware of my existence now in this singular instant. The thrill of wondering Will He Do It? The wild sensation of Will I Witness A Moment Like All Those Others I’ve Read About So Often? Panic over the burning question of What Action To Take welcomes itself with ease into their carefully crafted collective unconsciousness. This, they think, is the catalyst of My New Identity Of Unique Heroism. The shock of a visible extreme of teenage existence causes one man to faint, others rush to their self-imposed duties.
Yet I know my situation doesn't really matter to them. They’re worried about themselves, of course, and this instant is nothing more than an archaic vessel for their own interests.
To be honest, I don't really think I'm surprised. Isn't selfishness one of the base elements of human behavior? Isn't it selfishness that has brought me to unintentionally draw this crowd like a magnet unwillingly attuned to pity?
They will anxiously call the the police force, the news, perhaps my mother, in the hopes of altruistically bringing me salvation from a tragic destiny when all I wanted was some peace.
I almost feel like smiling, watching the brightly colored shapes scurry across the concrete and pavement below, the shrill screams of sirens increasing in volume every second as authorities of various kinds
make their way to the scene. Artificial piercing light washes over me as the crowd cheers in preparation for the performance they tried so hard to prevent minutes ago, every second drenched in anticipation. Above the waves of excitement I am a trapeze artist poised over a tightrope of tension facing the paradox of reaching the other side through an inexorable fall to earth.

But what if....
they are blind to my wings
wings that will expand and unfold until they blot out the sun
sunlight that will shine iridescent over hundreds of weightless feathers
that dip closer and closer toward the pearled waters and blanket their opalescent hue in shadow
until I finally make it over that far off horizon
to a land of infinite possibility.