My cigarette burned red like a beacon to the heavens; one more soul coming in hot. Midnight, Niagara Falls, I’d decided this would be my grave. One leg over the other, I stepped over the barrier, and stood leaning forward with my hands holding the rail behind my back. From here I could swan dive straight into the rocks below. My ciggy was like an hourglass running low. When I’d finish, I’d know my time was up.
	The spray of the falls was drenching me. My cig had gone out before its time. The roaring of the water was a good thing; white noise to keep my thoughts clear. I let go of my pinky and ring finger, and balanced on the balls of my feet. I leaned back towards the railing, turned, my back to the falls, and lit up another cigarette. This would be the last one before I died I reasoned, and I was going to enjoy it. Then I would spread my arms and fall backwards, crashing into the rocks below, and being swept into the currents, where my body would be smothered by an unstoppable and perpetual force of nature. Never to be recovered until the day the water stops falling.
	I had to bend myself over the railing to protect my fresh cig. I took a deep drag, lifted my head, and breathed out my last S.O.S. In the tiny glow of my last rite, I saw a face looking at me in the darkness.
“Good evening.”, it said, she said. She sounded like a woman, young and not from around here.
“Is that fun? Standing on the wrong side like that?”
I didn’t know what to say. When I plotted my death in my head, there wasn’t anyone but me in the scene. Yet again, my dreams failed to align with reality.
	“I’m just looking for some peace and quiet.” I said.
	“Peace and quiet? You are very wet! The falls are very loud! This is a strange place to be looking for peace and quiet.”
She always talked like that. Simple sentences only. I never found out if it was because didn’t waste words, or care for rhetoric, or if she just didn’t speak English well. She had a gift for languages though. Not the kind where you string words together and they become an idea, but the kind where you say anything at all and the sounds become a feeling.