Crazies. People walking around Manhatten talking to themselves. Picking up cigarette butts and getting the last draw on each one. Cursing into the air or at passers-by. Digging into garbage cans. Eating rotted lettuce, scraps of pizza crusts, the brown core of an apple, a quarter of a sandwich.  Trash discarded by pedestrians walking to and from jobs they hate. Who are the crazy ones?

Meg sat on a swing across the street from Bellevue. She dragged her feet on the pavement below, twisting the steel strands. Her body moved side to side.

She kept thinking about what the man had told her, just tell them you’re suicidal and they gotta take you in. Three meals, a bed, and maybe a chance to get out of this life and start a new.

Was he an angel? This kind soul who did not lay a finger on me. Was he the voice of God? Meg pondered. He must’ve been, she whispered. Had to. Maybe everyone in this life gets a second chance. The criminals, the addicts, the insane. Perhaps we all get a second chance. Maybe.

Meg stopped swinging and stood up. She felt tired and hungry. Sad and angry. Meg did feel like ending it. She didn’t have to lie. This was her time. Time to get help; reach for a lifeline. And that’s what she did.

The lighted drawn figure told her to walk. She crossed the street. Cop cars lined up. Ambulances pulling up and taking out people on stretchers. Indian doctors speaking in accents walking past her. Nurses in scrubs.

Doors opened for her. A thousand people walking around. Some carrying flowers and coffee cups. Others, like her, just tried to make sense of it all; a hundred hallways all going in different directions, elevators, and staircases, North Wing, South Wing, different departments, and different needs.

Meg walked up to a desk where a gray-haired lady, very motherly, asked if she could help. Her smile was welcoming. And, although she had seen a thousand people a day for the last twenty years, asking all kinds of questions, she was still kind.

I want to kill myself, Meg told her. I want to end it all.

Darling, you’ve come to the right place.