Access to the roof shouldn’t normally be possible for students. Leslie and her friends learned how to get up there months ago, but even then, it would have been improbable if one of them wasn’t dating the RA. Those visits to the top were filled with great memories, gazing at the starry skies, gossiping about last night’s conquest or even occasionally studying when the moment called for it. It’s more than fair to say she took those moments for granted, but Leslie still cherished the time she spent on the roof of the Westchester Hall.

                All she could do in these final moments was cherish the fun she once had. The effort she made to get up to the roof was greater than it ever was before. No friends to join her, no RA to give her access, not even the use of her legs to walk up the small set of stairs to the doorway. However, she decided that this is where it had to happen. Even if she had to drag her wheelchair up with her, she wanted to be able to look over the campus one more time. She couldn’t do that from the ground, not the way she wanted.

                The tears began to streak down her face. She didn’t know any other way to react. Months ago, she would have never imagined doing something like this. She would have been pillow fighting with her roommate or getting cuddled by whoever her choice of person was the night before. She could see herself embarrassing others in tennis practice. Another day of being reminded how great she was when weighed against the world. Months ago, she’d still feel like Leslie.

                Tonight, she felt like nobody. Her tears mixed with the strands of hair on her face, coating them with moisture. The silent sulking soon turned into somber sobbing. Leslie was all alone. The life she once lived was nothing more than an unobtainable vision, slowly fading away. Life’s different when you’re not as mobile as everyone else. It’s harder to be a student and an athlete when the very thing that granted you admission no longer led your life one foot after the other. It’s more difficult to be a friend or a lover when you can’t dance, grind or play. She felt the pain of seeing an audience of admiration turn their backs to her. She checked her phone. No messages, only notifications from a few apps she had long since stopped using. She tossed it onto the ground. No point in breaking an expensive phone when someone else could get her money’s worth out of it.

                Leslie wiped away the tears that restricted her resolve. She began to wheel towards the edge of the building, slowly picking up speed as she closed her eyes. One of her wheels caught something, but it didn’t matter. She felt the momentum carry her off the structure. Her leg hit the edge, but she didn’t mind. She couldn’t feel it anyway. In a few feet, it would be the end. She appreciated the wind stroking her face in her final moment, a brief gasp of comfort in the endless drowning of depression.

                Seconds passed.

                The wind no longer caressed her cheeks. She couldn’t feel the velocity of her descent that was evident before. Was this it? Was this the feeling of the release?

                “I’ve got a proposition for you to consider.”

                She heard a voice, gruff and worn. Her eyes open and her sight snapped to a man standing beside her. Grey hair, a hardy mustache and a blue button-up.

                “A-are you . . . God?” Leslie asked, baffled by the stranger.

                “Was that your first guess? I mean, I’m not too much for religion, but I doubt suicide would lead you to him in about 80% of them.”

                “Are you th-“

                “Let me stop you right there,” the man interjected. “I figured my previous sentence would tip you off to the fact that I’m not a deity or a demon. Clearly, I pegged you to be more of a sound thinker in the midst of making the most certain decision of your life. So, let’s speed up the process here. Do me a favor and look down.”

                Leslie accepted the request with little hesitance. Below her was the ground. The grass that she intended to flop upon stood feet below her and the stranger. Quickly, she began to hyperventilate. Still very high, the fear that she left on the roof finally caught up with her.

                “What?! How?!” She screamed.

                “Not a big deal, really. I’m one of the professors here and I managed to exceed the human standard for learning physics. You see that we’re both negating one of the basic laws of it. Since you don’t see your fresh human paste on the ground, you can skip the explanation of being a ghost right off the bat. This isn’t some end-of-your-life hallucination mumbo-jumbo. You were plummeting to your death and I saved you. There you go, all caught up.”

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“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALL CAUGHT UP?” Leslie screeched, trying to pull her hand away from the professor.

                “Hold on! I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Let go of me and you’ll go back to being a Tom Petty song.”

                “ . . . What?”

                “Because you’ll be free fallin’.”

                Leslie spaced out, in absolute awe of the moment she had to take in as well as the joke she was forced to hear. After the amazement wore off, she continued to struggle against the handholding educator.

                “Fine! That’s want I wanted anyway,” she said, still ignorant of her volume.

                “Come on, now. I’m absolutely serious here. I’ve got an offer to make you.”

                The pair began to float to the top of the hall. The higher the height, the lower Leslie’s motivation was to struggle against the professor’s grip. Ironic, when she was falling, she did it prepared to end her life. As she floated, she found her fear of death.

                “I noticed you wheeling around up there completely resigned to suicide, but I wanted to make sure you weren’t that person that just tries it and then punks out at the last second.”

                They reached the top of the building. Leslie could see her wheelchair, caught by an errant brick before the ledge. The professor gently placed her back in it before letting his feet touch the ground.

                “What is that supposed to mean?” Leslie’s suicidal thoughts were slowly rewritten into annoyance at the old man.

                “It means that not everyone is a jumper. Some people just think they’re a jumper. A cry for help wrapped in years of media telling them that attempted suicide is a surefire way to get attention,” he responded. “Obviously, since you went through with it, you don’t really care much about your life. So, I thought that you wouldn’t mind giving it to me.”

                “Giving it to . . . are you trying to make me a slave?” Leslie asked, appalled.

                “Woah!” The professor jumped back in surprise. “Calm down there, that’s not even close to what I was insinuating. I’m not trying to lose a lifelong career over a topical misunderstanding.”

                “I’m confused. What do you mean, then?”

                “I’m working on a bit of an experiment right now. I’m sure you could guess that my experiments are a pretty huge deal since I was just floating in the air.”

                “You want me to be a guinea pig?”

                “More of a fetal pig, since what I’d be doing is a technically a form of dissection.”

                Leslie covered her body instinctively.

                “No, not like that! Geez, for someone who was just ready to off herself a few minutes ago, you sure do have a strong sense of self-preservation,” he said, walking towards her. “Look, it’s nothing biological and it’s nothing sexual. I just need a living human person and non-suicidal people tend to not want to subject themselves to any form of experimentation.”

                He stopped, giving Leslie the time she needed to calm down. Her mind was still racing. The past 5 minutes could be described as her emotions crashing into each other. Being lifted from her canceled impact left her with a sobering near-death realization. Yet, the feelings that caused her fall still remained. The encapsulating despair didn’t go away; it still plagued her thoughts, even when met with such a peculiar situation.

                “Okay,” Leslie finally responded. “What’s the experiment, exactly?”

                “Glad you asked,” the professor said. “So, after understanding and basically rewriting the laws of physics, I determined that the next step would be taking quantum physics and proving it to be more than theoretical. All a part of a long-term goal over 45 years in the making. In studying quantum mechanics to the absolute limits of human possibility, I discovered a form of science completely untapped by confirming the existence of the very essence of human consciousness.”

                “Wait. What does that mean?”

                “Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t go any further into detail than necessary, but I discovered the human soul, in fact, does exist.”

                Leslie placed her hands on the wheels of her chair.

                “Yeah, yeah, I know it’s crazy, but we really don’t have time for the suicidal slapstick bit.  I’m pretty sure people start getting up for classes in 20 minutes or so. The last thing I want is a bunch of camera phones implicating me in your suicide.”

                “Okay,” Leslie said. “So what do you want from me, exactly? Professor . . .”

                “Hardman. Professor Clyde Hardman. And what I want is pretty simple.”

                “And that is?”

                “I want to venture through your soul.”

                Leslie let go of the wheels.