I climbed 323 steps on August 2nd, 1978.
It was an especially sweltering day in Manhattan. The kind of day where sitting in front of an electric fan, only makes the sweat on your forehead dribble down your face, as new sweat forms in the creases of your rippling skin. Every touch sticks, and every breath drowns in humid air. Nothing can escape the blistering fervor, in this cluster of neon lights and stentorian life that is the city of New York. Not on that August 2nd.
I stood at the top of the highest building, the highest within miles. Every exposed inch of my perspiring body burned, and I felt the red sores as they imbedded themselves as itchy and pulsing wounds into my skin.
I walked forward, swallowing thick air and spreading my arms out across me to feel the spacious scene. I continued, heading strait to the edge of the roof. I stopped only before the blazing metal bar crossed the path between the end and myself.
I peered downward. The grid-like streets of my city were littered with yellow rectangles, lazily making their way around. People were dots, weaving past one another, bobbing up and down like delirious black ants. A calm breeze splashed my face, startling me within moments. My face froze, letting the blow massage my features, as my eyes stung and dripped with tears.
I moved without concept. My legs heaved themselves on to the metal trim, and I kept my arms rigid and away from my hips. My mind wasn’t thinking.
Now I stared strait ahead, standing poised on the ledge. The rooftops were flat, and looked deserted; as if nobody was ever dauntless enough to mark their footsteps on the top of a building. This made me feel lonely, but not afraid. I allowed my eyes to remain ahead of me as my thoughts avert to the uneasy sway in my knees. They urged forward, making my entire body tremble. Slowly, I released my gaze below me, and the breeze crept up again.
My body was at ease. Everything was still. At that moment, as my face faced the ground, my life seemed to disappear. The heat was only a trace of sunlight, the noise died below the floor.
My arms wrapped themselves into a hug around me. My eyes shut out the sight of the miniature city with two dark eyelids, and I straitened out again. Without a second thought, I began to let go. It was now, or it was never, and there was no turning back.
First, my head rolled off of the support of my neck, and my shoulders melted into thin air. My chest, propelled into the sky, as my knees snapped in half. My ankles shattered, and my eyes clicked shut. I held my breath, and counted the seconds to my death.
I was falling, and falling still. Thoughts flickered though my mind so fast, it almost hurt. The sequence of my life, until this moment, was fast forwarding in clips before my eyes.
First I saw myself as a child. I was smiling, because it was all I knew how to do. In a daze, like most kids are without concern. I wasn’t happy or sad.
I saw myself as a young adult; eager, anxious, and still carefree. I had the awkward slouch, which plastered my elitist attitude towards life across my forehead. In this time of being, I was no longer happy.
Finally, I saw myself who I am today- or rather, who I was. A long, sick face and a narrow eye, not a single grin within years’ reach. The nine-to-five grind and no reason to step outside the lines.
They said that that people like me- in a work tie and coffee in hand- become invisible to life’s eye. To the rest of the world, we’re the men that blend so well with society, that we no longer hook a single glance and the men that serve their purpose on the planet by sticking to status quo. We are not expected to ever reach out to those that surround us. Now I come face to face with the solid ground from 323 steps above it, only to prove I am not invisible.
There’s nothing to save me anymore, as I fall into the trenches of a death-hungry metropolis. Thinking back on a moment ago when I stood in the protecting embrace of hard ground, now seems like millenniums ago.
I opened my eyes, and I was still plummeting downward. I was on an angle, and my gaze was shifted onto an open office window. I watched the window, for that split second of what was left of me, and realized a man stood inside the building. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at what consisted of his own life: his papers, his office and his job. He looked determined, and somewhat distressed. His own eyes remained to himself, as I tumbled outside of his window.
Now, I had .2 seconds left to live.
It was during .2, I realized that this man didn’t even look up from his busy life to notice me. I died, only to prove that I was no longer invisible. But nothing has changed.
.1, I was skyrocketing towards the ground, with nothing to lose or gain from the entire experience of my life. I had only lived to die for a purpose, but I now know I died for nothing.
~
