literature

of a woman who jumped

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Literature Text

She called, and she said
I love you, and I said hello? are you okay
I love you, I said,
She said, I love you
I said call me when you get down, call me, call me back and she said
I love you.

I hadn’t been watching the news that day; I don’t watch TV,
but we’d all heard; we all knew what had happened. we were all reluctant to believe it.

I waited by my phone for several ghost hours afterwards, until the battery died.
                                                                        (there were no phone calls).

Her body was found on the pavement, near the north building [though she worked in the south building, usually].
With the heat & the fire & the smoke &
Everything falling down all around, everything falling, crashing down, all around her
Smoke muffling familiar voices, the shouts, the fire; people’s faces blurred charcoal smudges
in the billowing, restless, blackness of smoke          
             maybe it was the only thing she had any control over, without anything or anything, or any way out, any way     
       the decision to jump, or to go down with the trembling building
when I think about what I would do, in those moments; I don’t know.
         The last thing she had control over                                              
Whether she jumped, or fell, I couldn’t say (for sure. (I think I know.))
It was the last thing she could have had control over, away from the smoke and the flames and the burning, desperate, raving, peppery heat of the fire. breaking,
Smashing through screaming office windows, onehundred&one stories above the ground
(windows as wide as wide as her eyes, her eyes wide, terrified)
         away from the pandemonium all around her,
  into an open world where gravity was
gravity was gravity held everything to its right place, lungs desperate for
a last breath of oxygen
, falling away, in the cool, biting ice air, with debris clattering out behind her;
office chairs, papers,
thousands of papers drifting down; some burning for a few brief moments in front of
                                                                                                      her like
                                                                                    a private fire display
                a lonely view of twisting urban streets, choked with crowds,
wind tearing through her ears, roaring loud; {the only sound
Flashing images of people, buildings, twisted faces below, c cl clo clos close
closer closer closer closercloserclosercloser                  &gone
                                                            within 10 seconds, (from the highest heights to the
lowest lows)
                                                     
                                                          It must have been a little
                                                                                                  like
                                                                                                        flying.
҉
© 2008 - 2024 beaulivres
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