Stairs

I used the officer’s binoculars to study her face, the pale, metallic blue of her eyes, moist with apprehension. Each crease in her weathered skin acted as a journal of the events she experienced that led her to the ledge. No ring.

The megaphone distorted my voice coldly, my usual cadence manipulated and compressed. Every word I spoke sounded like an indictment against organic thought. So I told her to stay calm and handed it off.

With every stair I ascended my tired organs twinged in lackluster defiance. My heart was throbbing behind my ribs. Six flights. I was a younger man years ago.

Her door was open so I entered. There were paintings hanging precariously from tiny nails driven into the drywall. The paintings were of buildings I didn’t recognize, though one appeared to be the Library of Congress.

She heard me enter and screamed that she’d do it. I believed her and told her to relax. I just want to talk. We all just want to talk. I wiped the sweat from my face with my handkerchief and caught my reflection in a mirror. I was flushed. I looked like I was about to vomit. I was a younger man, years ago.

Her bed was just two mattresses on the wooden floor, but in the way a harem would be. Her red sheets were strewn haphazardly around. A stuffed wolf lied on a pillow. As I stared at it, I felt tears bubbling up.

She was watching me from outside the window. She said she thought I wanted to talk. I nodded, then added that it’d be easier to talk if she weren’t at risk of falling to her death at the advent of a strong breeze. She laughed, a floating, lilting melody that forced me to smile.

I took a step closer and she tensed. I showed her my palms. She told me not to come any closer. I nodded. Her hair was fluttering around her face like storm clouds, the dark, grey flecked tendrils threatening rain. I asked her her name. She told me it was Rachael.

Rachael. I repeated it back and she nodded. I told her my name. Now that we know each other, now that we’re friends, I said, can I come closer? There was an overstuffed tuffet in the corner of the room, near the window, with deep scarlet paisley print etched into the fabric. I thought that if I could get to it, I might be close enough to grab her narrow wrist before she went. I’d have to be fast though. I was a younger man, years and years ago.

She acquiesced with a slight wave of her hand, before latching it back to the windowsill. She was afraid. That was good. I reached the tuffet, never taking my eye off her, and she watched me back. Our eyes met for a long second before she looked back toward the street. I blushed.

It felt good to sit. Rachael, I said. She tore her attention from the street and looked at me. I asked her if we could talk about it. I was close enough to smell her perfume, a pleasant mix of chocolate and flowers. It smelled like what I always wanted my kitchen to smell like.

She was crying but silently. I could see the tears leave her crystalline eyes and follow the furrows in her cheeks to her softly curved chin. She opened her mouth to speak but didn’t.

It’s okay, I told her. I’ll talk. I told her that whatever happened, it can be solved. This isn’t the way to go out. I told her about myself, about my wife, and my children. I told her how my wife died, years ago, when I was a younger man, and that it was so hard raising two kids alone. How I thought many times it was too hard.

She was crying harder, nodding. It is hard, she said. Death is hard. Much harder on the living than the dead. She was gazing at her bed, and I followed her stare to the stuffed wolf.

Yes, I said. Death is hard. But if you aren’t the one that’s dead, you have to keep going. It hurts, I know, but there’s more life for you. I surveyed the room and noticed what looked like military medals framed on the wall near the mirror.

I was a soldier, I told her. Years ago, when I was younger.

She looked tired. Her grip on the windowsill was less certain than it was before. She told me that war is unfair. No sons or daughters should be taken from their mothers. There’s nothing else that matters.

That’s not true, I told her. We aren’t our children. They aren’t our legacies. We have to keep on.

Her eyes went back to the street. She asked me how to keep on.

I told her one stair at a time.

For the first time, she smiled, and slipped.

I had to be fast. I was a younger man, years ago.

I pulled her around, into my arms, and through the open window. I was a younger man years ago, but I still had something. We sat on the hardwood floor, her on my lap, in my arms. She looked up at me and said hello.

Reviews

[Lady Celery]

Wow... that was a really good piece! I really liked how you presented your work, it was very nice. I liked the ending, it wasn't lame or anything.

I loved it!

And I agree, you have talent.

~Julia T.

[jenniewren (J.W. Bouwma..]

oh. oh this is a tremendous write. i was entranced by the lilting sort of cadence.. quiet, calm.. and the repetition of "i was a younger man, years ago" gives this an even deeper patina of poignancy. not to mention that opening line.. enigmatic doesnt begin to say..

you have talent..