The Memory of Water

³³ A LIFE IN THE SKY

I feel as though I am standing on a ledge on the outside of a high-rise building. The Ponte Tower, perhaps. Enough people have fallen to their death from its soulless windows to make it some kind of macabre landmark. So I am on the fortieth floor and the rubber at the bottom of my leather slip-on brogues is the only contact I have with the earth. My body sways in uneasy arcs and I feel the wind lifting my hair. Below the cars and people are in a hot swarm as if today is their last. Above is all oxygen-blue sky and near silence. It is understandable that a man in this position would take the easy way out and opt for a life in the sky instead of down there. But first the man has to be brave enough to be devoured by the earth. Brave enough to bend his knees and lift his soles in a childish hop, or merely step off, stiff-legged, into oblivion. I feel the pull. I feel the earth calling in its husky sotto voce. But I am not a brave man.

It’s a kind of psychological vertigo. I feel myself being drawn in by the darkness: age, defeat, despair, the black hole that is my life, the inescapable feeling of loss that I have carried around in my pocket since I was eight. But there is something else too, some power that is holding me back, doesn’t let me stumble, doesn’t let me jump. An invisible harness. If I believed in God I would be tempted to say that it is His mischief.

I decide I won’t jump.

Not today.