"I read the news today. Oh, boy . . ."
"Ten thousands holes in Blackburn, Lancashire . . . .and 'though the holes are rather small, they had to count them all. Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall . . ."
Such is the news - or much of it - as it is reported, verbally or written. Minutiae that we don't need to know - filler to surround the world news of genocide for ethnic cleansing or oil.
I read the news today about a man who "didn't blow his mind out in car"; he jumped from the observation deck of Empire State Building. What drives someone to do that - to climb over the security fence, to teeter on the edge of oblivion and then suddenly decide (because there must be a moment of indecision) - suddenly decide to make that final step into space? Is that a leap of faith - faith that you will go to a better place; faith that you are leaving behind people who will grieve for you, or the faith that there is no one who will grieve - so you can go with a clear conscious? Tumbling into space, head over feet until . . . It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
Such a small news item when you consider all the things that are happening in the world - one life gone. But one life gone in such a dramatic way. Was that the comment he wanted to make? There was no note. So the act itself had to be the message. "Hey, all of you people who ignored me all my life! Hey! Look at me! Try to ignore THIS!" And then the leap. Death - not death alone, but dramatic death from a dizzying height and from a world-reknown building. Totally dramatic and irrevocable.
Who let this man down - who ignored him - who are the people who will grieve for him? Who will write his epitath; who will carve it on a stone; who will read it? What was his story? Who will write it?
Maybe I will - write it backwards - from the stop on the Empire State Building's sixth floor overhang - backwards - up through the air, upward past the many stories, the many windows, all the way to the moment when he's teetering on the edge of nowhere - further back to the minute that he stepped on the elevator with his intention in his mind. His life will be a story, maybe not his story, my story, but his step into oblivion will be my muse - so his life will have meant something. Too bad he will never know.
"I read the news today. Oh, boy. . ."
Such is the news - or much of it - as it is reported, verbally or written. Minutiae that we don't need to know - filler to surround the world news of genocide for ethnic cleansing or oil.
I read the news today about a man who "didn't blow his mind out in car"; he jumped from the observation deck of Empire State Building. What drives someone to do that - to climb over the security fence, to teeter on the edge of oblivion and then suddenly decide (because there must be a moment of indecision) - suddenly decide to make that final step into space? Is that a leap of faith - faith that you will go to a better place; faith that you are leaving behind people who will grieve for you, or the faith that there is no one who will grieve - so you can go with a clear conscious? Tumbling into space, head over feet until . . . It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
Such a small news item when you consider all the things that are happening in the world - one life gone. But one life gone in such a dramatic way. Was that the comment he wanted to make? There was no note. So the act itself had to be the message. "Hey, all of you people who ignored me all my life! Hey! Look at me! Try to ignore THIS!" And then the leap. Death - not death alone, but dramatic death from a dizzying height and from a world-reknown building. Totally dramatic and irrevocable.
Who let this man down - who ignored him - who are the people who will grieve for him? Who will write his epitath; who will carve it on a stone; who will read it? What was his story? Who will write it?
Maybe I will - write it backwards - from the stop on the Empire State Building's sixth floor overhang - backwards - up through the air, upward past the many stories, the many windows, all the way to the moment when he's teetering on the edge of nowhere - further back to the minute that he stepped on the elevator with his intention in his mind. His life will be a story, maybe not his story, my story, but his step into oblivion will be my muse - so his life will have meant something. Too bad he will never know.
"I read the news today. Oh, boy. . ."
posted by Mitzi at Saturday, November 27, 2004
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