Wings

Standing on the narrow window ledge looking down to the cement below, I feel a strange relief.  All that's left to do at this point is leap. The dying Queen city is quiet, most folks asleep in this slow place. Only the occasional sweep of lights float past as someone heads home from the last drink at the bar, or from closing up one of the office buildings. I imagine their weary eyes would never notice me here, nine floors up. Most of them honestly could never imagine living so far from the ground. Yet here I am, standing on the thin stone ledge my toes sticking out into the nothing before me.

I close my eyes inhaling deeply. Even so high, the smell of the fall leaves throughout the area fills my senses. I imagine if I looked out past the grey crumbling buildings I could see the orange tree tops at Tift Farms. But I don't bother to look. Instead I lift my eyes to the heavens, searching the stars and desperately looking for a reason to change my mind. But the stars only flicker and stare back, the full moon low and heavy in the sky. Her pale face holds no answers, but I can feel the cool breeze, colder now so late in the year than it had been in early summer. The breeze lifts my hair, sending loose strands to brush along my face and tickle my nose.

My hands, which have been pressed against the gritty grey stone of the building flex slightly. For a moment am uncertain how safe it is to lift one to brush away the hairs that are disrupting my reverie. But eventually I lift one hand, that in the moonlight looks pale and almost see through save for a dark line going from inside my elbow to my wrist. The blood from the self inflicted wound has slowed but it has not eased the pain within me. Looking back at the moon, I feel a pain shoot through the very core of my being. A despair for the joy and existence that once I had enjoyed. My heart yearns for a yesterday that may never have been. A time that I imagine, and believe with all my heart to have existed. My eyes lift again to the moon, as the pain strikes my heart again.

I let out a small cry, my shoulders leaving the stone work as a sharp stabbing pain shoots through their blades. My fingertips curl some holding to the stone work as the pain increases, I cringe, my feet shifting on the ledge as the back of my shirt is torn open. A coppery scent hits the air around me as I lean forward slightly more, my body morphing and pushing forward. I take a deep breath inhaling the smell that I recognize as my own blood. It's stronger now than I've ever smelled it before, and I inhale deeply. The pain at my shoulders numbs slightly but I can't lean back against the stonework now. Which means I can't got back to the window I came out of.

The frustration, angers, fears, and disappointments that have driven me to this point finally cause me to crack. Salty hot tears stream down my face as I shift again. In doing so I look over my shoulder, seeing a pair of blood coated wings pressed against the stone work. I can feel the chill that rolls through my body at the realization. I shift trying to see if I can spread them. They open wide with little effort the blood sprinkling around me as they unfurl. I look up into the sky again as if to find an answer for this. But there is no answer. The stars are silent and know nothing of my plight or what kind of peril this change may have in store for me.

Defeated and changed, I close my eyes again inhaling deeply the scent of the world and myself. There are so many things that I would have done differently, so many things that I would have seen changed. But none of that matters anymore. I understand now that I am nobody, and that in the end I will be the same as those that came before me. Forgotten. Then finally understanding, I lean forward into the cold night air; wings spread wide as I leave the ledges safety, unafraid of what may come.