The air had a hallucinatory clarity last night with the bank towers etched against the sky and a surreal arc of sprinklers tending the lawn in front of me. I looked down at my feet for a second and looked back at the towers looming high above me and for a second I saw it. I looked away in disbelief and looked again - straining my eyes to see the figure standing high above me on the ledge of the nearest tower. Incredible that someone could withstand the strong winds way up there. Whoever it was, they looked incredibly surreal juxtapositioned against the brilliant orange of the setting sun and surrounded by the larger than life towers. I looked away again to protect my eyes against the glare coming off the mirrored surface of the next tower and when I looked back at the figure, I was struck across the face with shock as he stepped off the ledge and began to fall before simply vanishing from my sightline behind a shorter building .
Not believing the sight that I had just seen. That this was what I saw, I looked even harder at the corner for at least ten minutes, straining to hear the sounds of emergency vehicles making their way through early evening traffic to the scene - but I heard nothing. I heard nothing but the normal sounds of the evening.
I looked up again and to my surprise there he was again - standing on the ledge looking up at something that he alone could see. I was relieved to see him, my mind acknowledging and justifying his fall survival through the elaborate use of ropes and pulleys. Minutes later however my shock returned as the scene repeated itself exactly as it had occured before.
I walked away shaking my head contemplating what lunacy this man would stoop to. Wondering how he had hid the ropes he must have used to harness himself to the tower hundreds of feet above me.
Since that time I have seen this man perform his desperate sunset dive many times and I am now convinced that he has never been tied to the building - in terms of ropes and harnesses that is. Something may have happened at this spot and at this time in the past and what I see now - what I see now is simply a repeat performance of something that really should not and likely could not have actually happened. A summer evening trick of the light or perhaps even an elaborate hoax...
But...
When I look through the crisp August air at sunset and marvel at the hallucinatory clarity of the evening air amist the stark, monolithic bank towers - I must admit - I must admit that I wonder what the backstory is? I wonder what tragedy drove this person to those heights and I wonder if it was the wind or if it was a purposeful step forward that started the plunge?
I seldom stick around to watch the fall more than once an evening these days. While I am always struck by how beautiful he or she (as I have come to wonder about the sex of the mysterious leaper) looks against the setting sun; back straight and head tilted slightly upwards as if in silent conversation with a higher power of some sort. I am always saddened by the concept of human life being worth so much more than the spectacle of what this has become. Worth so much more than the price of admission to a free sunset show - repeated twice in case you blinked - and never, ever, ever a film at eleven...
