Stepping Off

Against the block-like towers forming the city's skyline, one building stood on taller than all the others. It's roof was flat, and on this roof stood a girl. Upon closer inspection, one would notice her eyes closed and her feet bare, her lips moving with words known only to herself. One would see the streaks of hot tears running down her cheeks, even as she smiled. A beautiful smile-- one that certainly used to be happy and exuberant, yet was now weak and frail and radiated with a long-buried sadness.

Of course, there was no one to notice her, or her peculiar smile. She was alone.

Her steps were small: one foot on front of the other. Heel, toe, heel, toe, until they formed an impossibly straight trail. Heel, toe, heel, toe. Heel to toe, heel to toe. Again and again, her feet connected at the ends, until she found herself at the foot of a ledge.

The cold, unforgiving stone that made up the top of the roof had scraped at the soles of her feet, so that when she walked, dirt and grit worked their way into the soft skin. Her heels and toes, which moved so uniformly, were covered in the soot that came with large cities and many people. Despite this, she did not mind the grime. She reveled in the easy way it marked her pallid skin, in it's stark juxtapose of simplicity and complexity. Dust, she mused, was very much like the world. So many particles-- so many, it seemed, that each individual must seem miniscule and meaningless. This was how the girl felt: like a speck in a wide, wide world. Would they miss her when she returned to the dust? Would they remember her?

She didn't know the answer to that. She only knew that she was here, hundreds of feet above the worn, cracked sidewalk. She was hundreds of feet above a path where millions, maybe billions, had trodden, their steps clicking by as they rushed through the streets of the city. Here, there. One moment there, the next moment gone. 

The wind here was wild and furious, howling and whipping the loose dress around her legs. It fluttered and ruffled like a white flag, whipping her bare ankles and streaming out to the side. It created a rather picturesque effect; if only a photographer were up here to see it. If only someone, anyone, were up here to see it. The girl and her dress struck an ethereal figure, like a crippled angel trying to fly again. If only she could fly; if only she could be free as the wind that shrieked in her ears and flew as it pleased. It nearly bowled her thin shivering figure over in it's mad haste to--

She didn't know what the wind was doing, or where it was going. She didn't know many things, it seemed. 

The ledge at her toes formed a crisp right angle, perpendicular to the roof she stood on. It wasn't high--only about a foot tall-- but it was everything. It was the beginning of the end, and wasn't that everything? Or was it nothing at all? To her, it was everything. Yes, the girl decided, that was what mattered. 

She lifted one soot-covered foot and rested it on the ledge. The concrete of the ledge felt no different from the concrete of the roof, yet it seemed so different. The simple action of placing one foot on it felt so final. It was almost thrilling, to be standing like this, one step so close to the end, and the last step still waiting to be completed. 

A grim determination clasped its iron fist around her long-suffocated heart, and she steeled her will. She pushed up on one thigh, bringing the second foot to rest beside the first one.

There. She'd done it. She was done-- but no, there was one more step. Just one more. 

Hadn't she promised herself she'd do this? Hadn't she decided she'd had enough of the pain that wasn't really there, but poisoned her slowly anyway? Or perhaps it was still there, and she had grown so used to its presence she'd dulled to it. 

Long dead; that was how she felt. It was as if her heart had stopped beating years and years ago. She could not remember the last time she'd laughed with sincerity, or even smiled. "I wish I were as happy as you," her peers would say whenever she brought out her mask. "I wish I could laugh so easily!"