The Sound of Someone Falling

I was sitting in my room

Making notes about—

Something

Something Lucy had said

I don’t know

It wasn’t important

At the time, it might have been

But now

Years later

No

It’s not

It’s not memorable

And so—

I’m sitting there

On the edge of the bed

Notebook in my lap

Or journal

This old journal I bought

Off the discount rack

At the bookstore

I lived next to

And I heard something…

Now

I don’t really know

How to categorize it

But—

It sounded

Like someone falling

To be clear

It was not the sound of—

And I apologize

For seeming graphic here

But—

It was not the sound

Of someone

Hitting pavement

Or anything awful like that

It was the sound

Of someone falling

As in—

The act of falling

I ran over to the window

Well, first

I thought to myself--

Am I hearing

What I think

I’m hearing?

Or—

Am I hearing anything at all?

Then I thought—

I am

I must be

So I ran over to the window

And I looked—

And nothing was there

I mean, nobody was falling

Nothing was happening

There was nobody—

Again, excuse me

But—

There was nobody on the ground

I looked up

Thinking perhaps

I’d had a premonition

Nobody was on the roof

That I could see

And anyway

My building is only two stories high

So a fall

Wouldn’t necessarily kill you

It probably wouldn’t

Actually

So I started looking all around

At different buildings

Different rooftops

Nothing

Nothing

But I couldn’t step away from the window

I couldn’t escape the feeling

That I had—

Sensed something

That I had—

That something was going to happen

Or already had happened

And maybe it was miles away or something

But it was there

Somewhere

Out there in the world

That sound

This breath-bottling sound

Of somebody

Suspended

In the process of—of—of—

Surrender

And I was listening

And I heard it

And there was nothing I could do

I stood there at the window

I couldn’t move

I couldn’t speak

I could barely…

I just stood there

And waited

And, you know, I—

I didn’t even know

What I was waiting for