The Halfway Dead

The girl wavered, tottering on the brink of the short partition. But she would not fall. Not now. If she came off the side of the tall building and into the congested traffic, it wouldn’t be an accident on her part. The city was lit up like a carnival at night and the people looked smaller than ants from where the girl was standing. It was almost time; the information was ingrained into her mind. Into her soul. And there were other things in there too. Like her life before the party…but that was distant, hazy as if held behind a veil. The person behind that veil was distant too. And the girl on the vantage point was not the same one that hid behind the veil, not anymore. And not since she’d been reborn. The girl checked her watch, it was almost midnight. Almost time for the leap. A breeze blew against her shirt and it billowed out behind her, pressing closely to her chest. She took half a step back on the partition, and to a bystander it might have looked as if she had changed her mind, hesitated. Perhaps they would have expected her to come back onto the rooftop and down the stairs to her jacket and shoes. Instead the girl used her foot to propel herself into the air and over the edge. For an instant the girl is suspended and the cityscape is reflected in her eyes. And in that instant she is that girl again, the one behind the veil. But it is already too late; she plummets down thirteen floors and splatters on the sidewalk. If her watch had not smashed with the rest of her, it would have said it was midnight exactly. And the girl might have wished herself a happy birthday.