The View From Above

The snowflake danced around him, unmotivated by the gusty wind, until it finally landed softly on his jeans. It didn’t melt. He didn’t expect it to. He sat on the park bench, accumulating mass one precious flake at a time, and looked like a snowdrift. The snow wasn’t welcome; it was March, that precarious middle ground between Winter and Spring, where the bulbs try to push their way through the softening ground. At least people couldn’t see him, looking like some kind of half covered, hyper-realistic statue done in some kind of art nouveau style.

A man sat down next to him and unsurprisingly paid little attention to his presence. He leafed through his newspaper with the kind of arbitrary glance that could only possibly absorb the headlines. After another cursory glance at the front page, there was a pause, as though he pondered further reading or some kind of disposal. The choice was never made, as his coronary artery failed, and turned his face as white as the snow that melted on his reddening cheeks.

He jammed his hands into the pockets of his blazer and walked away. He cleaved the crowd cleanly, no one noticed him, but no one dare so much as look his way, wary of his presence through some kind of subliminal sense. Eventually he stopped, as the people continually swirled around him, creating some kind of human eddy that would look interesting from the sky.

A moment’s pause managed to create a revolutionary thought. He wanted to quit, his job simply did not fit his taste any longer. Another moment produced another thought. How could he quit? He had no boss, no secretary, no office building, he didn’t even have a dental plan. He allowed his tongue to search around his mouth. He could use one.

All that drove him was some kind of innate feeling, an impulse inert to his desires and wishes, something that told him where to go and took him there, something that told him what to do. That was the way things had been since he could recall, which was a very long time. How could he override the subconscious? Was there a way to destroy the invisible? As the thoughts swirled around his mind and the people whirled around his body, he felt the feeling that had become so familiar. He was supposed to go somewhere new and claim another life.

After deliberation, he decided to plant his feet firmly in the ground. Nothing was going to move him except his own will, and the bonds he had should be broken. Though fresh out of his teenage years, as he had been since he could remember, he was somewhere between lanky and wiry, hanging dangerously over some point of divergence of the unattractive and the even less attractive. The energy in his body seemed to build, as he began to strain his neck while his body quivered. Eventually, the force was simply too much, and he vaulted into the sky.

There was grace period, where he felt as though he hung in the sky, within arms reach of the stars, and hanging above the world as if he could pluck the clouds and make them into a marshmallow pie. Soon enough, gravity relieved ecstasy and he tumbled to the earth, the edges of his blazer and the frayed ends of his jeans toying with flames.

Unfortunately, his back was to the quickly approaching mountain, which he dutifully plastered himself against. After a moment, the snow shook him loose and he careened down the side of the mountain until he was met with a tiny hamlet, where he courteously plowed through a house before coming to a complete stop. He felt something building within him, coming fast from some kind of hidden internal source. With that, he was flung again into the air again.

He hung for such a time that he felt as though he was stationary as the world rotated beneath him. Though it kept rotating, he began to fall, reaching some kind of terminal velocity as he flailed wildly to avoid his clothes from catching fire again. This time, he landed in a road, and after being run over by a few unsuspecting cars, he lifted himself up and managed to straggle into the nearest building, which happened to be a coffee shop.

Few people appear handsome after a trip around the world, and it was even more remarkable that he somehow managed to maintain some decency in his appearance given his mode of transportation. He bore some kind of beautifully tousled look, as though he purposefully singed his clothes and shaped his hair like patch of grass on a football field. That is, after a match, of course.

With one foot in the café, he stopped. His knees buckled slightly as he forced his eyes shut and balled his fists. He expected that sometime soon he would be catapulted to some distant location. Remarkably, his assumption was incorrect, and after blocking the only way into and out of the coffee shop for some time, he continued his previous straggling, finding the nearest seat.

His eyes were met with a woman sitting across the table. Her eyes were wide, and bright, so bright he squinted slightly, and she served ample contrast to his tattered, dirty state. Though she took a sip from her oversized coffee mug, her eyes remained fixed on him. For what felt to him like a while, she seemed content merely to observe his minimal actions. Eventually, she lost her patience.
“Do you have a name?”

He squinted one eye and thought for a moment, cocking his head to the side. “Not really, no.”

She smiled, and probed deeper. “You don’t even have some kind of nickname? A pen name?” She ventured. “A serial code even?” She joked.

He opened his mouth, and then paused. “Well, I guess you could call me Death if you like.” He finally stated.

She furrowed her eyebrows for a brief moment, and then bit her lip and smiled. “Well then, my name is Inspiration.” She joked again.

For someone not accustomed to discourse, he adapted quickly, and soon learned to appreciate it. There was something mundane about ‘being human’, but he still enjoyed it. He felt permanently callused though, as every mention of life and death seemed so passionate and emotional yet he failed to relate. Eventually, he let his back rest on the chair, finding comfort in knowing that the cycle had been broken; he was not longer bound by his morbid obligations.

He found some newfound comfort in his existence, as if he had been tense for so long and only noticed when he allowed himself to relax. The monotony of speech, the bell ringing every time the door opened, there was something so satisfying about knowing what would happen before it happened, because it happened so many times before. He also came to appreciate this “Inspiration”, whatever her real name might be. It dawned on him eventually that she assumed him to be so hopelessly romantic poet yuppie from an urban city, the kind that acted poorer than his salary would suggest. Perhaps that was his attempt at being poetic.

He drank his coffee quickly, unaware of his burning tongue. One final sip was left and he stared at it, swirling it around, expecting it clear like a cloudy crystal ball, revealing some prudent foresight. Instead, he felt it within him again. He sensed that energy that welled from his innermost regions and radiated outward. Unfortunately, he did not brace in time, and was scarcely prepared for the trip. He was vaulted upwards, slamming into the ceiling of the coffee shop, raining plaster on the people below. He dropped slightly and rammed it again, this time breaking through. Eventually he reached some limit, where ice now nipped at his singed clothes. After a seeming eternity, he dropped from his floating stasis back to earth. He landed on a tree for a brief moment, and then fell to the ground.

His eyes were met with Inspiration, albeit a more a stunned version of her former self. Tears welled in his eyes. The particular feeling was back, and he lost all control. He allowed the inevitable to play itself out, scripted, but forever painful. She dropped to his feet; her gaping mouth facing the sky, hoping gravity might force some air into her nearly lifeless body.

He wept, cradling the only person he had known, the only one he liked. There reached a point where he clutched her so tight any last vestiges of life within her hollow body were likely squeezed into the cold air. Suffering was total; a feeling he never had, nor ever wished to have again.

Some other foreign feeling crept into his body. The various cuts, scratches, gashes, and wounds he accumulated from his makeshift air travel began to sting. They began to burn and to hurt. A person passed him and asked if she should call an ambulance, looking him right in the eye. He nearly smiled.

“I think she’ll be fine.” He assured her.

The woman nodded and walked on.

“If only the same could be said for me.” He whispered.