scifi

liars are everywhere, and this is a lie

I once was in a building. It was two stories high from ground level but had levels below ground made for parking. I walked myself inside of the building. I went to the highest floor to the balcony where I could look over the edge and see into the hollowed out centre of the building. The building was shaped like a donut. There was a hole in the middle where all the floors had open balconies into an empty corridor in the middle.

I was standing up there looking down at all the floors beneath me. I could see all the way to the bottom of the building. Five floors all together. Five layers, one of them a commercial shopping centre and the other four were parkades on the various levels. I held out an arm over the railing. It felt a bit strange.

I saw the chequered tiles of the lowest underground level. They were blue-grey patterned. There was something utterly mesmerising about the site of standing so high up from the ground and looking down at such a great distance below me. Now I was sweating. My chest was tight as though my heart were hanging from a thread. Feeling of disgust arose from inside my brain.

At the time, I felt like one of those cowardly fellows that would scramble in fear whenever they were faced with a true scenario. I became like that at that moment. I thought I was so prepared. It was just an easy task through the research to do the deed. The railings were no problem. They were glass and thin, and beyond the railing was a short 30 centimetre platform one could stand on. The little strip of the building was not cleaned so he was very dirty and carried a lot of dust on the surface.

Standing there, my greatest concern was pain. As I was up there, I could imagine how it would feel if I fell 5 stories down all the way to that blue-grey tiling at the base of the building. I was sweating, nervous, but I was fascinated by the fearful sensation it gave me. Back then and even now, I struggled to believe who was correct between those that claimed falling would not hurt, and those who claimed that falling would result in slow painful agony. I knew it depended on how the person would fall. As well as how long the fall would be. There was a certain way to fall in order to have less pain, I knew. However, I was not such a trained diver, and I could not possibly control the direction and orientation of my body if I were to fall from great height.

For me it would be a gamble. It was a risk that I was not willing to take. A further aspect of deterrence was the inevitable loss of control that one would feel if they were to truly be falling for a while. It would create fear and pain in these last moments and it would not be what I was wishing for.

Thus, of course, I turned away from the railing and went about my day as usual.