I Can Hear the Crash

I was only writing. Typing away on my device to finish the work I had been assigned. Tapping is all that could be heard throughout the room. Tapping away at work, tapping away upon phones to make a business call. Tapping, ringing, tapping ringing. This was my life. What I came to daily and what I had worked so hard to achieve. What I had gone to school and what I had fought my parents for. To become someone who was successful. I looked to the clock, ticking upon the wall. 9:02a.m.

It was then I heard it. The sound roaring, drawing everyone's attention to the window - bringing everyone to the window. Drawing everyone's eyes to the painfully loud roar of engines keeping a massive beast afloat. The sound of a plane, hurtling towards our building. It was then for me that the world seemed to move in slow motion. 

The mechanical menace was headed below me, down to the lower floors. People began to slowly scream as I watched it burrow into the glass that was our foundation. The building shook violently, yet all I could do, was fall, and watch. I heard the cracks of the steel frame and the shattering of glass. I felt the floor below me weaken, making my height from the ground only that more real to me. 

I had stared out this window for years. For years I had watched as the city busied itself beneath me and everyone happily lived their lives. Lived their lives without any knowledge. Any knowing, that I even existed. It was how I enjoyed my life. Watching as the world continued around me, but never being the one to be watched.

Now however, I only wished I was known. Known enough that someone cared enough to lift me off the ground and drag them to the stairs with them to escape. It was unlikely I'd make it to the bottom, unlikely I'd escape from the top floor to the doors on the first. But unlikely as it was, I forced myself to at least try. To try to escape and try for my life. I picked myself off of the ground and began running to the stairs, at this point being one of the last to actually leave not counting the others who had already given up and were attempting final calls to their beloved.

I charged down the stairs, almost falling as I did, trying to catch up. Trying to make it to where the others were. I ran for what seemed like forever, slamming myself against what walls remained so I could only set off again in an attempt to get out of the crumbling building. I could hear pieces falling, the structure breaking. The feeling of the entire building almost caving in. I couldn't feel my feet. I couldn't feel anything. Only the desire to escape. To get out of there. 

I finally caught up to the people who had been on my floor, but not how I had been hoping. I had hoped I would catch up on the bottom floor. Outside where we could all be safe, all be secure without a scratch upon a single one of us. A pipe dream. They were all screaming, tearing at rubble that had collapsed in on the stairs, trapping us all on that single floor. I looked out, towards the window, fear, terror, anxiety, and everything of the like pooling in me. 

Regret.

I began to regret everything. My decisions that I had once been so proud of, now a weight on my heart that I had to bear. Regretting going to college, getting my degree, finding someone in whom I loved and coming together to make a child. A child that would now be left without a parent and person in which would be alone in the world. 

I felt the tears flood into my eyes and my legs quake along with the collapsing building. I had to try. There had to be some way, any way that I may be able to get out of the situation and go home.

Buckling, I fell to the floor, hands in my hair, I cried. Unlike the rest, it was a quiet sob, it was broken. It was a cry of someone already dead.

Fire burned around me as the room was thick with smoke, tears,  and screams. I couldn't take it anymore. I simply couldn't. My screams joined the rest as I gave in. The rubble hadn't moved an inch, the fire was closing in, and the building would soon cave in on us all. It was over. There was only one option I had.

I stood up and looked to a picture within my pocket, and clutched it to my chest, and stood up. My feet moved before I could think. My decision was final as my pace quickened and I screamed.

Internally I said goodbye to all that I cared about in that moment. To the person I fell in love with, to the child I raised, to my mother and father who I hadn't spoken to in years, to my siblings, to myself.

And I jumped.