The girl stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower, taking in the glorious view that was spread before her. The setting sun illuminated all of the city with its coral and orange light, giving a new meaning to the name "The City of Light".
Her hair was blown back behind her in a brown stream, and her face was tilted up to the sky. She reveled in the feeling of being alone in the city that was also called "The City of Love". It was a feeling of freedom, and a feeling that everything held a new meaning.
The stars began to sparkle in the darkening sky, and the horizon began to blur and darken with it. Before long, the horizon was invisible, as if it had never existed.
She figured that the taste of champagne wouldn't be out of place at the moment. It was Paris; why not? But she wasn't exactly of age -- not even of European age, much less American age.
She leaned a little further over the railing, lifting her feet a few inches so that their arches fit over the bottom horizontal pole of the railing. Her hair was still whipping around more or less behind her, but occasionally, a strand would momentarily brush across her face.
The security guards aren't watching. I could go up a little further.
Funny how the sixteen-year-old mind works.
She did what she wanted to do, twisting her body so that she was sitting on the railing, her back facing where she had been looking before. Her hair now blew in front of her, but that wasn't a concern of hers. She simply closed her eyes and smiled, happy with where she was.
Eventually, a time would come in which she would have to adjust her position. Now, she tilted too far backward, a most inopportune movement in a most inopportune place at a most inopportune time. Her hands had been gripping the top horizontal pole of the railing, but sheens of sweat had suddenly developed between the pole and her palms. The following reaction was much like that of a car hydroplaning on a thin layer of water.
An ear-splitting, blood-curdling scream escaped from the girl's mouth as she fell back. The ends of her hair snapped in the sudden, high wind, flicking back and forth and breaking the sound barrier as they did so. Her scream stretched on for an eternity, and never ended until her body hit the cold asphalt of a Paris road.
A crowd that seemed to number in the thousands crowded around the sixteen-year-old's body, yelling in rapid French and gesticulating as a single unit. Several people dialed emergency services, and in minutes ambulances were roaring down the road with sirens blaring.
White-coated paramedics poured out of two ambulances, and police officers struggled out of their cars (they'd arrived later).
One paramedic leaned down and placed two fingers just beneath the girl's jawbone, moving her fingers every second or so. After five seconds of scanning for even a trace of a heartbeat, she shook her head. "La fille est morte," she said. The girl is dead.
A police officer overheard her. "Personne ne sait d'elle?" Does anyone know her?
"Elle est étrangère," said another officer, who had pulled out her driver's license. She is foreign. "Elle est anglaise." She is English.
"D'accord," said the first officer. Okay. "Nous devons l'emmener à la gare." We must take her to the station.
-
The following morning, all of the news stations in Paris and in Grimsby, where the girl was from, broadcast this story, or something like it --
"Sixteen-year-old Sarah Mallard died last night at about eleven-forty-five. She reportedly fell from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
"Mallard was alone when she fell, and her parents have chosen not to file a lawsuit.
"It has been decided that Mallard's death was a suicide, but no motive has been confirmed. At the time of this broadcast, no note has been found, and so no reason for her suicide."
George and Martha Mallard saw the broadcast from the police station, where they had been summoned once their daughter's identity had been determined for certain. They believed every word of what was said.
Only we know that Sarah Mallard hadn't wanted to die. Only we know that she simply made the last mistake of her life.
