The falling man

All this weekend, I have been thinking about a boy.

I don't know him. I don't even know his name. And I can't stop thinking about him.

In a basement bar on the quays, I'm ordering a drink when I feel a tap on the shoulder. It's a friend of mine. He's a little drunk, and has something on his mind. We find a small spotlit couch, under the stairwell. I'm lonely, he says. He looks at me sadly and I'm thinking about the boy.

On a night-walk along the shore I call into my South African friend. He's smoking in his living room, the French windows open an inch or two, looking out at the invisible sea beyond. I'm sorry I keep barging in unannouced, I say. That's okay, he says, and I know it is, because he never has anyone else to call around, and I'm thinking about the boy.

There was a documentary this week on the people who jumped from the twin towers, out of the flames and into the sky. A family was interviewed about a man who jumped, or fell, or both. That's not our father, one of them said, our father would never leave us, he loved us. And I'm thinking about the boy.

I make my bed, smoothing out the new sheets. I run one hand along the edge, pulling it tight, feeling the crisp thread of it under my palm. When I am finished I stand looking at the clean white expanse of cloth, and I'm thinking about the boy.

I'm thinking about how he came into work early one morning. How he wrote out, carefully, all his passwords, for his colleagues to find. How he took a plastic bag, at his desk, and taped it around his head.

I sit on the edge of the bed and my arms ache. I want to hold something, someone. I want to hold this stranger, all the strangers I will never know. It's such a small thing but it seems like the only thing worth doing. Holding each other.

All this weekend, I have been thinking about a boy.