The Mile High Club

The last flight is dusty with disuse. He climbs, feeling the rush in his chest, feeling his sneakers slapping on the concrete. It gets dark. In the half gloom the push-bar yields and the fire-door swings open.

Truth is, she’s not in the mood. The dope, the booze, the banging tunes, the crowded small apartment. She shoves her way through a group of guys laughing.
‘Hey Laurie.’
‘Hey,’ she mumbles, chucking her chin up in a slight salute and wrapping her arms around her mid.
‘Wanna hit?’
‘Nah, I’m good.’ She doesn’t want to ask, can’t help herself, like a bubble rising in water. ‘You seen Josh?’
Shrugs, and lookings about, ‘Yeah, he’s around someplace.’

Cold wind, fresh, light hurting his eyes for a moment, his head spins briefly. Light fills his head, fills his chest. Gravel and tar under his feet, pigeon shit and the distant sound of traffic, he feels more certain, chest expanding, enlightenment approaching. He stretches his arms and walks out approaching grace.

Asshole, seriously. Self-obsessed moody prick. She grits her teeth, she’s in the front room now, people swaying and moving all around her. Jess is trying to hand her a joint, she looks buzzed, pupils the size of planets, face flushed, her skin shining with perspiration.
‘You seen Josh?’ she shouts. Jess drapes her arms around her shoulders, hips swaying.
‘Dance with me baby,’ she says.
Laurie smiles despite herself, puts her hands on Jess’s hips and sways with her. Beautiful, crazy, wonderful Jess.
‘I’m trying to find Josh,’ she shouts into her ear, ‘we...’ she pauses, ‘ we sorta had a fight.’
‘Aw baby.’ Jess hugs her, ‘Don’t worry about it, it’ll blow over, let him blow off some steam. Here, have a smo.’ She puts the joint into her mouth the wrong way round - burning end inside and blows. A funnel of smoke plumes toward Laurie’s face. She smiles, leans forward and purses her lips. Her shoulders slump and she inhales, swaying and grooving with her best most lovely. Things get softer, the music starts getting into her hips. She moves and flows feeling Jess close. The joint gone, their lips touch, soft and delicate gentle. Music and lips, shivers and sweats, she loses herself to the moment.

The sky, the sky; ribboned clouds mottled and muddied with the oranges and purples of a bruised sunset cast in drama across the holy endless azure. It’s becoming harder to breathe, his lungs are burning with the ecstasy. Tears streak his cheeks. Everything is so clear, so incomprehensibly perfect.

Someone crashes into them, returning her to her senses, it’s Mark.
‘Hey Mark!’
‘Sorry, sorry!’ he laughs.
‘Hey, you seen Josh?’
‘Josh? sure, he was on the stairwell about 5 minutes ago. He was pretty mashed.’ He grins, faced stretching. ‘Going up, in more ways than one baby!’
She frowns, and turns to Jess,
‘Jess, I’m gonna go check he’s ok.’ Jess nods smiling and turns back to the tunes, closing her eyes, swaying herself back into it. Laurie pushes and squeezes herself out to the hall and out the apartment door then across to the stairwell.

He’s at the edge, the small wall. How’d that happen? He looks down, zooming down past all those floors, all those windows. Down down to the crawling grid way below, noises of traffic wafting faintly up. Wind blows through his hair, flapping at his clothes. He’s grinning. All those people, all those lives, he’s surrounded by millions of hearts, millions of thoughts. Almost, just almost, tentatively, at the edge of his senses he can hear them. All the words, all the words flowing like a vast ocean. He shivers in delight.

She climbs upward, feeling the nerves in her chest, feeling her sneakers slapping on the concrete. The last flight is dusty with disuse. It gets dark. In the half gloom the bar of the fire-door yields before her push, the door swings outward.

It’s the moment, every cell in him knows it, he feels his body sway and he is unafraid. This is the moment. One brief tiny step, his foot moves forward and his body follows.

She sees him, sees the back of him, swaying with arms outstretched, green zipper hoody flapping in the wind, hair greased and tweaked into spikes, baggy black jeans half off his hips, crumpled at his sneakers. It’s too much to take in, the sky, the marijuana, the sunset, him standing there. And then stepping off.

And for one brief tiny moment he is perfect, complete and at peace.