After I secure the clip to my ankles, I look out over the city.
For a moment, as I wait, listening to the sounds of passing cars below, I finally taste the haggard beauty of the place. I see the city as though a person, a sort of grizzled countenance appears in my mind, a worn out old man whose damp, determined eyes speak both of a long broken heart and a readiness to fight a war he cannot win. The impression is there and gone, the spirit, perhaps, of some founding father asking without words, encouraging me. A ghostly solidarity. Maybe a thank you. This is not my home, and I cannot say what statue or monument, or what amalgamation of historic persons made up that face; yet, this is home, a home to those who opened their homes to me.
I hear the door behind me: Thrown open, it slams with a crash against the side of the little hutlike structure housing the staircase. The figure in the darkness, draped in a flamboyant cape, is too shapeless to recognize by sight, but only one person would follow me up here. He marches toward me, tearing the white masquerade mask from his sabellian face. His wide eyes, white under his dark brows, seem full of fire. I’ve never been quite sure whether he was Indian or Italian or Spanish. Didn’t really matter. His own answer to that question, an obfuscation, was true; he was a citizen of the world, that hateful place, and whatever wore his face, it was no longer human.
I had expected some sort of accusation or question, some sort of foreplay, a chance for speeches and declarations. I would have thrown in his face my treachery and expounded on all the ways I had fooled him, but he simply rushed me and wrapped his hands around my throat while letting loose a womanish scream. We stumbled backward. I didn’t try to fight him, only reached under his cape and grabbed his belt for all I was worth. We went back, one, two, three steps before we went careening over the edge of the building. There was one moment, as he felt himself following me down, where he tried to pull away, but I had been ready; my back arched, my arms pulled, and he went flying over my head. As we passed the brilliant windows, and I saw the frozen expression of dread on one of the unmasked dancers who happened to see us, I wondered what good I had done and let go of my mortal enemy. Let him fall where he may.
Others would come, hollowed out people who were only masks for that thing called the world. Whatever little damage I had done to their invasion…well, you can only build a floodwall so high. The bungee cord began tightening, and my enemy sped past me to his death. Caught a moment between the stretched elastic and the pull of gravity, I saw him go splat against the pavement before my fall reversed and I went flying back up. My own body slammed into the building, and the world went dark.
Tale Told 