Fall

I stood there and I watched the fall. I could have stopped it but I didn't.

I stood there and I thought of what I could have done. Maybe just a word, or a hug, or a glance. But I didn't. I didn't walk away, but I didn't do anything either. I knew it was going to happen, and I could have changed it, but I made the conscious decision to let it be as it may.

In that moment, I felt nothing. Watching the body falling through the air, all was silent. Every sound around me stopped. I was empty, I was as empty as the shell of a body that was falling down. Even after there was nothing left to see, I stood there and I didn't move my eyes.

Hours passed. The sun went down in the sky. I was still there. I hadn't moved. If I tried, I would have found that my feet were asleep and my fingers cold from having been still for so long. But it didn't matter. None of it mattered.

I tried to make myself feel something. I forced the tears to my eyes, and let the bitter wind carry them to the side along my cheeks. Even after they had long been dry and the skin of my lips started cracking, there was nothing there.

I felt nothing.

I saw it clear as day, the body falling through the air, the glimmer of the sun off the watch for no more than an instant. I didn't do anything because I was selfish, because I wanted to know what it would feel like to watch a life flicker out, because I wanted to have a reason to cry, because I wanted something to change in my life. I had stood there and watched.

And nothing had happened. Nothing except that a person had died, and I was left without a friend. I felt no guilt, no sorrow, no remorse. There was nothing to feel. Because in the end, not a bit of it mattered. I had effectively taken a life, and done it without flinching. I took a single deeper breath and walked away, the steady click of my shoes on the pavement following me home.

A single lamp illuminated the empty night. Then all was still, and human life forgotten.