By Nate Mamman (@NateMamman)
The window shatters and I begin to fall in an arc. I know it is an arc as I studied Physics in Secondary School. I have forgotten most of what I learned, but for some reason I still remember Projectile Motion. Shards of glass surround me, and I watch them in fascination, thinking of how complicated the Math needed to describe the individual and collective rotational and projectile paths. I try to think about all the variables that would need to be included, but which the mathematicians and physicists would ignore to make their work easier. I start to get a headache.
It occurs to me that for someone falling to his death, I am very calm. I remember a line from that song: “forty floors or four, it makes no difference once you hit the ground.” Can a person die if he (or she) falls from the fourth storey? And it just occurs to me that I am falling from the twenty-second floor; or twenty-frist, if you prefer the British system. Forty plus four divided by two. I know it is just a coincidence, but I can’t help but wonder.
I look down and see people becoming bigger very quickly. “so this is how I die”, I mutter to myself. I may fall on some poor human and the person would die, while I may get to keep mine. Or Super-man (or maybe Mr. Incredible, or even Hancock) may zoom in and grab me just before I hit the ground. Or better still, some super-hot heroine. But they don’t exist. Maybe I would land on a pile of mattresses being carried by a trailer.
I see a girl looking out of the window as I drop past.The look on her face, when she sees me, is priceless!I resist the temptation to wave at her. I am falling to my death, and it somehow seems like bad etiquette to cheerfully wave at people in such situations. Maybe I should have done it while looking very grave.
I am too detached. I should be crying or peeing on myself. Or even screaming. I shouldn’t be thinking and observing. I try to “swim” to adjust my position, when my hand hits the chair I was sitting on a few moments ago. I chuckle as it occurs to me that I would not have to pay for the damage the chair is going to suffer once it hits the ground.
I think about the fact that I have not achieved most of my goals in life. As if it would make any difference now. All the knowledge I gained is useless now, as is all I failed to learn. I watch a particularly nasty looking shard as it follows me closely, but then decide it is not going to quarter me or something, so I ignore it.
I have gotten out of the building’s shadow, and the sun is burning into my eyes. I shut them, and make swimming motions again, so that I now face the ground. Everything is growing bigger pretty quickly. Are they increasing in size at the same rate with which I am falling? They have to be.
People are beginning to notice me, and a lot of them have stopped to gawk and point at me. I wish I was wearing wings like the ones children wear when they are acting as angels in school plays. It would look like an angel fell from heaven. Odd thing, the fact that the bible never mentions angels having wings. Or maybe it does. The cherubim (seraphim?) in Isaiah’s psychedlic vision. Maybe that was Jeremiah.
It is nearly time. The ground is coming up pretty fast. People have made a wide circle around the spot I am most likely going to crash on. It is a good thing that I would disintegrate on impact. It means my bladder and bowels would not be emptied into my pants, as they say happen when people die. Their contents would be splattered all over the place. I wonder which would be more dignifying. But what difference would it make?
I see some people running towards my impact point with a very very big mattress. They may get there on time. But why do they bother? It’s not like I am weeping with regret.
And very soon, i would get to know if there is an afterlife. That is assuming the guys with the mattress don’t get here first.
The African Renaissance 