I climb the steps, my heart racing from exertion and excitement. At the top, I shift the weight of my pack and take out a water bottle, partly to relieve the dryness of my mouth, and partly to allow me a moment to calm my body. There is no wind, so the noise in my ears must be the rushing of my blood. I’m not sure if the dizzy feeling of heightened perception comes from the exertion of the climb or is it perhaps the prospect of the descent. In that present moment I find it curious that the same thing might be triggered by either past or future events. I find my way to the edge, my steps disturbed by the strange but expected slope of the platform. The tower feels firm beneath my feet, but unlike me, not yet ready to fall. I spend just a moment gazing down as I reach up and grasp the rail. The coldness of the metal seeps into the palms of my hands.  I’m amazed that the people on the plaza below are such tiny dots. I step up and over the railing and leap.

    In a millisecond, the moment of fear is gone, swept from the present into the past, its life stillborn, smudged into a now untouchable recollection. I only know it now as a memory, something to be reimagined, reconstructed, remanufactured but never able to be reborn. As I fall through time and space, I wonder if we can ever truly live in the moment, because that moment is always transitory, not something that can be held in stasis, but only something to be recalled in a new present as a reproduction of the past.

    Above my head, the canopy blooms and the people look up, aghast and relieved.

(300 words)

Previous version

I climb the steps, my heart racing from exertion and excitement. At the top, I shift the weight of my pack and take out a water bottle, partly to relieve the dryness of my mouth, and partly to allow me a moment to calm my body. There is no wind, so the noise in my ears must be the rushing of my blood. I’m not sure if my feeling of heightened perception comes from the exertion of the climb or is it perhaps the prospect of the descent. In that present moment I find it curious that the same thing might be triggered by either past or future events. I find my way to the edge, my steps disturbed by the strange but expected slope of the platform. The tower feels firm beneath my feet, unlike me, not yet ready to fall. I spent just a moment gazing down, amazed that the people on the plaza below are such tiny dots. I step up and over the railing and leap.

   In a millisecond the moment of fear is gone, swept from the present into the past, its life stillborn, smudged into a now untouchable recollection. I only know it now as a memory, something to be reimagined, reconstructed, remanufactured but never able to be reborn. As I fall, through time and space, I wonder if we can ever truly live in the moment, because that moment is always transitory, not something that can be held in stasis, but only something to be recalled in a new present as a reproduction of the past.

    Above my head, the canopy blooms and the people look up, aghast and relieved.

(278 words)