ten stories

Oct 05 2002

I pressed my palms to the glass to stop the advancement of a couple of beads of sweat that were racing through the bend of my elbow. The lights of speeding cars veering off in every direction below made the sweaty film glisten on my arm and I assumed my face looked the same. The window was cold though the room was sweltering, and I filled my nostrils with the smell of the damp heat that surrounds all sweaty bodies. From where I lay the sky was refracted blackness, a faint blink in the northern sky as a plane came out of holding and headed into Hartsfield, and the promise of a moon illuminating a small cloud off to the west. Between the expansive sky, the heat, and my heavy breaths my head was swimming and the carpet was beginning to gnaw at my shoulders, but discomfort means nothing to me. I am ten stories up and climbing. I am ten stories up and breathing.