Like the rest of the crowd in Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall, Dan was transfixed by the events taking place above. He shielded his eyes with his hand, trying to get a better look, but it didn’t help much. The height they were at, compounded by the sunny day and the glare made getting a decent view of what was going on pretty much impossible. Quickly, Dan scanned the crowd. Many people had video cameras and still cameras pointed at the action, all on full zoom, and all on record. Later that night, the website YouTube would actually crash from people trying to both upload and watch footage of the event. Dan saw one man with a pair of binoculars standing a few feet away. He quickly ran over to him, trying to keep an eye on what was happening above.
“Can you see?” Dan asked, still trying to squint through the glare.
“Yeah. There’s two of them. A guy and what looks like a kid. The guys got a hold of the kid by the foot. It looks like he’s trying to. . .OH SHIT!!”
A pretty blonde lady in a business suit had overheard the commentary, and was now listening intently. “What happened!?”
“Whatever he’s got a hold of just slipped! It’s flapping in the wind now. He’s still got a hold of the kid but, . .. What’s he doing?”
Dan squinted and stared, trying to make out the shapes up above.
“What? What is it? What are they doing?”
The man with the binoculars was squinting, trying to make sense of the sight above him.
“It looks like he’s swinging the kid.” The man paused. A larger crowd had started to listen to the man’s play by play of the situation, and they collectively held their breath.
“He got the kid in!”
A small cheer erupted through the crowd. Dan smiled slightly to himself.
“All right. The guys swinging back now. Looks like he’s. . . OH GOD!”
The man dropped his binoculars from his eyes.
“He fell!”
Dan spun his attention from the man to the tower above him. He saw the red dot start to fall away from the tower. 20 years ago, Dan had made a decision that he had not once regretted. But right now, as he felt the same inability to act as those who stood around him, forced only to watch, a thought entered his head that he had never been there before. Right now, he wished he could take the choice back. Just as the gravity of that threatened to consume him, someone beside him yelled.
“Look!”
Dan looked skyward, unprepared for what he was now seeing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment