Prologue
I had never imagined what it would be like to hold a life in my hands.
Once, I would have been shocked by the realisation that I was an inch away from killing someone.
No more. Strangely, I feel nothing, as if I, too, am in a state of limbo, suspended in this moment, somewhere between life and inevitable death.
We’re fifteen long floors up, the muted throb of the city, lit up at night, reaching me as if from another dimension. The ground below, hard and unforgiving, looms closer for an instant, as if silently urging me to let go.
Can I? I waver. Am I capable? I’d imagined, in my darkest hours, when dreams only ever came to haunt me, how lost love could drive a person to acts of despair or even madness.
How cold-blooded murder might have its basis in love, or unrequited love.
In being unloved, spurned or wronged. There is no other way.
I feel it, the undiluted fear emanating from the individual over whose future I have control.
This person is petrified, literally: dissociated, yet aware, unable to speak, move or control their own body.
Incapable. Powerless. Mine to do with what I will.
We think that we’re immortal, that nothing can touch us, but in reality, we’re fragile creatures.
Flesh and blood. On impact, the skull will smash like an eggshell.
Obliquely, I wonder what thoughts will occur as the body plunges, its downward trajectory stopped suddenly, violently.
It’s said a person’s life flashes before their eyes when close to death, because the parts of the brain that store memories are among the last to shut down.
Some who’ve had near-death experiences describe a loss of all sense of time – life events that last for a second or a century.
They relive moments of sublime happiness and extreme pain, feeling also the pain they’ve caused others around them.
I’ve heard it described as close to purgatory.
Will this person live a century in purgatory? I hope so.