Another Way To Breathe

The girl in the white suit hid her nerves behind the cigarette.

The curtains opened. A pale man in pressed flannel frowned.

“Who are you,” he said, rubbing sleep from his eyes, “and what the hell are you doing on my window-ledge?”

The girl balanced on her bare heels, rocking back and forth.

“I… am a fan,” she said, “Don’t worry. I’m perfectly safe.”

“I wasn’t worried,” he said, “Lose the cigarette.”

“Sorry,” she said. Her face twisted, as if her muscles used to make apologetic expressions had atrophied through neglect.

“I wanted to ask some advice,” she said as she flicked the cigarette into the void behind her.

The man thought of his breakfast cooling.

“Make it quick,” he sighed.

There was silence, or as close to silence as the rumble of the city far below would ever allow.

“I have so much I want to do, and so little time,” she said, “I want everything. Is that so much to ask? Everyone says so. Everyone says ‘be reasonable’. But then I look at you, and everything you’ve achieved, and know that 'reasonable’ is defeatist. Any one sliver of what you’ve done would be an enviable career. That it takes it all in, is an impossibility. There’s so little time, and so much work I want to do. I’m going to die but I want to be immortal. I’m trying so many things, but I’m afraid of losing myself in a–”

“Enough,” said the man, “I’ve two things for you. Listen carefully.”

“Always finish the album,” said the man, “and get the hell off my window ledge.”

The girl nodded.

“You were my inspiration,” she said, as she stepped backwards, turning to a shower of ash and sulphur, leaving tiny sooty footprints on the ledge.

The man sighed as he turned from the window. A girl dressed in a white suit, smoking, with that hair? And I was apparently inspiration? No shit.

Still – she was far from the first, and she’d be far from the last.

Immortality, of a kind.