Addiction of the century, if you like.

I looked around the top of IBM Plaza–it took some certified ninja moves to get here undetected. I’m not sure if they allowed civilians to hang out here otherwise why isn’t anybody else here? The winds are strong and a welcome respite from the deadly heat.

Found it. A ladder. Who’d leave a ladder lying around here? Either the force of my desire was so strong I materialized a misplaced ladder here at will or some guy from maintenance was in the middle of something.

There’s something they don’t tell you about the strength of the wind at this height. Sometimes they get so strong you sincerely feel you can get blown away. I keep at it. I lug the metal ladder to the side of the ledge and lean it securely by its two legs.

I rub my palms together. It’s twenty minutes past six. This required a little casual manipulation. They all wanted me with them for bowling and drinks afterwards. I had to go, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. The truth could very well be that I’m fun–the penultimate clown in a crowd of hardworking professionals. I’ve never taken any of this seriously. I suspect my being here has a little to do with it.

Well, not my being here per se, but why. Why.

It just gets too noisy sometimes. All I hear are people talking. All day. All bloody day. About work, about kids, about other office mates, about boys, about girls, about every little imaginable thing in the sweet/busy universe.

It pisses me off.

When the world began I doubt there’d been a running commentary about which step in creation He was at. “Rhinoceros forming in 0800 hours, or not—get out of there, you greedy crocs.”

Anyway.

We’re here now. I climb the ladder and feel the rush of the wind threatening to push me back. Not here, it says. No humans allowed here.

I resist. I’m not human for nothing. I spider-walk my way sideways onto a better view on the ledge. The ledge was about two feet wide. Bird poop, of course, that was to be expected, but not as much as I imagined.

Everybody’s written about sunsets, how poetic and bittersweet they were, how they spoke of certain eternal things unsullied by people’s routine screwing-up-every-beautiful-thing-they-touch. I won’t try that. I can’t. You can’t talk about a sunset like you knew what you were talking about. That’s the thing. No one knows anything.

Meanwhile, the wind! How it wanted to throw me off!

I closed my eyes.