“It’s gone.” Gregory Hayden whispered at the space past his shoes, “I lost everything to those bastards. Laid me off after seven years without so much as a ‘thanks for all your good work’.”

He looked out on the city, let himself soak in its distinctive white noise. Every city has a unique sound, one that a lifetime citizen gets to know. It was for Gregory a constant, seemingly eternal reminder of everything his life had once been. As the tears tumbled hesitantly from his eyes, he realized how much he hated the sound now. It stung like his wife’s laughter had when he told her he could turn it around. It grew in intensity every second he hesitated at the ledge, looking out over the vast expanse of his uncaring world like an open wound blooming outward with every moment its victim still drew breath.

The city’s sunset was beautiful. The wind brushed his face and forced him to shield his eyes with a hand. The other held the note. It seemed utterly unsatisfactory. Just some mewling about how he had been cheated of his life and he hoped all who were responsible would one day rot with him in hell. Childish, yes, but Gregory had never been particularly good at writing. Besides selling things, Gregory had never been particularly good at anything.

He turned his eye to the street, feeling somehow superior to the little people he could see scuttling about the street below him, “At least it’s over now. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Holding his breath, Gregory did the only thing he saw left to do. He rocked forward.

“Greg?”

As he fell, Greg turned to see Susan, his best friend, coming up onto the roof. They had been friends since college and if it hadn’t been for Jenny, he thought perhaps they might have been more. She had mousy features and wore glasses that never quite sat right on her face. When she laughed, everyone around her laughed too. Even in the years after, Gregory would never be able to quite articulate all the things he saw in her face. There was fear there, obliviously, but also pity, disappointment and a certain amount of anger. How could he have forgotten the people in his life that would never give up on him? What was this?

Greg’s arms spread wide against his will, the force of his fall pushing them back into position. His mind raced as the floors of his office building bled past.

I can’t die, his mind all but recoiling from the reality before him, I can’t do this to her, to myself. I can’t. I CAN’T!!!

“NOOOO!” the sound tore from his throat just before he struck the ground. A floodgate broke somewhere in the back of his mind and his whole body tingled. For time immeasurable he thought for sure that he had died, but when his senses returned to him, the comforting rush of the city’s white noise crashed down around him. He laughed then, laughed and laughed and laughed as the people encircled him to gawk. Still unconvinced that he had lived, Gregory clambered to his feet, putting a hand on a nearby taxicab for stability.

The tingling in his body flooded outward through his hand and before his widened eyes, the taxi crumpled inward like a crushed soda can. Stumbling back a step, Gregory stared numbly at his hand and then up at the ledge from which he fell where now Susan stood, a tiny reminder-silhouette of what had brought him back.

Even knowing she couldn’t hear him, Gregory whispered words meant for the woman he was sure had somehow saved him,

“I’m alive.”