It was back in ’95 when his summers were still long and Ben Gordon was out on the ledge, 2,000 feet above the city.
The small iron buttress extended horizontally twelve feet out from the peak of the Stivyakino TV Tower. He had walked the five-inch-wide beam to the very edge. The wind was fierce, and he could barely hear the cheers of the boys and girls a few feet behind him, standing on the platform at the top of the tower. Three before him had done the dare. They had walked out on the beam and surveyed the city below. They had turned around and walked back. It was so high. So high. Ben Gordon had done the easy part. He was out there. Now he had to maintain balance and turn around on that five-inch-wide beam. He looked out at the city. He couldn’t see much detail. He was too high, the city too vast, too sprawling. It looked like the dull grey carpet in his ageing grandmother’s house. That grey carpet with the specks and stains collected over years of neglect. Ben Gordon was 14, his summers were still long and he had no intention of dying. Not now, not with Ava Munro watching. But he couldn’t stay out there forever. Eventually he would have to turn around… but the wind was so strong and the beam was so high. So high.
“You gotta do something, right?” he whispered to himself as he slowly lifted his foot to turn around.
