There was something about ledges that attracted Janice. The rush of looking down, the giddiness of being up above. But mostly, wondering how it would feel like to fly.
She sat now, hugging her legs, on the top of a twenty-story building, watching the tiny toy cars move far below.
"Hey."
Janice turned.
"Come back in. It's not safe out there." The bespectacled girl beckoned her.
"But I like it here."
"Aren't you - aren't you afraid of falling?"
Janice shrugged. "Maybe I want to." She frowned. "Now you'll think I'm crazy."
"No... no I don't. I..."
"It's okay. I think I'm crazy. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a dragon?"
"I can't say I have."
"Well, I have. I imagine swooping down over those unsuspecting people, just because I can. I wouldn't eat them of course. What's your name, by the way?"
"Chris."
"Chris? For Christine?"
"No. Chris for Chrysanthemum. Don't laugh."
"I like Chrysanthemum," Janice declared, holding a hand out to Chris. "Come on. Have a look."
Chris shook her head. "I don't like heights."
"Oh. Then why are you up here?" Janice unfolded herself and got off the ledge.
Chris fidgeted. "They - they said there was a girl who looked like she was going to jump off a building. And I realised it was here, in my apartment. Thought I wanted to help. I live on the third floor."
"Oh, that was what those pesky flying things were on about, were they? I thought they were yelling at something. I just ignored them."
"Well, you weren't going to jump, were you?" Chris asked cautiously.
"One day, Chris. When I get my wings. Not today. I don't imagine I want to be a flattened pancake all the way down there." Janice smiled and took Chrysanthemum's hand as they walked to the door. "I live on the fifteenth floor. Do you want to visit? I can close all the curtains so you don't have to look."
"Sure, I'd like that."
---
The title of the song "Come as you are" as featured on my Music Monday post got interpreted in my head as "acceptance".
It was going to be a much darker story (I deleted the line: The unspoken, unacknowledged desire to end it all) but I've been working on a lot of fairy tale stuff so... *shrugs*
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