The Bell Tower Suicide

The details of this event are vague, separated into tiny nuggets. Like all good stories, it leaves more to be desired. I know four things. One, this happened twenty years or so ago, and it was a young woman. Second is that I saw the window she did it out of, it was right above the stair, small, and seemingly difficult to access. Third is that she was sitting in a chair. Lastly, is that my professor said he was attending school here, making his way to class when he saw her blood flowing in the cracks of the sidewalk.

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I couldn’t stand him.

My name doesn’t matter to you. In that it won’t change the fact that you will feel a jolt when you look up at my window. As if trying this end on like a dress. Could you do it? And what might drive you? The biggest question I hear resounding in the minds of students as they come to the point in the tour of Barton Tower tour as someone points out my window is why? Why did she jump? What made her so desperate? School? Work? Weight? No. It wasn’t school. I wasn’t a perfectionist. I went through my window, because, at that point it was the only door open to me. And yes, it’s my window, because I’m the only one who could possibly climb up there, and with a chair in my left hand no less. The reason is that sometimes professors get that way because of the control. Imagine impacting a hundred students’ academic record.
You stand up and talk, and then require them to notate every word that passes your lips, you threaten that it could be on the test. They could be tested on what you said. They are your pawns. Maybe you need something printed and collated, and that poor chap needs an A.. Or that girl who’s always ten minutes late….maybe there’s a way you can strike a deal where it won’t affect her grade. I’m talking after hours. And it gets more and more complex, and everything you are, everything you need is precariously balanced on his little finger, and if you’re not there, if you don’t do it, if you look at anyone else…oh what am I saying. All you care about is the fall. The plummet. The chair. Why a chair? Is another question. By this time I have decided that my only opening out of this life and his world is through that little window. It would be like a birth. And what better way to soar into your new life but seated on your throne. His throne. He had this beautiful ornate chair in his office, an antique. Matched his desk. It’s balancing on the windowsill. The air reeks of spring. Warm and dark, the sun just stretching its first rays up over the edge of world. The thing about falling is the euphoria. Pure joy. For only that long. Say ‘pure joy’ and that’s all the time you have to think about it. By the time you would have begun to wonder if it’s really joy or terror, your blood is already flowing in straight lines. Reddening the cracks in the sidewalk.