Helen Zelon

She jumped. The windowsill her diving board, Cesia leaped into the fresh spring air and fell, eyes squinting against the sunlight. She fell past bricks, stacked in neat rows - the factory wall - and past new-green treetops. She fell and fell, in a moment that lasted longer than her whole life, stretching on and on until she hit the ground, knees first, her dress above her waist.

She landed on the street. A city street, with people bustling and trams rumbling past and pushcart vendors hawking the last of the winter’s store of cabbages, fist-sized turnips, the first of the spring sorrel. Ladies with parcels skirted past, stepping around the fallen girl like the other beggars that littered the block, no one noticing that she was bleeding crimson down her calves and into her shoes. Cesia sat still for another moment. What had she done? Where was she now? And what was she to do? First, get up, and get on with it, she thought. Get up, and walk away.

She stood and felt for the worn satchel, her papers, her new life. All there. The photos made a stiff square in the soft leather pouch. She patted the edges and again, looked around. All there, and nothing there at all. Where was her father? The boy who told her to jump? No one had followed her out the window. She was alone.

Read the rest of Part III at ducts.org.

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