Midnight Rooftop

I was told midnight wasn’t the best part of the day. I guess they might be right; it was so cold outside I thought I was breathing snow. Nonetheless, I am gratified by the coldness at the tips of my fingers, the shivers down my spine, and the redness on my nose. This isn’t what I thought would happen and it did, so I have more reason to say that perhaps, everything is not repetitive. The story starts when the winds knocked me back down on the rooftop. I was having a pleasant time, thinking about life and how I’ve lived it, and here comes the cold wind that forced me to step back.

Some say I’m insecure, that is true. Some say I’m devastated, and they are right. But when you said I was not dignified, then you are very wrong.

I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone that day. I don’t like to talk to people all that much. I was cursing, and repeatedly so, for my plans for midnight were sabotaged. Then came Alice. She had her own motives for coming up the roof, I suppose. Who else comes to an  abandoned 80-story building on a holiday? She could be getting some fresh air, but it was midnight, and I can tell from the rough way she was mouthing her words that she wasn’t from here. So, a girl from the southern part of the country doesn’t come home on Christmas, and suddenly decides to come to the roof for some fresh air?

I know she was still in college. No one above twenty could get away with alarmingly pink hair, unless she worked in a tattoo shop, hinted by the numerous tattoos and markings that ran from her wrists all the way up to her neck. She had gold rings on her lower lip, thinned out eyebrows, and a small heart tattoo on her temple.

“I’ve heard about this roof,” she said, approaching me. “Some say it is a gift.”

She hasn’t been talking about why she was on the roof since she came. She looked shocked when she saw me there, eyes wide as if being caught red-handed. Alice tried for a conversation, a way to perhaps reduce the awkward tension in the air, so she went on, talking about her life like it mattered to me.

She said she lived eight hours away from here. She used to be painter, but then she got tired so she started writing music instead. When music didn’t work out for her, she started sketching; but still, nothing seemed to have worked out. She made it sound in a boastful tone, her voice so loud you’d think she could be heard three floors down, but I did kind of like her. She was the kind of girl I try to be, but afraid to try out. Alice sat there, cigarette clipped between her graying lips, eyes looking tired and bloodshot, and hair wildly uncombed for a few days.

Interested, I decided to ask a question. “You think so?”

“Having control over your life?” She grinned. “It is a gift. There’s no other way one can do that. We are dictated by the decisions made by other people, you know?”

“Go on.”

“My math teacher in high school thought I was worthy of graduating, that’s why I’m here in college. My dad decided to marry my mom, and with genetics, I became who I am. You’re mother decided not to use protection, and then you came. Hell, who ever knew the fastest sperm in the race would have to be you?” She laughed roughly, the kind of laugh you’d only hear coming from people you consider friends. “Of all the decisions the world makes for you, what’s one that you can make?”

I look to the darkening skies. “To live?”

Very loudly, she snorted. She made her way to the edge of the rooftop, her feet dangling into the air, 80-stories of nothingness below her. “Didn’t you get it? Living is not a choice. You live because you’re born. We are crowded by millions of people because others frown upon contraception and infanticide. You go to school because the state says it is what is right.”

“I make my own decisions from the moment I wake,” I said. “I don’t want to sound crude, but I’m a bit contented with what my life has become. I graduated with high honors and got myself a nice, good-paying job. I am the boss of my large company, and a friend to everyone around me. I made better decisions, some bad, but others good enough.”

“Which is why it is surprising to see you on top of this building,” Alice shook her head. “Perhaps, you received high honors in college because you get to be that one girl in class that doesn’t have family problems. If you weren’t, then you must be the lucky ones who didn’t fall into depression. But that’s why you’re up here, isn’t it? You’re living this perfect life where no mistakes are made. It’s too perfect that it became a bit repetitive, a boring cycle that made you wish that perhaps you did something more than just come home from school after acing a test you’ve been studying weeks before.”

Feeling slightly harassed, I tried for a comeback. “Perhaps, you’ve mistaken ‘to live’ with ‘trying not to die’.”

“Am I?” She smiled. Her teeth were crooked and some missing, others white and some silver. “What does a plain girl in her early twenties do up on an abandoned building’s roof top, then?”

I frowned. “From what I am told, I am hardly plain.”

The girl laughed really hard that for a second, I thought she was going to fall over. “There’s you, letting the world dictate you once again. I slap a label on you and you counter it by telling me what other people think.”

“What do you supposed I do?”

“Look into the mirror.” She said. “I’m sure you’ve done it, otherwise you wouldn’t be out here on the roof, with me.”

I wondered what could have driven her to come to the rooftop. I remember my mother warning me about the temptations posed by an abandoned building in the darkest corner of the city. It is, as she had said, a thing of sadness. It was once home to the biggest construction firm a hundred years ago, and it was abandoned as soon as the economy failed. There’s been signs on the windows implying that it was on sale, but no one has ever been interested in it. Some say that the building grew old, with age came its beauty, and no one else dared to ruin it.

“You think I’m reacting a bit too much,”

She paused from lighting her cigarette, her face looking very humored. “Does it bother you that I think so?”

“No,” I said. “We both came here for a reason. What is yours?”

“Do we need to have a reason for taking control over our lives?”

“If you think my life has become too repetitive, I can assume that you started to lose control over yours. Too many things are happening to you, and you hate it. You want to control it. You want to laugh in front of life’s face to show that you can outsmart it. This is not living, my friend. This is called exaggerating.”

She made a sound that sounded like a very offended snort. “Look at you, trying to lecture me about exaggerating.” She said. “Oh, I know what this is! It’s age, isn’t it? I know a lot of you. You think that the world is crueler now that you’ve become older. The world demands more of you, so you think you had it worse than anyone else. You lack the energy and opportunity; one that’s far from your youth. You wished you were younger, you wish you could turn back time, but you can’t. This isn’t a game, my friend, you can’t just quit just because you feel like it. This is not a fancy rug of yours that you can just throw away when you find a fancier one from Paris or Turkey…”

“You look a bit young yourself,” I say. “But that is why you’re here. You must have been beaten as a child, violated by the people you trust, left alone to take care of two younger brothers at a very young age. You must think you’re wise, otherwise you wouldn’t be lecturing me about what I should and shouldn’t do.”

A flash of red and oranges filled the sky. People were setting off their fireworks now, a customary thing to do on Christmas eve. Alice stared at the display for a few moments, distracted by the very loud sound, gazing at it like it was the first time she’d seen them. “And if that were true, don’t you think that people like me are much older than we’re supposed to be? Why do you count age with years when some years are much harsher than others?”

“I was beginning to like you, but you just contradicted yourself.” I said; and couldn’t help but smile. “But ‘harsh’ can mean differently to others, you know. I’d much rather get in trouble and make a good story out of it than to sit in the corner, contemplating.”

“I never said your life was worse than mine,” she smiled. “I couldn’t–and shouldn’t–compare one from the other.”

There was silence for a long moment while the fireworks went on. Alice was covered in shadows for one moment, fully illuminated the next. At times the reddish glow made her look severe, the yellow lights made her look serene. She wasn’t wearing any make-up that night, dark half-moons prominent underneath her eyes, a small scar on her nose.

“If you think…” her eyes snapped back at me, surprised that I was the one who spoke first. “If you think that the world dictated that we come here on the same night of year, then what must we do?”

“The world perhaps wanted one of us to stop the other,” she laughed. “But I’m supposed to be here to laugh in front of life’s face and show it who’s boss.”

I looked to the darkening skies, now very quiet. It must be almost midnight; people saving their fireworks to welcome Christmas. And then, all of a sudden, I laughed. “I guess I’ll have to do the same.”

We didn’t know what else happened after that, didn’t know why we sort of agreed after hours of bantering. We didn’t know who grabbed the other’s hand first, who nodded to signal our fate, and who was the first one to step unto the farthest edge of the rooftop. We knew, that no matter how strong the winds are or how loud the fireworks were, there was no way we were going to be knocked back down.

Alice grinned, held my hand tighter, eyes looking toward the infinity below her. “Are you ready?”