my vocabulary is too small

I strolled along 100 Street near Columbus Avenue, hearing an argument from an apartment building. The moment lead me to imagine the climax of a person flying out the window, dropping to the cement 30 stories below. The sensation of flying must be a wonderful experience. Gravity is a wonderful force. The streets we walk on are a wonderful development of society. Flying out a window plus gravity plus the streets we walk on – probably not so wonderful.

Actually, not so wonderful is a bit of an understatement.

Distressing. Horrid. Dreadful. Probably more appropriate.

But aside from the appropriateness, (which is much more of a secondary issue) what does a 180 pound body crashing into the pavement from 300 feet above sound like?

I imagine it sounds like my heart beating.
It sounds like panic.
It sounds like my saying “Holy fucking shit,” to myself.

I wonder – does he hear the same things? Does he hear his own death at the end? Or is the last thing he hears the split second before he hits the ground?

Music. Music is what he hears all the way down. I don’t mean harmony and notes, exactly – I don’t think the last thing a person does falling to his immediate death is humming One Republic’s “Stop and Stare.” Music as in composition – a composition of the vividness of his memories, the burn from his fleeting emotions. Some will sound like frantic anxiety, some like acquiescent calm. The end theme to his ending credits. The transition that flows directly to the other side. The score that no one else can ever describe. Simply, music.