kierongillen:

The
girl in the white suit hid her nerves behind the cigarette.

The
curtains opened. A pale man in pressed flannel frowned.

“Who
are you,” he said, rubbing sleep from his eyes, “and what the
hell are you doing on my window-ledge?”

The
girl balanced on her bare heels, rocking back and forth.

“I…
am a fan,” she said, “Don’t worry. I’m perfectly safe.”

“I
wasn’t worried,” he said, “Lose the cigarette.”

“Sorry,”
she said. Her face twisted, as if her muscles used to make apologetic
expressions had atrophied through neglect.

“I
wanted to ask some advice,” she said as she flicked the cigarette
into the void behind her.

The
man thought of his breakfast cooling.

“Make
it quick,” he sighed.

There
was silence, or as close to silence as the rumble of the city far
below would ever allow.

“I
have so much I want to do, and so little time,” she said, “I want
everything. Is that so much to ask? Everyone says so. Everyone says
‘be reasonable’. But then I look at you, and everything you’ve
achieved, and know that ‘reasonable’ is defeatist. Any one sliver of
what you’ve done would be an enviable career. That it takes it all
in, is an impossibility. There’s so little time, and so much work I
want to do. I’m going to die but I want to be immortal. I’m trying so
many things, but I’m afraid of losing myself in a–”

“Enough,”
said the man, “I’ve two things for you. Listen carefully.”

“Always
finish the album,” said the man, “and get the hell off my window
ledge.”

The
girl nodded.

“You
were my inspiration,” she said, as she stepped backwards, turning
to a shower of ash and sulphur, leaving tiny sooty footprints on the
ledge.

The
man sighed as he turned from the window. A girl dressed in a white
suit, smoking, with that hair? And I was apparently
inspiration? No shit.

Still
– she was far from the first, and she’d be far from the last.

Immortality,
of a kind.