It was nowhere in sight. I could only assume that it had continued on upward. I followed.
Three floors above that I glimpsed it again. It had paused to peer down at me from a narrow width of planking that served as an elevator landing for workmen. The light from below and behind caught its eyes once more.
Then movement!
I clung to my support and raised an arm to shield my head. But this proved unnecessary.
The clatter and the bouncing, pinging, ringing that spilled from the bucket of bolts or rivets it had pushed over the edge came to me, passed by me, echoed on down to the ground, where it ended/ended/finally ended.
I saved the breath I might have used on curses for purposes of climbing and resumed my vertical trek once more as soon as the air was clear. A cold wind began to tug at me as I went. Glancing back and down, I saw figures on the still-illuminated rooftop next door, looking upward. How much they could see I was not certain.
By the time I reached the place from which the flak had fallen, the subject of my pursuit was two floors higher and apparently catching its breath. It was easier for me to see now, as the platforms had dwindled down to a precious few bits of planking and we were coming into a realm of hard, straight lines and cold, clean angles as classic and spare as a theorem out of Euclid.
The winds pushed and pulled with a bit more force as I mounted higher, slowly surrendering their randomness and growing constant. Starting at my fingertips and entering into the rest of me came a sense of the slight arrhythmic swaying that possessed the structure. The sleep sounds of the city grew indistinguishable in terms of isolated noises. It was a snoring, then a humming and finally the winds ate it and digested it. The stars and the moon traced the geometry through which we maneuvered and all the surfaces were dry, which is really about all that a night climber can ask for.
I kept on after it, up. Up. Up the two levels that separated us. Then one more.
It stood one level above me then, glaring down. There were no more stories. This was as high as things had gotten. And so it waited.
I paused and glared back.
“Ready to call it quits?” I shouted. “Or do we play it out all the way?”
There was no answer. No movement either. It just stood there and watched me.
I ran my hand upward along the beam that rose beside me.
My quarry grew smaller. It had crouched, bunched up, tensed itself. As if to spring …
Damn it! I would be at a disadvantage for several moments when I reached that level. My head exposed, my arms and hands occupied as I drew myself up.
Yet, it would be taking quite a chance itself, springing at me, up there, bringing itself into range.
“I think you are bluffing,” I said. “I’m coming up.”
I tightened my grip on the upright.
A thought came into my mind then, of the sort that seldom entered there: =What if you fall?=
I hesitated-it was such a novel notion-an idea one simply does not entertain. Of course I was aware that it could occur. It had happened to me a number of times, with varying results. It is not the sort of thing one dwells on to the point of preoccupation, however.
=Still, it is a long way down. Do you ever wonder what your final thought will be, just before the lights go out?=
I suppose that everyone has, at some time or other, for a moment or so. It is hardly worth prolonged cerebration, however, and would probably be classifiable as a symptom of something that ought to be sacrificed on the smudgy altar of mental health. But …
=Look down. How far? How great a distance? What does it feel like to fall? Is there a tingling in your wrists, hands, feet, ankles?=
Of course. But again-
Vertigo! It swept over me. Wave upon wave. A thing I had never before experienced with such intensity.