Suicide at the Towers

How I loathe to write this post but I feel I have to.

I was awoken this morning at 8.15. "Who is it?" I said as I walked towards the door.
"The police."
What now? I thought.
"There's been a serious incident," said the copper. "We need to know if you saw or heard anything in the early hours of this morning."
"No I didn't. Has there been a death?"
"Yes."

A man with grey hair, said to be in his 50's jumped from the 8th floor of Papier Mache Towers. I say jumped, you can't push someone off that balcony and had he been thrown, someone on that floor would have heard something.

I walked around in circles for a bit, unable to find Nico Teen sitting on the table infront of me. Found it, shaky hands rolling. Made a cup of tea.

I went outside. My neighbours were there. We looked over the balcony. A swarm of police officers, two cop cars, one police van, an ambulance and a white tent with the letters OK on it. OK? A dead man beneath it? My eyes focussed QK. QK written on three panels.

Apparantly there was a jacket with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in the pockets, which is how they knew the 8th floor was his platform.

"My nerves are shot to pieces," said my neighbour, she who had the dead man living above her for two weeks before he was found.

None of us know if he was a resident. We all keep ourselves to ourselves so even for the old timers it can take some time to identify anyone new. Perhaps he came from outside and figured it was an ideal place to leap away from his problems.

On a beautiful morning such as today, he would have seen the city to his right and Hampstead Heath to his left. Blue sky and green, green, green. He leapt between 6.45 and 7am onto cold, hard, concrete. A son came home and saw nothing, his dad went out to walk the dogs.

As soon as we were allowed to leave the block, I grabbed my swim stuff and headed straight to the pond meadows.

I didn't want to come home but when I did, flowers had been laid. My neighbour was sitting outside her flat. "I haven't moved all day." The police finally left at 3.30 she said. She saw the body. Even under covers, rigamortis had set in and she could see the outline of the man's bent arm and leg, the position he landed in.

It's shaken up the entire block. I don't know what energy is around here at the moment. So many deaths recently. I didn't tell you our resident alchy got run over a week ago. A couple of years ago a mum's kids got taken into care after she hung one of them over the balcony. Would she have let him go if the caretaker back then hadn't seen the incident and gone up to talk to her?

I'm labelling it under Crime because taking your life is the most tragic crime of all. Putting it under housing too. I'm glad my son wasn't here. How do you justify any of this to a child?

Rest in Peace Mr Man Who Could Take No More. I'm sorry you had no-one to talk to, no-one to stop you.

I so wish Pearl Jam didn't follow this post but I have to honour Mr Man's life and do so by mentioning him.