media Apt phrasing

Posted August 2, 2006 • Comments Off on Apt phrasing

I’m listening to a short story I got as a surprise through a rarely updated podcast. The story itself isn’t really something I can relate to, and the recording isn’t up to the standards I’m used to with audiobooks, but it has this one thing in it that blows me away.

The story is told in first person. The main character has been taken by a friend to a rooftop, and she’s standing there in the doorway, terrified to let go of the frame, while her friend walks easily onto the peak of the slanted roof. She can’t move. And she thinks this great thing that shows that someone, this author if no one else, completely understands my fear of precipices, the way a high edge pulls at me and makes me afraid.

“I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t already fallen.”