The View From Outside

If one looked through the picture window, they’d certainly receive a show. The screams had raised to their usual, dull, monotonous crescendo. They filled her chest with a nagging ache. The incessant noise would make one think that the urge had started in her head. Maybe even her heart or her ears. It wasn’t sudden. Her fingers. The sound had reached her fingertips. It was her fingers that could not stand to be left out in that storm alone. She flexed, trying to hide them in her palms. And the more they curled into her hand, the tighter she became. Her throat ached, and her mouth continued to unleash the symphony of destruction that her hands wished to construct. The endless sound creeped up her skin, lingering at her shoulders. It danced up her clavicle, circling her throat like a noose. And the screams built inside her lungs. Blood pounding in her ears. Bones and muscles aching to unleash the violence building inside. And her head never spoke, not even a whisper. But her heart exploded and pushed her screams out through her shaking fists. Fingers unfurled as her hands made contact with his chest. Her body threw itself into his. His back hit the tv, and his foot caught on the mess of cords on the ground. And as he failed to untangle himself his body tipped end over end. His face forced its way through the floor to ceiling glass. Glistening, sharp edges tearing at his skin. His body tipping. End over end. And though it all happened at once, it started in his fingertips. His body tipping end over end. Releasing panic in crashing waves. And his hands made fervent grabs for anything within reach. His fingers finally catching in the knot of electrical cords. And as he rolled through the air, the tv followed. His right limbs made contact with the pavement first. Bones broke and skin ruptured. Blood soaked through his clothes and slowly pooled around his head. His fingers twitched as the last bits of oxygen drained. The tv swung, a pendulum that held her gaze more completely than the pile of man on the concrete. The cord-end caught on the window ledge. The back and forth tension pulled incessantly, fraying the wires as it went. And it started in her fingertips. Her palms itched to push those wires as far as they could stand. And as the urge overcame reason, her hands closed around the cord. She swung hard. And the tv, an acrobat, muscles and tendons spent, could take no more. It broke free, tipping end over end. The cord whipping around, tying an expert knot. Tipping end over end, meeting a soft landing of skin and muscle and bone. And it started in her fingertips.