My eyes were burning with the strain of trying to see the form of my friend who lay gasping on the floor under the stairs where she had fallen after trying to ride the rails of the escalator from the top of the tallest building in the city -- even though I had told her to not do it because, not only was she afraid of heights, but so was I—to the bottom but had fallen midway down, her body torpedoing through space like a human missile to the polished marble floor below, making the sound of exploding flesh and grinding bones and startling the unsuspecting mass of people who milled below never suspecting that they would witness a bizarre string of events as emergency personnel rushed to the scene as though they had been on high alert for such foolish, dangerous antics from a couple of teens who really had spontaneously come up with the idea to ride the world’s tallest escalator like a giant slide – again I must remind you that my friend was the daredevil and I was merely the observer with the common sense and soul-deep fear of heights and anything that remotely hinted at death who had warned her, threatened her, pleaded with her to not get on the escalator especially seeing that she was wearing loose over-sized clothing with flowing sleeves and tassels (I mean really who dresses like a psychedelic gypsy unless they are attending a costume party for social rejects – I digress) that got caught in the side gap of the escalators where the walls met the moving stairs as she tried to recover her phone which dropped as she was trying to take a selfie while telling me to rush down a few feet so I could get a live action shot, which I did, not of her gliding like a graceful hippy angel – her words again – but of her flailing like a cartoon duck cartwheeling through the air after being the unfortunate one among the flock to be the target hit by the hunter, and after making contact with the marble floor now a splattered duck surrounded by horrified people, screaming children, and a team of emergency responders who frantically tried to cordon off the area where my friend lay to keep people from slipping and sliding in the goo of her body while also assessing whether my friend was still alive – surprisingly, I heard them say they had found a pulse, which added fuel to my feet as I raced like an Olympic skier down a snow-covered mountain – oh my goodness, who knew that escalators had so many stairs – to reach the side of my friend as I screamed “I’m with her, and I saw everything,” which gained the attention of one of the emergency team members, who looked up, and as we made eye contact, recognition and awareness flooded through my veins, because there before me was my first love, my only love, who had disappeared without a trace or explanation after one magnificent night of our declaring undying love on the night of our senior prom, and there she stood, awash in the blood of my friend and her awareness of me, before moving with lightning speed to the bottom of the escalator as I made my final descent, where we met in a passionate embrace, she covered with the blood of my friend and I soaked in the benediction of my heart soaring in the embrace of remembered love, true love.