She saw him from her window on the sixth floor, not that high up, but high enough to call her view a view of more than the back side of other condos, but, still, not impressively high.
I love living in the trees," she often said, almost apologetically, but it was true. She was at the height of bird's nests, nesting squirrels, in the leaves, almost shielded from the street below, but still she could watch people hurrying past, cloaked against the cold in winter, scantily dressed in summer, her too high to be noticed and the people below, paper dolls, as if she were the giant on the hill that she'd once pretended to be, the giant who could reach down and rearrange them at will.
Which made her laugh to think about and that, in her wisdom, or should we say, sanity, she never tried to do.
So, she was a watcher, an observer, a person who noticed things, and what she noticed now, what she was watching, was a man walking slowly . . . well, at least slower than most . . . walking with a slight limp as if something were broken--a toe, twisted ankle, maybe a congenital limp, too far away to know, but noticeable.
Then he fell. Just walking along normally, well, semi-normally, with a limp, but walking and then he was lying on the ground, not moving, alone, nobody near enough to help.
She called out, "Are you alright?"
Too far away to be heard.
Panic! What should she do?
Call 911? Was that necessary? Maybe he'd get up, but he wasn't getting up. "Don't overthink it," she yelled, "Find the phone!"
By the time she was back at the window, hands shaking, mis-dialing 911, there was a crowd gathered around the man, who now appeared to be sitting up--or propped up--supported by two people--men? women? strangers? She couldn't tell, but the goodness of the world, the blessed instinct of the stranger was unfolding right there in her view from the sixth floor.
She had done nothing, but somebody did. Somebody did, and that was all that mattered.
