Author's Note- Every once in a while, I am hit by a story which insists of being written. This is one of those stories. I wrote this one a few weeks ago and questioned whether or not to post it, but as another aniversery of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire approaches I thought it would be a good time to put it up.
Disclaimer- Some people may find this story disturbing, but others, in a way, may find it comforting. Also Hetalia is owned by Hidekaz Himaruya, New York and New York City is owned by itself…
Falling
New York didn't remember the first day that he looked to sky and dreamed of reaching it. Not by building wings and taking flight, but instead by building structures that would soar high enough to touch the clouds. When buildings that stretched four, five, or even six stories into the sky began to appear in London and Chicago, it was only a matter of time before such buildings began to also appear in the New York City skyline.
New York never feared skyscrapers the way that so many of his fellow states did. He didn't worry about plummeting downward in a damaged elevator because elevator technology had been improved so much in recent years. He didn't worry that building was going to fall down, because most of his early skyscrapers had been strong stone structures and the later metal ones had lived through hurricanes before they were even completed. No, New York didn't his skyscrapers, but living and working so high above the ground did lead to his deepest darkest fear.
The first time that New York discovered the thing that would forever haunt his nightmares; he was strolling through Greenwich Village on a late Saturday afternoon. It was nearing the end of the workweek so the streets were more filled than usual, but other than that there was nothing out of the ordinary. That was until the state noticed that the March air smelled odd. Then there was a crowd of tense upset people gathering in front of him. When he looked up at the industrial skyscraper that stretched in front of him, New York understood why everyone had gathered. The Asch Building was on fire.
From the birth of the first city at the dawn of civilization, fire had always been a terrifying danger. The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory had brought a completely new level to that fear. Now as the crowd of people gathered at the foot of the building they were forced to watch as over a hundred faces stared at them from the ninth floor.
Then the rain of bodies began. The first to jump was a man, but he was followed by a steady stream of others. The firefighters did their best to save them, but to their current technology didn't give them anything meaningful to save those haunted eyed working girls. By the end the civil servants hands were torn and bloody, but they never stopped picking up their nets. Every time another person slammed into the pavements the men stepped over the dead or dying body to try to give the next person in the seemingly endless tide of death a slight glimmer of hope.
By the end women were fainting in the streets and men were openly weeping. The last to fall from the windows were girls who were already on fire. Their hair and petticoats painted red, yellow, orange, and blue with flame. Their screams of pain and terror worse than cries heard on the battle front. New York watched as these human torches fell to the ground…powerless to help…powerless to look away.
Still as painful as that image was, it was difficult for New York to understand which memory would haunt him most. Was it the first who fall, the ones who were still full of hope that they might survive; was the ones who jumped at the very last moment knowing full well they were beyond saving; or was it the faces in the window who never stepped into thin air. The ones he watched as the flames surrounded them, swallowing them…
Through the decades the recollection of that March afternoon had helped to define him. The City of New York continued to grow skyward, but as it did the state learned how to fight fire hundreds of feet above the ground. His actions seemed to be making a positive impact. There were still fires, but far fewer people perished as a result of them. People still stepped into thin air, but most of those cases were due to depression or too much alcohol. It was still tragic, but the events didn't eat away at his soul in the same way. New York had begun to come to terms with his demons…until another fire swept through two broken towers 90 years after the Triangle Fire.
The fire in the Twin Towers was not an accident and the number of people who were trapped was in the thousands, but in all the ways that mattered history had repeated itself. From his vantage point in South Manhattan New York could easily see the columns of black smoke soaring into the sky that day. He remembered how the major networks had broadcast pictures of desperate people hanging halfway out of broken windows trying to get a few gasps of fresh air.
The commentators only had the heart to show half of the story. They had shown people trapped in limbo. The people, who at the time America believed still might have the chance to be rescued, to survive. They never show the images of those who left their precarious perches in the sky. Instead, the men and women on the television tried to describe of the horrors of the burning building in words. For New York their words had been punctuated by echo in his soul when yet another life had impacted against cold hard cement.
The rest of America never had the stomach to truly acknowledge the fact that the jumpers existed, but New York can never forget. While the rest of the nation chooses to memorialize pictures of smoke crowned towers or exhausted firefighters, in private New York looks at a very different set of pictures. He looks at people falling because it reminds him of the danger of touching the sky. And as he stares at those photos he hopes that he will never have to face the day when the fire will be at his back and he will be forced to take a step into thin air. Because New York knows that sometimes when the only choice you have left is to burn or to fly, the last action you can take in life can be to jump and pray that God catches you.
End Note- I know that this piece was probably a hard one to read, but if you have some feedback I would love to hear it. Thanks in advance.