The first time I viewed the world from nine stories
up was due to circumstances beyond my control. The
professor had not yet arrived, and there was nothing
on that floor of Ballantine Hall but offices.
And a window by the stairwell. I leaned into the corner
and looked out at the snow-covered roofs, just as a
drift dislodged itself from the shingles and slid like
a sheet to the ground below.
I looked at these massive buildings of stone, every
brick carefully measured, perfectly molded. And then
I watched the makers: very small bipedal creatures that
swayed their bodies ever so slightly from side to side
as they walked, a motion imperceptible to them but very
obvious to me looking down from above. Their every
movement was fluid before my eyes, their steps so regular, but to themselves they may have seemed clumsy, or perhaps
wholly unremarkable.
Muddy, slush-filled drives and access roads appeared as
elegant brown paths, fading slightly at the edges. Cars
moved like dancers, silent to me on the ninth floor. They
pulled into parking spaces like hands going into gloves,
but pulled out again or stopped in mid-park. I was amazed--they had so much room, no danger of colliding with anything
at all, but I knew the drivers' perception was shouting "too close, too close." Inside the cars they felt
cramped and clumsy, but from my vantage their movements
were smooth as silk.
All this amazed me. And then I marvelled at the beautiful Order, and thought: they all should see their world from
a ninth story window.