If the ball bounces off one of those slats 'n comes back to me, I'll stay up here a while 'n then walk down. If the ball bounces through the slats into that breathtaking space, then I'll follow it.

She was sitting on a high building, the perimeter of its roof surrounded by a slatted fence. The fence was made of wood railings and wooden slats, painted sky blue, about six inches wide. Between the slats was about four inches of space. Alternately, there was six inches of wood, four inches of space, six inches of wood, four inches of space. She was holding a blue rubber ball in her left hand. Occasionally, she would bounce the ball to her left, off the wall perpendicular to where she sat, her back against a silver heating duct. She was looking straight out in front of her, through the wooden slats to the space, the wide open space, beyond. She wanted to fly in that space, wanted to cut through it like the pigeons' wings she watched slice by in front of her, mere feet away. She knew that she couldn't, but it didn't stop the desire to want it. To be able to bank and dive and swirl through that space would be ecstasy, pure joy. Thinking, she bounced the blue ball against the wall; it glanced to the right off a pebble and through the slats.

She rose, smiling joyfully and spreading her arms.