Last Saturday, a woman from the 14th floor of my apartment block ended her life, jumping from her balcony in the early morning. I never knew her. She was simply another resident, a stranger to me. I live on the third floor, far below. As far as I know, our paths never crossed, though we might have shared the lobby or an elevator at some point.
When I woke up that morning, everything felt ordinary. I didn’t know the police and ambulance were already outside. A neighbor later told us he had been taking a cigarette break on his balcony when he heard a loud crash. At first, he thought it was a car accident. Only when he looked down did he realize what had happened. She had jumped just before dawn and landed on her parking bay. Security was called, then the police. People began gathering at their windows, looking down in silence. A few drifted into the lobby, but most didn’t stay long. I only learned about it when my husband went out to buy breakfast and saw the body already covered on the ground.
My husband spoke with the security guard, as he always does when something unusual occurs. The guard told him she was in her late forties, divorced, and living alone. She had left a note, labeled her belongings, moved her car to another spot, cleaned her apartment, and paid her bills. She had meticulously planned every detail. No one was left wondering about her intentions.
The police left quietly. Cleaners came later to wash the area, but her parking bay remained cordoned off for a while. A faint stain lingered on the ground, noticeable if you happened to look down. By Monday, life in the building had largely returned to normal. Neighbors went about their daily routine, children ran through the corridors, and doors opened and closed as they always did.
I found myself thinking about her more than I expected. I wondered if I had ever seen her in the lobby or the car park or heard her door close above mine, though that seemed unlikely. She lived fourteen floors up, always out of reach, a life carried overhead, distant yet close enough for her absence to register. In buildings like this, you share an address with dozens of strangers, known not by name but by unit numbers on mailboxes or passing shadows in stairwells.
I didn’t feel grief, exactly. There was no surge of sadness, no urge to gather people or speak about it aloud. What I felt instead was a pause and lingering awareness of the space she left behind. Life continued as usual, but for a while I noticed the silence and somberness that settled over the building.
I pictured her last days in fragments: the careful way she arranged her affairs, her decision to land where no one would witness it by chance. There was a precision to the ending, free of drama and leaving little for others to clean up beyond what could not be helped.
Now the parking bay is just another space again. The tape is gone, the surface washed, and the usual comings and goings have resumed. I wonder whether her family will put up her unit for sale or rent. Sometimes at night, when the building is quiet and I hear the faint shifting of furniture from above, I remember her, someone I never knew, living her life high above mine until one morning she was gone.
There is no lesson here, only the fact of it. Her life ran parallel to mine, a story I never read. Now a small gap remains where she once was, and the rest of us keep living under the same roof, carrying on.
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