They were obviously giving a large party, exactly the kind that Marta dreamed of ever since she was a child. Heaven help her if she missed it. Down there opportunity was waiting for her, fate, romance, the true inauguration of her life. Would she arrive in time?
She spitefully noticed that another girl was falling about thirty meters above her. She was decidedly prettier than Marta and she wore a rather classy evening gown. For some unknown reason she came down much faster than Marta, so that in a few moments she passed by her and disappeared below, even though Marta was calling her. Without doubt she would get to the party before Marta; perhaps she had a plan all worked out to supplant her.
Then she realized that they weren’t alone. Along the sides of the skyscraper many other young women were plunging downward, their faces taut with the excitement of the flight, their hands cheerfully waving as if to say: look at us, here we are, entertain us, is not the world ours?
Dino Buzzati, “The Falling Girl” (viamerelyhumanbeing)
The focus of my fiction has often been young women. Most of my early stories featured them. There could be a number of reasons, from seeking to understand them for my own purposes to my protective nature forcing itself upon my creativity. Mostly, though, I want to see these young women get through an ordeal. I see so many of them corralled into spheres of anxiety and self-doubt that does nothing for them besides make their youth and their lives thereafter unnecessarily difficult.