As Tom looked through the open window, he felt himself shudder. A part of him must have been afraid at what he was about to do, maybe it was the ground, eleven stories down, that seemed to rush into his vision and made him pause. But the other side of him, the side that was determined not to fail of lag behind in the race to the top, made him fearless and so he stepped out into the night and began inching his way to the yellow slip of paper that seemed instead of fifteen feet away, seemed three, and instead of the low, hard to reach crack that the little slip had gotten caught in, there was a high nice platform to stand on and a person to hand him his easy prize.
On the other hand, Tom's apprehensive side saw the piece of paper thirty yards away just balancing on some very fragile, old stone that was not of his apartment, had cracks spider-webbed across it, ready to break at the touch of a leaf. His two sides saw all this and put together, they formed the exact distance, how it was caught and where it was needed to be pulled. So he calculated how he needed to walk along the ridge and what the wind resistance would be, and stepped out the window in what he hoped was not the end of his life.
As Tom traversed the building, he was thinking the whole time of his lovely wife, Clare and at the same time, trying not to look down. The eleven stories that separated him from the ground was too much for him to handle and so he did not even look at his feet, he just inched towards the little paper that held his future. When he got to the piece of paper, he started to bend down, little by little, he came closer to the paper he had been risking his life for and at that moment he knew that he had too much to live for, and he could not die here, alone outside his eleventh story apartment.
While he had been thinking this, he glanced down. It was a miniscule glance where he couldn't possibly pick anything out. But it did it or Tom, and he suddenly was struck with vertigo. He stood there for a long time, just shaking and clutching the wall, paralyzed with fear and he barely had the mind power to lift his right foot and place it next to his left and then his left moved slowly towards his apartment. At that moment though, his foot slipped off the ledge, and he fell. To Tom though, it seemed like everything was slowed down and he managed to hold on to the ledge with his finger tips. First his pinky slipped. Then his ring finger, and after that only his middle finger and index finger remained. After a short period of time, all his muscles gave away and he plunged down to his death. The last thing Tom thought was "I should have gone to the movie" and then he smashed into a car and he died.