Thirty-Two Floors Up

Text 1: The Cradle, by Josh Pellow

An original short story extract.

At seven in the morning, thirty-two floors above the city, Mick clipped his harness to the cradle and stepped out into the sky. The platform swung under him, just a little, like a hammock in a breeze. Below, the streets were a grid of grey lines, and the buses crawling along them were red beads on a string. Most people would have felt sick. Mick felt awake.

The wind up here had a mind of its own. It came round the corner of the tower in sudden shoves, slapping his jacket against his ribs and snatching the water from his squeegee in glittering threads. Mick braced his knees and kept working. Wet, wipe, flick. Wet, wipe, flick. He had done this for twenty years, and his arms moved without being told.

On the other side of the glass, the office was waking up. A woman in a grey suit sat down at her desk with a coffee, looked up, and saw him. She jumped so hard she spilled it. Mick grinned and gave her a little wave, and after a moment she laughed and waved back. Then he lowered the cradle a floor, and she slid up and out of sight, and there was only the glass again, and his own reflection floating in it, and behind him the whole wide shining city, laid out like a gift that nobody else had thought to open.

How does Josh Pellow use language and structure to show the danger and the freedom of Mick’s job?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.