Michael's Genius Moment

Here's the opening to a short story I wrote a couple of months ago; later sections of it need the attention of a brutal and merciless editor but I thought I'd post this bit anyway. Not that I haven't got anything new to show off, of course, dear me no...

What a time to notice it was windy up here. Clasping the futile railing with white-knuckled hands, Michael wondered why he cared about the gusty chill around his ears, the leaf-blowing sibilance on the concrete behind him. His breath sounding harsh and alien, as if it had nothing to do with his body, he inched forwards and bent his head. The ground cringed away from his sight. It felt higher than eight storeys.
The crowd was already forming. They looked up, goggle-eyed and open-mouthed, like a bunch of hungry goldfish waiting for food. Someone wore a red coat, red as guilt, and the sight seared Michael’s eyeballs. His stomach contracted, and for a second he thought he was going to vomit on his audience. He swallowed desperately, and forced his focus to spread. The crowd, like extras on a movie set, took turns to deliver hackneyed lines.
‘It’s not worth it!’ A man’s voice wafted up, vague and faraway like a half-remembered dream voice.
‘It’ll be okay, mate! Just hold fire, yeah?’ Jovial Cockney tones.
Michael felt abstractly annoyed. To the Cockney, this was just something to tell his slobbering, simian mates in the pub later on. Was this really what Michael’s destiny had intended him to be, a soon-forgotten anecdote with a splintering, splattering punch line? He shifted his grip. The crowd gasped, then settled back as they saw he wasn’t jumping yet.
A shrill, female voice burst out, on cue to ratchet up the tension. ‘Oh my god! Somebody help him! He’s going to…he’s going to…’ She cut herself off with a quivering wail.
Michael didn’t need to look at the woman to know that she had half turned away, tissue to mouth, but then turned back. She couldn’t look; she couldn’t not look. Michael understood.
As he perched, listening, he felt as if hours passed, though it could only have been minutes. Why was he waiting, anyway? Just get it over with. He wondered if he would scream, if it would be a manly, throaty ‘aaaarghhh’ or a high-pitched ‘eeeeee’. Michael willed his fingers to relax, and looked at the crowd again. He made profuse mental apologies to the woman standing front and centre, knowing with detached certainty that, on impact, her shoes would be indelibly stained by gobbets of his brains. He closed his eyes, and stepped out onto air.