Come With Me

There was one last gas station before the edge went on forever down the side of the earth's flat planet simulation. The gas station, Nova’s Quick Stop. Chucho Churchill worked there and did an excellent job ringing up customers who wanted decent souvenirs and replacing the coffee pots with fresh coffee and sometimes even putting gas in people’s cars.

Only one time had anyone ever driven over the edge. The car had been carrying a family, and the father had lost his mind. It was in the newspapers. Man Drives Family Off the Edge of The Earth to No Avail. It was a bit of Edge of the World propaganda but who really knew what the official narrative was?

The important thing was that the Edge of the Earth, while being a tourist attraction, had been forgotten by time and by people. No one wanted to make the drive to see it anymore. It was good enough that it existed at all. It had been uncovered by an award-winning scientist in the late 21st century. After a water crisis and a serious excavation enterprise by the state combined with a private sector development group, the edge of the earth was discovered at last. At first, everyone wanted to see it.

There was a dusty road that led out to the edge. There was a lookout and a tall fence erected at the overlook point. It was hard to see it from the overlook point of view. You had to appreciate the spectacular views of the edge running down the side of the earth in a stream of rainbow colors like paint dripping from the side of a table or down a blank white canvas. It was like a river of earth, a river of streams, the orange of the dusty ground, the blue of the water, the green of the grassland. All of it cascading down a vertical edge and going on forever. Satellites tried to capture the views from off the edge in outer space once the right combination of science and technology had exposed the edge of the earth.

It seemed like anyone who ever might want to try and see the edge or just plain be there at its origins, had come and gone. No one was interested in the edge of the earth anymore. Every once in a while, someone might stage a protest or a rally nearby to gain the national attention, but it was largely ignored in the news.

The edge of the earth faded in the national interest and imagination into a forgotten wasteland in the desert among the tumbleweeds and the yellow teddy bear chollas. There were all manner of wildflowers, cactuses, pine trees, and other wild animals in the area. There was a river that ran to the edge and then dropped off the side of the planet. Strangely, there were no fish in the river water. It was mostly discovered to be a digital stream full of pixels and terabytes. The stars still shone in the black night sky off the coast of the edge. The scientists thought that they might discover two edges, which would make sense, they thought. But there was only the one. The other side of the earth was round like a globe. It made little sense to some and after a while made sense to everyone for it was one of those obvious things that happen, people recalibrate their expectations, and they move on, they grow, they change, and they accept the new reality.

Chucho Churchill always wanted to make the customers smile and be happy. He took it upon himself to be a bastion of the goodness and grace that he felt he should be embodying as someone who stood so near to the end of the earth. Although the tourism to the area had decreased drastically in recent years, there was still a trickle of tourists coming from all over the world to see the end of the earth and to peer over the edge—provided they could get close enough to see it—there were televisions in the gas station projecting the view from the satellites that hovered over the edge in a stillness as they hung in the sky.

One day a lady came into the gas station with a small shaggy grey and white dog on a hot pink leash and in a bright blue harness. Chucho watched from the corner of his eye, in a detached manner, as the lady browsed the souvenirs on the wall on one side of the store. The lady was older than Chucho by many years. She had a poof of white cotton candy hair that swirled on top of her head like a beehive hairdo from back in the sixties. Chucho was struck by the sophisticated attitude of her small dog, who pranced about like a winner of a dog show. A pure breed winner, that dog was. And the woman wore a bubblegum pink velour track suit with bright green stripes down the arms and legs. She looked comfortable and relaxed. Had she been here before? Chucho wanted to ask her, but she was browsing the souvenirs—inspecting the coffee mugs and the keychains and the shot glasses. Everything was emblazoned with the image of the end of the earth—the edge of the earth. It was that amazing right angle that cut off like a loaf of bread and then the magical colors of everything dripping out off the vertical side of it and going down forever to some infinite level or dimension—to some vanishing point that could never be seen with the naked eye.

The lady moved towards the snacks hanging on hooks and pegs and regarded them for a moment as if making some vital decision. Then she moved to the drinks in the drink case and opened the cool glass door, now foggy, and picked up a bottle of water. She held it in her hand and then closed the door of the drink case. With her other hand she held the leash aloft and the small dog pranced about sniffing at the corners of stacks of sodas in cardboard boxes arranged in a sort of display on the floor, and he sniffed at the edge of the metal fixtures holding the packages of snacks.

The lady moved slowly towards the cash register, where Chucho stepped forward to ring her up. He felt nervous and ill prepared to speak to the woman who, he thought, looked at him curiously.

How are you today? Chucho asked, while trying not to feel nervous, for that was silly, she was just another customer.

I will be honest; I am not sure how I feel about all this. But…I had to see it. Didn’t I? Could not very well turn one more year older without seeing…it. And Decha here…he wants to see it too. Or rather, he cares about what I want to do. And I want to see it. Don’t I?

Chucho was amazed by her earnest and candid nature. Most people came into the gas station and bought their snacks without saying anything at all about it. But here she was, speaking to him about the weird truth of the matter. And it was weird. Most people did not acknowledge the strangeness of the situation or that it had been hidden from them for so long. It was, Chucho decided, quite right to feel some kind of way about the whole thing. Chucho was glad that the lady was talking about her experience. If more people could speak about their experiences, people would be more united and understanding, a community could grow and find connection and a sense of belonging.

Chucho was relieved that the lady did not wish to engage in small talk or pleasantries. Here she was with her dog Decha, telling the truth about The End. Or some called it The Edge. The End or the Edge, it was interchangeable.

There were only two other customers in the store, but Chucho could only see the lady in pink and green with the shock of white hair that set off her eyes. And her eyes, now that he noticed them as he looked up at her, were almost black. Her pupils were dilated in some extreme way. Chucho could not fathom the depth of darkness in her eyes.

He almost took a step back, but he held firmly to the edge of the counter and scanned the water bottles barcode. There was a beep followed by the silence. He knew he had to say something but was struck silent by her deep black eyes. Chucho did not know what to say to the lady. He felt she was reading his mind then. He was scrolling through possible clever and witty responses.

He could say, oh you absolutely must see it! Or he could say, have you ever been here before? But he knew that was silly for she had already said that she had never been here before. Hadn’t she? He could say, well it is a tourist trap at the end of the earth. Or what was hidden has now been revealed by science and technology’s endless pursuit of new territories! Or he could say, do you want me to go with you? I can take my break now.

It seemed an eternity that the lady stood before the counter and said nothing she just looked at Chucho and smiled. Her smile was not a pit of blackness, and for that Chucho was relieved. Her smile was sparkling and clean, her perfectly straight teeth blinding white. Chucho got lost in her face as if it were the end of the earth and he had never seen it before. The lady in pink was a new planet and Chucho was the only witness and discoverer of her and she was an entirely new and uncharted territory.

The lady paid for her water bottle by passing her hand over the scanner. A small profile appeared on the computer screen. But her name was redacted.

Very strange, Chucho thought.

He had never seen a redacted name appear on a profile. The woman’s drivers license photo appeared in the tiny box on the left of the screen. And the redacted name below it. She smiled again and held up the water, said thanks, and walked away.

She looked over her shoulder as she got to the automatic doorway and Chucho watched her leave the gas stations store.

She’s certainly a visitor…his coworker, Carl said.

Chucho had not been aware of Carl standing beside him for he was consumed with gazing at the lady in pink, her sparkling black eyes investigating his very soul.

Chucho wanted to follow the woman and her dog out of the store. He thought he heard her say, Come with me.

She left the store and he could see her shape and colors receding in the distance as she got into her teal Cadillac convertible, the top down. The dogs head popped up from the passenger seat and hung over the side, windows down.

Hold on. Chucho said, and he followed the lady out of the store and walked over to her car which was parked at a pump outside.

The lady looked at Chucho and smiled and he knew what he had to do. He opened the door in the back of the car and climbed into the backseat. The seats were white leather and he slid easily into the backseat.

The woman started the car and pulled out of the parking lot onto the main road and turned left towards the End of the Earth lookout point. There was a parking lot a few miles away from the gas station and near the lookout point.

The lady parked without saying a word, but Chucho knew she could read his mind. And fortunately, he had nothing to say, nothing to think, he just wanted to go with her to see it one more time. Or to see it for the first time.

His only thought was, I want to go with you.

And he could feel the pull of her response, come with me.

By the time Chucho got out of the car and followed the lady in pink across the parking lot and over towards the fenced off lookout point, he had forgotten everything he ever knew and the other tourists had returned to their cars. His one wish and desire was to accompany the lady in pink with the small dog to the lookout point to see the End of the Earth.

They neared the lookout point and were then standing at the fence gazing in something akin to awestruck wonder—or at least that was what Chucho suddenly felt— at the edge of the earth as it dropped off the cliff and dropped down to an infinite vanishing point—all the colors of the inside of the earth dripping out and downwards into the vertical abyss. It was orange and blue, green, beige, and white and it seemed suddenly very much like a pixelated sky with high resolution airbrushed clouds hanging in the balance.

When the lady in pink turned to Chucho, she smiled and said, now I have finally seen it. It isn’t at all what I was expecting.

Chucho noticed her eyes were no longer black and he wondered if he had imagined it, conjuring up the strange image in her eyes by himself. Now her eyes were a sparkling emerald green.

When she held his hand, he felt a certainty of purpose. When she passed through the fence, he was in utter amazement at her ability to defy the laws of physics. The dog also passed through the fence. Then they were standing on the other side of the iron railing and holding onto it from the other side. Chucho climbed over it, easily.

No one ever jumped off the edge for it was commonly known that if they did, they would fall forever, and no one wanted to do that. Chucho knew that he did not know. Then he knew that the lady and her dog were not of his world. They were from a different world…a world that existed someplace else. A world of shining black irises and pupils.

When we go, we do not fall, we fly, the lady said to Chucho in his mind and he was relieved.

But he knew that he did not know how to jump off the edge. He wished to follow the lady in pink to the end of his days, and this was it—this was where his path ended. He had two choices, and neither were easy choices to make. Chucho could jump and fall, or he could jump and fly.

Decha jumped first and then as the leash flew up and the dog went over the edge, the lady followed the dog off the edge of the vertical cliff in a sort of swan dive or like a kid doing a cannon ball into a pool. In one motion she was jumping both ways.

Chucho had no time to think about the consequences. As his feet left the ground and made their way into the air of the sky he could see and feel rainbow prisms of light streaming up and down and through as he followed the lady in pink upwards and wondered why he had never come this far before. Chucho followed the lady and her dog through prisms and mirrors, through liquid glass that was cool and through a maze of white light and dazzling black space.

When he fell, he fell for the lady in pink as he tried to ascend and strongly resisted the pull of gravity that went all the way down forever. He tried to wake up in a new place. But he was stuck between levels of earth, of sky, of heaven full of choirs of angels and purgatory—that blue grey place of limbo.

He heard the lady in pink call to him in his head, come with me.

And then he could fly.