Falling

In 5 seconds, I'm going to die.

They say falling is like floating, but it's not. It's like falling. I don't understand why things have to be like other things. Aren't they enough on their own? Can't they stand on their own feet? Or, if unattended by associations would they lose their bearings and plummet to their demise, as I am doing? There's a thrill to it, a moment of exhilaration that's here now but soon to pass. The cruelty of what that means hasn't occurred to me yet. I'm still a child, flirting with the edge of the diving board. I'm a teenager, immolating in the warmth of my first kiss. Mortality hasn't yet knocked on the door of my conscious awareness. But no clever simile will save me from its arrival. For now I'm simply falling, and there's more weight in that word than any substitute could carry. Falling behind, falling into place, falling short, falling apart, falling victim, falling on deaf ears. We only fall so we can get back up again. Except, when you do it right, there's no going back.

Four seconds to go. One slipped away when it thought I wasn't looking, a fair-weather friend fleeing now that things are getting serious. We hadn't known each other long, but the betrayal stings all the same. Only four left. They'll betray me too, in time.

The wind screams in my ear so loud I can't hear if I'm screaming back. Maybe I'm silent. After all, the danger doesn't feel real yet. Everything's so distant. The ground. The sky. The fear. Suddenly I want to outrun them all, but I was never that fast. I fight the realization of the situation as if by killing it, I could somehow save myself. They say wolves gnaw off their arms to get out of traps, but my teeth aren't sharp enough to cut gravity. My guts begin to roil and I want to curse, to vomit vitriol until it blisters my lips. I want to cry out , "This isn't fair!" But my rage is caught behind the traffic of breath stalled in my throat. I bite my tongue just to have something to spite. It's an impotent defiance wasted on an uncaring world. My last meal will taste like my own blood.

In all my anger, I drive another second away. It leaves, quietly sobbing, and I realize too late I don't want it to go. Its absence is more than I can bear, but no amount of pleading can bring it back. I beg the ones that linger not to abandon me. I promise anything, everything, and, for the moment, I actually mean it. And still, just three remain to help me await the end.

That's when it hits me. Not the ground, but that's coming. No, it's the stark realization. I'm going to die. I look back, confused, and can't remember why I stepped off the ledge. It's ridiculous now, like a joke I hear myself telling. But nobody's laughing. I'm falling. Falling ill, falling sway, falling to pieces, falling flat. I'm a falling star who, bereft of the levity of wishes, aims to shatter it's luminescence upon the horizon. If hope were glittering coins, I'd cast them twinkling into the sky and trace constellations within their arcs. But silence finds me a pauper, with merciless holes cut in my pockets Robbed of my faith in mortality, why would I put my hopes in something so agnostic as infinity? God, I wish I could take back all the hurtful things. That I could weave forgiveness into wings and fly away from this mistake. But when a mother bird throws her young from the nest, desperately hoping for them to fly, there are always some that don't make it. I hit terminal velocity long before I decided to jump.

Another second averts its gaze. It doesn't have the stomach for what comes next. Tongue tide, caught helplessly in the morbid propulsion of my trajectory, only two refuse to give up their vigil.

Time's going so slow now, stretching out ahead of me while the distance I have left shrinks away. The hands of the clock kneed the corners of my perception until it's stretched so thin that any more would tear it to pieces. They're trying so desperately to pull me back from the brink, but they are too weak to arrest the momentum of consequence. I hate them for their efforts, and hate myself all the more for whatever they think they see in me that's worth saving. I silently cackle in the flickering light of burning bridges, anointing my forehead with the ashes of my self worth. My heart is an hourglass whose sands comply with gleeful suicide. My happiest thought is that when I reach the ground, I'll make a snow angel. Except, instead, it'll be a livid, red Rorschach test of my last moment. What will they see when all my secrets are laid bare? Will they finally see my pain? The pain they caused? The pain I caused? Will it matter anymore? An apology at a funeral has no audience. It's just something you say to fill the empty spaces that are left behind.

One...

Here it is. My final second. Why did I waste so many of them trying to buy a life I didn't even want? If you make a wish with the last coin in your pocket, it's suppose to come true, isn't it? I hold this moment within a heartbeat, squeezing it close so there are no regrets. My lips finally find the beginning of a prayer. Stupidly, once I begin I realize I have nothing left to say. I don't want anything anymore. I've fallen through the door of all life's despairs and find myself, miraculously, unblemished by the stain of sorrow. The thought of more time means less to me now than the memory of all the time I've idled away. I loosen my grip on the moment and let it slip through my fingers, sailing into forever. I sigh, kissing the earth with the familiarity of an old lover. Here it is. I'm falling. Falling free. Falling in love. Falling away. Fa...