falling

i’m falling.

in my dream, i’m falling and i don’t really know why. i can tell you that it’s over the ocean, specifically the atlantic. somewhere between boston and london, and the sky’s not really bright, but not really dark. it’s daytime, and the water is definitely blue – that dark forbidding blue that it often is when you go to the beach too early in the spring.

i’m falling and the wind is tearing up my ears, i can barely hear anything but it doesn’t matter. my eyes fall into focus and i see a lump of black below me, falling almost in sync. we are falling in sync, as if tied by a string – an umbilical of love that binds me to that mass of black, shocked and flickering that strobe.

streamline. hands by my side, i become an arrow. no longer falling, but flying towards my blue planet. she is there, ahead of me – as i pull her near me, the umbilical growing tighter.

i check my watch, not for the time, but for my death. there’s still air to burn, altitude to lose. i fly without wings and i seek my prey. as i draw near, i re-sync. my body spreads out, and my limbs extend like a star. now i move closer and closer, our bodies inch towards each other.

caught! i grab her from behind, my arms move quickly to grab her waist. we are enjoined at the hip, as i move my other arm quickly, behind my back, release and grab. she struggles to look at me, but i keep her turned away, frustrating us both. but i know something she doesn’t.

i unclasp the belts holding fast the pack to her back, and i let it fly loose. it floats in the space above us. i quickly fasten my own pack to her, keeping her firm, unable to resist. i check my watch again. almost zero hour. i check all the fastenings, and i double check the safety release. all systems go.

by now, she’s realized what i’ve done, my treachery. she wouldn’t understand, it’s too great a risk. i catch one final whiff of her hair, a quick taste of her neck. i pull the chord.

release! she shoots upward as her chute – my chute – opens. i struggle to look up, to catch her eye. she glares at me, threatens me, but knows that it’s done. in my mind i blow her a kiss, and for the rest of my flight, my mind is blank, utterly black and devoid of anything. the unfolded heart beckons to its petals one by one, and all are drawn in.

i hit the water, and am instantly asleep, never to wake again in this world. my corporeal self sinks – down down down, its very fabric shattered. i see myself, but am drawn upward, again towards the bundle of black. my black bundle floats downward, carried by a canopy of red. red for my blood that i gave to her. through the water i float up, to see her land in the water. she sheds the second skin, and waits for the help on its way. she looks at my old self, and i know what she feels because i feel it too, as i’m pulled up and away. just a second longer, just a second glance. i watch as she swims over to my old self. i can no longer cry as i am lifted above into light, carried away from this world and its pain.

and then i am awake.

each night, i’m falling, and each night i choose my death over her’s. each morning i awake – i shudder as i begin my day. something within me knows the simple truth, the test. i know that the night i choose her death before mine is the night’s sleep from which i never awake. the final test of the chord that joins her to me. when i awake in bed, i see her in my mind – swimming over to my shattered body, a single point in an infinite ocean.

stranded in that boundless ocean, but drowned by her own tears.