Down

By -
  She could feel the tightness in her gut. In her shoulders. In her hands and cramping in her legs. She raised her head to the sky. Breathe in. Send your breath flying back up. Fling it against the highest stuff. It was cold, so she could see her breath pluming, too slow to go far. 

She breathed out again, slow, expecting the cloud this time. She looked down. It was steep. Almost a sheer drop. It would be absolute insanity to run down it. Suicidal. 

She breathed in, rib cage trembling on the inhale, then steady on the exhale. The smooth side of a building streaming down. Sheer chrome, nothing but lights below. Every muscle in her body was taut and twitching, and it was not because she was here. She was alive. She had life? To possess. She was living? To do. To do stuff in time. To move. 

She was relaxed. And every muscle in her body was twitching.

It was a very steep drop. 

Breathe. Quick. Up hair, over helmet. 

Down. 

All she could see was the road. One singular shining line of chrome that she could only drive. She hunched, she breathed, she would grin if she weren't so completely focused on the single, shining road in front. It would broaden. She arched forward, uncrunching her shoulders, straight, tall as she could be with control over her feet. She wasn't chasing speed. She didn't need to. 

She felt no cold, she felt no wind. Her clothes and helmet wouldn't let her. She could feel the force of it though. There were two forces. One tugged her down down down at a speed she did not control, and it was the master of the other. She could feel the other force tugging at her arms, urging her off the path, into the air, up to meet all the breath she'd breathed at the top. It was weak. 

One of her feet started to lift and she tilted her body to respond. This was a position for speed, but it kept both feet on the road. 

Ground. Test. 

Below her was a small, circular, orange gateway drawn on the top of a bridge. It would be the size of two doors if she were on the ground, but she wasn't on the ground. She was above it, and very fast. 

She would only pass if she came this way. And only if she came fast, he said. He said. 

Her muscles still twitched inside her, and she still had no thoughts and roiling emotions about suicide. She would have either ground her teeth or grinned maniacally, if she had had more than no time. 

She fixed on the circle.

Down.

Her heart pounded a single explosion against her chest. 

In. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Hotel at the Top of the Mountain

By -
   Erraline sat at her balcony looking out at the pearly sky and snowy peaks that surrounded her. Dove-gray clouds softened the stark black and white mountains that ringed the hotel on all sides.    This was her favorite space in her rooms, out here alone with the open sky and cold mountains. Being with them made all her frustrations seem very temporary, they cleared her thoughts and made her feel like something would come, something might change.    "Erraline?"    A voice wafted out from inside, and Erraline sighed. She lifted her head and enjoyed the wind against her face a moment more, skirts ruffling against her legs, stray hairs wafting away from her neatly done hair.    The balcony door opened with a chuk  and Erraline turned away from the wind.    "Erraline? There you are, it's time to begin your lessons."    Erraline followed Madame Oyena into the little library that served as her schoolroom. ...
Read more

Dino Boy: Not Like the Cemetery

By -
  Rex could feel the death in the dirt.  It wasn’t cemetery death, cemetery death was neat and ordered. Bones that belonged to the same bodies were buried together in chosen plots, in their own special places, arranged the same way they’d been arranged in life.  The bones here weren’t like that, they hadn't been cared for. They 'd been jumbled up and mixed together and then rattled carelessly down into the ground like trash. And it wasn't just the bones here. He had always been able to feel the bones, to feel the last ruins of living bodies under the soil. He'd always been able to feel that. The blood was new. And dark.  There was anger in the blood, wrongness, a rage that made it cling. And it bubbled . He could feel it coming up from the earth, screaming through his veins, boiling through his blood and into his brain in a raging, roiling blackness roaring injustice- He gasped as his knees hit the dirt.  He breathed in in deep, heaving gulps and pushed himself ...
Read more

Spirit on a Wire

By -
     The city people say a spirit walks their wires.      The lonely people are the ones who know him the best. From a balcony, from the street, they see a pair of red and black sneakers pace the power lines, the figure above them hidden beneath baggy clothes and a deep hood. You can see his ankles, they say, confirmation that it is in fact the figure of a man walking the space between the telephone poles, only a single black line between him and falling. They never see his face. They only see his back, see his arm, see a collar and a deep shadow.     The lonely people love him like one of their own, and the other people love him as their protector.      He has an iron grip they say, and feet that walk the air like the steps on a fire escape. He needs no weapon for the men in the alleys.       There are stories, you see, stories of old women and young women, stories of beaten men who saw the gray shadow appear be...
Read more