Saturday, November 15, 2008

Falling

The world was falling.
This didn't see quite right. He opened his eyes.
Ok, so the world wasn't falling. He was falling.
This didn't seem quite right either.
The ocean below him seemed quite small still, so he had a ways to go. He looked back up. Nothing. He'd fallen out of nowhere.
Nothing seemed quite right today.
He looked all around him. Hello cloud, hello other cloud. Nothing else around. He looked back down.
The ocean was still very far away.
He stretched, then gathered up his hair and stuffed it in his collar. Nothing worse than hair getting in your face when you're falling to your death.
It momentarily occurred to him that he shouldn't be this calm about falling out of nowhere to his death. He considered panicking, then decided against it. It couldn't do him much good, and besides, it was a pleasant day today, if you discount the wind. No sense in ruining it. He looked down again.
The ocean didn't seem to be getting any closer. Probably because it was just so big.
Maybe this was a dream. Yeah, that must be it. He was having the flying dream again, and he'd wake up right before he hit.
If he ever hit. The ocean needed to hurry up and get here.
But he didn't remember the flying dream being quite so... cold. Or windy.
No matter. Clearly, he was dreaming. Which totally explained the lack of panicking. And how and why exactly he was falling.
He flapped his arms experimentally. No, he couldn't fly. No matter, it was just a dream. Too bad; he'd always wanted to fly.
He looked back down and wondered, momentarily, why the ocean was still an ocean. If this were a dream, it should logically have turned into lemon pudding by now. But no. Still water, still big, still very far away. How high up was he, anyway?
It pleased him that the ocean was getting a little closer. He rubbed his ears. Dreams shouldn't be so cold. He decided that as long as he was here, he might as well have fun with it, so he twisted around in midair until he appeared to be seated.
At that point, he began going through the motions of having a tea party.
Abe Lincoln stared at him. “You should be panicking,” he said over a cup of earl grey.
He nodded politely, and his mind's version of Abe Lincoln pulled the parachute cord and vanished.
He wondered why Abe Lincoln hadn't seemed quite himself today. He'd had to work much harder to bring him to the tea party.
He looked back down. The ocean was getting closer fast. He said goodbye to his imaginary tea party, gave the tiger a hug and waved goodbye as he drove away, and then turned his attention back to falling. Yes, he should be hitting the ground within a minute. Or the water, either way.
So he'd be waking up.
He stared down at the ocean calmly and politely, arms outstretched. It briefly flashed into his mind that he was going to do a bellyflop, and it would hurt like nothing else, so he pulled himself into a swan dive and waited.
He'd be waking up any minute now.
Any minute now.
Any...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

...That was equal parts entertaining and genuinely scary.

The ending sold it. Poor crazy guy.

And lots of "wait, but what about...", which is always lots of fun (especially for you).