FALLING

by Bruce Holland Rogers

 

 

Jonas stood next to the Lexus, watching Sarah walk to the very edge of the Grand Canyon and wondering where this was all leading, their more and more frequent fights that always had to end with some extravagant gesture. What would it take this time, to soften the brittleness between them? Sarah sat down beyond a clump of sagebrush. All that he could see of her was the back of her head. The back of her head looked angry.

 

During one weeklong fight, they had each said colder and nastier things until suddenly Sarah had produced plane tickets. "I just quit my job. You quit yours," she said. "We're going to Spain."

 

"How can you be so irresponsible?"

 

"How can you be so tiresome?"

 

"Is this really what you want? For me to throw away my career?"

 

"I'm going. You don't have to come."

 

But he had gone. Their conversations were no friendlier for the first two days in Granada. She bitched about the hotel staff. He bitched back. Then the fight was somehow over, forgotten, and they were reasonably happy again. They went home and got other jobs. Everything was fine for a year.

 

During the next fight, he said things he regretted even as he said them. She did the same. Then he dyed his hair magenta. He handed her the bottle. "I dare you."

 

"This is stupid." But she had done it. They still said things they shouldn't have for another day. He told her she looked hideous, like a sick parrot. She said he looked like a dead parrot. Eventually, their fight melted away as the first one had.

 

They fought more frequently after that, every fight continuing until they came to some reciprocal gesture. One fight ended only after he bought her a car they couldn't afford, the Lexus, and challenged her to buy one for him, which she did. They both found things to hate about the steering, the paint colors, the way the CD players worked.

 

Now they were running out of strategies, beginning to repeat themselves. A recent fight had brought them here, to the Grand Canyon, on another trip that they kicked off by both quitting their jobs.

 

This time, the pact hadn't had time to work its spell between them before they found themselves fighting again about something new.

 

He was beginning to wonder if there were enough gestures left, if they should even bother to try. He didn't want to leave her. He didn't want to be left. But still...

 

Sarah stood up and waved him over to the canyon edge.

 

"I've been thinking," she said when he had joined her.

 

"Me too."

 

"I've been thinking that maybe I should just jump."

 

He followed her gaze out over the canyon, and down. Down, down, down.

 

"In fact," she said, "I've made up my mind. I am going to jump." She turned to face him, held out her hand. "You coming?"

 

His mouth was dry. "This is crazy."

 

"I'm going," she said. "With or without you."

 

"This isn't like Spain," he said.

 

"Fine. I've always met your challenges, you son of a bitch."

 

"You're not serious."

 

"You're about to find out how serious I am."

 

"Fine." He took her hand, looked at the edge and the void beyond. "Let's do it, then."

 

She leaned toward the emptiness, her grip tightening on his hand. He leaned with her. He barely had time to think, Do I want this? Then they were falling.

 

"This is stupid!" he shouted as the air rushed past. "We're throwing our lives away!"

 

"Yes!" she agreed. "Stupid! Idiotic! A waste! I bet I won't even like being dead!"

 

"Dead, hell!" he shouted. "I hate falling!"

 

The canyon floor was rising to meet them, but it took a long time for people to plummet so far. He noticed the way her hair streamed behind her. She was beautiful, like a comet.

 

"I can't believe you wanted to do this!" he yelled, but really, he was glad just to be with her.

 

"It should be over by now," she said. She half-smiled. "We could have taken one of those stupid mule trains and we'd be getting to the bottom faster."

 

Jonas smiled back. "Burros," he shouted. "Not mules. They use burros."

 

Her smile vanished. "You're always correcting me, you bastard!"

 

"You are so fucking critical!" he shouted back. "And at a time like this!"

 

She shouted, "No wonder we have to die!"

 

They were fighting again. Already. The cycle had grown this short.

 

"Damn it, Sarah!" That was all. He was too angry to say anything else.

 

Jonas pumped his arms up and down furiously.

 

"What are you doing?" Sarah yelled. "You look stupid."

 

"I'm going to fly. You fly, too."

 

"How can you be so naive?"

 

"How can you be so conventional?"

 

"Is this really what you want? For me to flap my arms like a bird?"

 

"I'm flying," he shouted. "You don't have to come."

 

But she flapped her arms, angrily, every bit as angrily as he flapped his arms.

 

And they flew.

 

 

 

BRUCE HOLLAND ROGERS lives and writes in Eugene, Oregon, the tie-dye capital of the world. His fiction is all over the literary map. Some of it is SF, some is fantasy, some is literary. He has written mysteries, experimental fiction, and work that's hard to label. You can visit his site: www.shortshortshort.com.