I laugh when I realize how masterfully I have set this up. I have you thinking about something that will make this even more powerful than it is by itself. Who would have known that I could be this icily cunning in my untamed madness? I have only to make one claim. This is a true story, an allegory, a tale of great importance to you and to me. A story of my life and your life, a story duplicated a million times over. A tale of…madness perhaps…or just a cycle of it.
Floating, breathless, lifeless, weightless but for the sinking pit in the stomach. Falling, desperate to cling to something. Brain signaling muscles refusing to respond. Falling, shivers, convulsions, hiccups jarring the mind free of thought or function. Falling, mind machine whirring once again. Signals, cling to something, anything, grasping nothing. Falling, tightfisted, slipping through, empty-handed. Darkness blurring with shadows moving but lifeless. Falling, clawing, plucking, grasping at nothing, breathless, lifeless, weightless, emotionless, flailing, gyrating. Falling on and on, down and down, into oblivion.
Aaron woke with a start, hitting his head on the low ceiling of his bunk. Stars wheeled around his eyes as he rubbed his cranium. A smooth lump was already beginning to form underneath his black hair, slicked back from days without tending. Aaron could smell the aroma of a feast being prepared downstairs. Pastry tarts and venison well seasoned filled the air with the scent of home. Aaron’s stomach ached and growled.
“Feed the lion,” He thought as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with both hands folded into fists.
Aaron rose to his feet delicately so as not to make his head swim from the sudden movement. He picked up his boots to stuff on his feet before making the descent to the kitchen. These boots had been his father’s and were a few sizes too big, or at least they had been yesterday. Today, it was like inserting a cow in a doghouse. Aaron’s feet just couldn’t make it into the leather no matter how he pulled and twisted.
Stubbornly hopping on his toes, Aaron managed to maneuver one foot into the unforgiving boots. The other, well, the hop was a dance that took him out of his room and into the hallway. Unconsciously drawn to the fragrance of feasting, Aaron hopped and struggled toward the waiting stairs. One misstep and…
Falling, flailing, searching for a banister or railing to grab. Finding nothing. The railing drifted away from his outstretched arms. He was twisting in midair, changing his perspective from the ground to the ceiling and back again. The ground looked so inviting. Aaron wanted to scream but the sound caught in his throat. He was falling on and on, down and down, into…
Thomas shook his head. It was like stepping out of one reality into another. He had been called Aaron once, before…he couldn’t remember. Was his memory failing him? It usually was sharper than that of the few friends he had. What time was it anyway? Thomas looked at the sky above him. The sun was not yet to its zenith high above him. Today would be a hot one.
Thomas put his hand back on the plow he was guiding down the long lines of field. The wood was old; it had been his father’s once, a long time ago, before the accident. He was the man of the house now, tending fields that had been in the family for generations. His sister and her young son lived with him in the farmhouse at the top of the hill to the east. Would he have an heir to carry his name?
A cry jolted Thomas out of his pondering and he stalled the horses. At the top of the hill, a young boy barely five stood looking into the large oak tree at its crown. The youngster pointed at the makeshift kite Thomas had made for him that was wound tightly around a branch near the peak of the canopy. Thomas ran to comfort him, brushing the tears that cascaded down his pudgy cheeks.
“Rory, I’ll make you a new one, don’t worry about it.” Thomas said, trying hard to reassure his nephew.
“No, I want that one,” Rory moaned through irrational sobs. He was beginning to choke and cough in the rawness of his throat.
“I’ll try to get it down, Rory, but it will be ruined if I manage it.”
With nothing for it, Thomas hoisted himself into the oak, leaving the moaning boy below. He wished it had been the cherry tree across the yard. It had been easy to climb and sturdy, unlike the gnarled boughs of this oak, and Thomas had climbed the cherry often as a kid. Higher and higher, he climbed, taking no small risk to restore his nephew’s happiness. For Rory. The branch the kite was caught on was thin but sturdy even under Thomas’s bulking weight.
A short time of disentangling and a jerk on the line sent the fabric diamond and tail soaring down to earth. It was free. The sobs turned quickly to exclamations of joy that made the scratches and the branches poking savagely into his back worth it. Now, to get down. The grass beckoned him. He needed to return to his plowing. The crop hadn’t been planted yet and rain was coming. Rain.
The branch was slippery under the rubber of his boots and Thomas lost his footing. Falling. Had that last been a dream? Falling faster and faster, branches and twigs scraping and whipping him as he plummeted. Thomas clawed a branch and held on, his fists clinched in a vise. His trajectory stopped with a powerful jerk. His arm disengaged from his shoulder, unleashing a fury of pain. He just wanted to get to the ground, hanging as he was from the branch straining and cracking under his weight.
There was no way to reach the rest of the tree apart from trying to swing by the splintering branch he hung from. The pain of his shoulder froze him, a hot sharp pain of ligaments tearing. Dangling there, unable to make his arms swing over to the next branch, clinging to the split wood with the instinctive grip of adrenaline.
With a woody crack, the branch broke free and Thomas was falling again. Further and further, the green grass waving its welcome. The pain pulsated through his body in throbs of emotion. He couldn’t think about either. He closed his eyes and fell, down and down, into…
Thomas opened his eyes. That was a dream; it had to be. A waking dream? His shoulder throbbed in distant pain, like a wound that had never fully healed. Had it really happened? Thomas looked up to see the plate of food before him. He was at a banquet table, or so it seemed. Following the people seated around him, Thomas recognized a few of the dinner guests. Guests? Was he hosting this?
Thomas saw his nephew Gregory and his sister among the seven gathered to eat. Was that real? Others he did not know championed the center of attention from the head of the table. A beautiful woman with golden blonde hair sat next to him. A silver necklace overlapped the high neckline of her blue dress that flowed to the floor to cover even her feet and the chair legs. Thomas instinctively knew he was seeing this woman. Not seeing but seeing. He smiled.
“Andrew dear, would you like to get some air? You seem out of sorts tonight.” The woman, Martha, offered when the conversation paused.
Andrew? They call me Andrew? Oh, yes, that is my name now, isn’t it? Out of sorts, heck, I’m lost and confused. But I do like the night air…and stars and…
“Of course, Darling,” Andrew agreed and unfolded himself from his seat.
Andrew helped push Martha’s chair away from the table and offered an arm to escort her to the raised porch just outside the front door. It seemed natural to him to make these gestures, as if he’d been trained in them. He remembered being captivated by the woman clinging to his arm, but now he just felt distant.
Beyond the door, the porch extended past the awning before stairs lowered down to the drive. Stairs again. Images flashed through his mind, like a ball unraveling in midflight. Stairs, food, boots, plowing, kite, tree, rain… It was raining now, just beyond the reach of the eaves. A hard rain, a washing rain, a flash of lightning, the clap of thunder…
“Andrew dearest, what is wrong?” Martha’s voice calmed the unraveling storm in his mind.
Before he could turn to look at her eyes peering at him with such concern, another light flashed through his vision and clap of… His face was numb except for his jaw which felt crunched into his ear. Without warning, his feet were above him in the air and the low railing beside him. There was no porch underneath him. Had he been punched, pushed, thrown?
Martha? Had she betrayed him, used him? Surely this was not her doing. There was no scream as Andrew thought there must, but he couldn’t really hear anything. His ear hurt like mad and his jaw couldn’t move no matter the signals sent from his brain. But he was falling, there was no way around it.
Andrew’s body flipped and turned, rotating in its descent. In the back of his mind, he knew he would never feel the impact of his fall, but that didn’t change the facts. His suit coat was getting drenched in the pouring rain. It would be ruined, but that was a fleeting concern next to his other worries. The mud and flowers below would muffle his landing, but that didn’t matter. Someone had pushed him, punched him and he was descending down and down, faster and faster, on and on into…
The lives continued. Sometimes, he managed to grow old and see grandkids. Most times, he died young and alone. Always, he was confused by the person he became. The events and emotions that drove him grew ever more distant from who he was. Once, he’d been called Kyle and woke up after a dream to a woman in his bed, his wife of twelve years, a woman of whom he knew nothing. It made him angry that the lives seemed so seamless and yet only vaguely remembered. They were shrouded anecdotes hidden away deep in his mind, only to surface at odd times, distantly familiar beyond explanation. He couldn’t separate the present from his many pasts, nor predict when it would come to an abrupt end and start over, but it always did. Always.
Floating, breathless, lifeless, weightless but for the sinking pit in the stomach. Falling, desperate to cling to something. Brain signaling muscles refusing to respond. Falling, shivers, convulsions, hiccups jarring the mind free of thought or function. Falling, mind machine whirring once again. Signals, cling to something, anything, grasping nothing. Falling, tightfisted, slipping through, empty-handed. Darkness blurring with shadows moving but lifeless. Falling, clawing, plucking, grasping at nothing, breathless, lifeless, weightless, emotionless, flailing, gyrating. Falling on and on, down and down, into oblivion.