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falling stars they were standing on the edge of a cliff. they both had stars in their hands, one shimmering slightly, the other a fallen meteorite, earthworn, and grounded (you have to guess which was which.) there was an embankment before the edge, it promised danger. she had eyes and he had eyes and the horizon was well beneath them. the audience had been taking bets on which was going to be thrown first, and some of the more volatile members were secretly hoping that one or the other of the stars would slip and tumble head-first over the edge themselves (but they had never really liked the movie anyway.) he had hands and she had hands and they touched, and watched, and somewhere there was a sunrise, though it was well beneath them. "i can see you," (s)he whispered. the canyon was long and bottomless. it had a wide mouth and a bottleneck and the tendency to turn on its head if you got past a certain hemisphere (according to dante) it might have been hell, except it wasn't. it might have been heaven, but how can you be sure? she looked up and he looked down and their eyes met with a look of confusion explaining that neither one of them knew which direction was which. it was tunnel-vision, shadow-vision, and they were stuck. "you're going to fall," (s)he whispered. the canyon was hungry and its mouth was open wide. starvation was the sky and it stretched its jaws with the hint of sunrise. somewhere, a clock struck six, but it was well beneath them. the chimes echoed throughout the abyss stretching both ways, and he was searching and she was searching but there wasn't a roadsign in sight. they fumbled for the map, but a deft wind carried it off, along with the crayola apple red footprints they had been tracing in hindsight. now, it was just the two of them, the abyss, and the stars. "you first," (s)he whispered. it was the wind. it might have been a hurricane. something leftover, perhaps (did dante call it passion?) and over the meadow and through the wood a shimmering star faltered and skipped lightly over the edge. she had hair and he had hair and the wind tore at them both, pushing them a few inches closer to the embankment. they forgot to cling to eachother. a foothold was lost. "i'm falling," (s)he whispered. a second star, a lump of meteorite, skidded down the embankment and dropped off the edge. he had hands and she had hands and they clasped, somewhere in mid-air. to their senses, eyes flew upward and downward and there was nothing surrounding them but nothing, an openness which was almost suffocating, absolute freedom of movement, and two hands, clasped. they were flying. "now what," (s)he whispered. a thump, and then another. two large, odd-shaped rocks made impact with the soft earth within a few yards of eachother. both were grayish and silver and seemingly dusted with glitter (you have to guess which was which.) |
