It feels as though we’re hanging from the edge of a cliff with icy water churning over sharp deadly rocks below us. Though normally brave, we find ourselves terrified due to the slow crumbling of the cliff beneath our fingertips. As the cliff crumbles, so does our resolve.
The rocks begin to call out to both of us, quietly at first, but gradually increasing in volume in time with the decreasing of our strength. Alluring false promises of safety and security emerge from the water and eat their way into our minds.The impulse to cover our ears becomes almost unbearable.
Yet, we bear it for to cover our ears would require us to let go! To let go would require of us our lives! Lives that until this moment we disregarded with blasé indifference. Lives that were now all that we had.
We listen as the cliff slowly crumbles with nothing to cling to but the hope that we’ll make it out together. The biggest of the rocks whispers something to her, too low for me to hear. Though at first she resists, eventually she responds, “what is it like down there?” The rocks, overjoyed to finally receive attention, are eager to respond, eager to fill her already tortured mind with even more horrendous thoughts. I attempt to shout over the rocks, to redirect her focus, but the complicit wind is quick to steal my assurances of a better ending.
It is too late!
She begins to join the rocks in the seductive murmuring. Soon after the wind and water join to create a melancholic serenade. While the rocks were difficult to ignore, her voice is impossible. I close my eyes, take a breath, reach one hand out to her, and together
we jump.