Roland
ROLAND
I could be diving down the cliffside like an osprey, or I could be falling as slowly as a piece of dandelion fluff blown into the wind. I have no way of knowing which. But however quickly I’m moving, it’s not fast enough. I need to get down there.
If he’s still alive. I thought I heard a splash, so I know he hit the water, but from this high up, that’s not always better than landing on a rock if you don’t breach the surface correctly. I don’t know what I can even do for him, but I have to find him. As I float, though, my thoughts start to wander.
Once, when Mama took me to swimming lessons, I belly flopped from the high dive and I felt like I got hit by a bus.
No. I have to focus. Must. Keep. Moving. But the closer I get to the sea, the more the edges close in around me, the darkness lurking around the aperture of my vision creeping toward the center.
The middle. My childhood blanket was fuzzy in the middle and satin along the edges. At night, when I was trying to soothe myself to sleep, I used to run my lips back and forth against the material, feeling how smooth it was.
Keep going. But I can feel myself getting weaker with every foot I descend. Every foot away from the house.
House. When I was little, and my parents fought, I’d run around to the back of the house by the air conditioner so the buzzing would drown them out.
Drowning. Adam could be drowning down there. There’s a chance he survived the fall but if he did, he’s probably fighting for his life in the roaring surf.
The sound of it is getting louder now. I think back to the first day I tried to use a speaker after I died. How strenuous that was. How every syllable felt like a mountain I had to climb. That’s how hard I need to focus now. I can’t let the darkness win.
He needs me. Adam.