Time to Fly

POETRY

by Mandy Fetterman

You step back once, twice, three times.  

You bound forward, the first leap to gain speed, the second to push away from the bridge.  

 What happens next doesn’t really matter. 

You fall, plummeting, but you don't mind. You've always been mesmerized by the tingling feeling of weightlessness. You lean so far forward, arms open wide, that you're momentarily curled, back to the ground, dress flapping around your legs. You outstretch your limbs, wind toying with your hair in a way that water doesn’t. The wind pulls, tugs, and lets it fall.  

The water shifts, smooths, and lets it float. You float too.  

 Or… 

 You bound forward, leap, and push.  

You drop—dead weight—but only for a second. You feel the wind under your wings, you angle them, making the wind push you up, up, up. You soar over the river, watching the cool water ripple and the green trees sway. Your body is heavy. You try to compensate with your huge wings, pumping air down to push you up but only being met with more air to push down. You wonder when you'll let gravity claim you.  

 Or… 

You stare at the edge. Letting gravity pull you forward, you float down. It's quite a spectacle. People don’t usually descend seemingly without the hindrance of gravity. You shift to your back and watch the bridge slowly grow distant. You reach the water's surface, but you don't stop there. You keep going. Sinking. Slowly, until you're far enough underwater—until you're beyond rescue—you breathe in the liquid, letting your lungs fill with it. You’re glad to finally be free from the spectacle. Breathing water instead of air isn’t pleasant. The floating put more eyes, more pressure on you than gravity would’ve if you were just fucking normal. You would've preferred to have just fallen like a normal person. This alternative isn’t even fast. But it gets the job done.  

 Or… 

You collapse. Finally. You plummet. Faster than a race car, faster than a fighter jet. All this pressure put on you to succeed—to rise higher than anyone else—it’s plunging you down, down, down. You skip the water. You skip the earth. You just keep accelerating into an eternity of not enough time.  

 But really… 

You sit on the edge, contemplating the possibilities—the various early endings to the suffering that is this life. You hope that someone will walk by and push you (on accident or on purpose, it doesn’t matter) so you don’t have to do it yourself. So you don’t have to feel the guilt of abandoning your family, the life they made you, or the expectations you shoulder. If someone else did it, it wouldn’t be your fault. You wouldn’t have failed.  

You stand up and stare at the water below you. You look to either side, wondering if anyone would bare witness, wondering if anyone could push you. Seeing no one yet still dissatisfied, you step back once and start to walk home, avoiding the gaze of the water, ignoring the beckoning waves, the luring splashes, and hoping beyond hope not to hear it call for you.