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Charlie Bennett

Professor Stapleton

EN219

11/16/20

Gravity

The breeze blew a leaf off of an old oak. It danced in the air, enjoying the only time it

would know anything about freedom. It nestled on the concrete just in time for Sonja to casually

skip over the leaf.

“I can’t believe you haven’t been here before; I thought everybody came here to say

goodbye,”

“I didn’t know him.”

“You can’t come at night, not since last year.”

“I heard about what happened, I didn’t know it was here.”

“Ya, it’s funny how they put a railing up.”

“Why funny?”

“Cause no one who is coming to a cliff to kill themself is gonna be stopped by a railing,

it’s just what they do, these small bandaids on larger issues. What is a railing gonna do?”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“It is nothing, he’s dead and they have a railing, a plaque, and sometimes flowers. All of

his life, everything he did will be remembered by everything around us. I hate the world.”

“But you love me?”

“If you’re lucky.”

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Homecoming weekend senior year a kid has a realization. He made the decision that his

life held no tangible value and killed himself by ceremoniously jumping off a cliff. The town

grieved for a few news cycles, a memorial made the nightly news and he melted away into the

Earth. It made the news because the coach cried. A football coach crying, the literal ideal of

masculinity crying. Of course, it had to be broadcasted.

“Hey” I whispered into Sonja’s ear as I held her in my arms.

“Hey Cosimo” she responded perplexed by my casual opening after hours of intimate

activities.

“What you doing?”

“Ya now just at this boy’s house.”

“Boy’s house? There’s someone else isn’t there”

“Ya, he’s really cute, blonde, strong, and loves me.”

“Wait, that sounds like me.”

“It is you noodle.”

“Thank god because I don't know what I would do without you.”

Peering off the edge gazing at the twinkle of the souls full of hope beaming brightly. I

could see them but they couldn't see me, for my light was dull and fading and had no power. I

didn't have the power to stand up to go talk about it anymore. I only had the power to sit here,

my feet dangling off the edge. I could stand up and go home but what would the point be. My

tether to this reality had been shed for there was no more light.

My eyes flickered from light to light in the golden haze of joy. Quickly dancing from

smile to smile, my eyes played tricks on me only following the light but never seeing the

darkness. I mustn’t look behind me for if I did all I would see was what my future held for me
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back in my room with posters of things that were the norm not what spoke to me. Inspirational

quotes saying it will get better. When? When will I not feel the darkness in my fingertips like an

infection creeping up my arm making every hair it races under stand on its end?

The infection surging through my body, pounding away at the locked gate of my mind

whispering to me: take one more step let your feet dangle a little closer to the edge. Let gravity

have its way with you like so many of your peers already have. Freedom is simply an idea to

fight over its applicable worth slipping away like sand held in a child’s hand. It dangles it in

front of us like candy: a piece of ambrosia or an apple from Eden. While no one truly has the

audacity to lean far enough off the edge to grab it.

“Do you know what sorrow feels like?” Again her head rested on my chest.

“I don’t think so. I’ve been sad and depressed but I don’t think that’s sorrow.”

“I think it’s different, I think it’s like this overwhelming blue sensation that always

accompanies a hard truth.”

“But isn’t even that too easy to experience? like when I think of sorrow I think of pulling

the plug on a loved one, not just a hard truth.”

“Sorrow isn’t a hard emotion to experience it’s not like depression that kinda sucks you

in like depression, sorrow is like a twisting blade embedded in your thigh.”

“You talk about it like you are familiar.”

“There’s something new, like my depression is still there and stuff but I like accepted my

depression and then something new came and I think it’s sorrow.”

“Have you talked to your therapist about it?”

“I will once I know how to put it into words”

“You should try anyways, I don’t know what I would do without you.”
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“I could never leave you Cosimo.”

The pit was decorated with broken dreams and aspirations that had been abandoned. A

warden welcomed me with open arms but I fell through him for he was a ghost of someone who

once cared. My eyes locked on the last remaining light that I could see: the moon. It rose high in

the sky looking over where I was and where I am now. The face turned to a frown and quickly

avoided the glance it had given me ashamed that it had called me one of its children. Cowardice

moon shaming the already broken.

A single black crow had been watching me waiting for this feat of evolution to become a

late-night snack. The crow’s eyes peeled through my layers of clothing and watched the very

fibers of my being deciding if I was a worthy enough meal to wait for. I felt sorry for the crow. It

had done nothing wrong and the fact that I had been too much of a coward to just let the natural

forces of nature and physics take me had been too much. The crow with its slicked black feathers

and longing for a meal in his eyes had been waiting for me. Waiting for me to give in to the

graffiti; to take it to heart to let the whispering of the infection finally compel me to let go. The

crow wouldn’t notice the graffiti turn to love and wishful thoughts as hoods would be pulled over

heads to hide ashamed faces.

Sonja called me one night. Confessing to listening to the voice that fed off sorrow, the

voice that we all hear. She said that the voice was right and it was time. My heart burst out of my

chest and longed for the fading call of its counterpart. Her light dimmed as I ran. I saw it in the

window as I pounded on the door. Her mother came and questioned my intense gaze. I pushed

past her. I took the stairs three steps at a time. I leaped into her room, breaking through the door.

I held her in my arms as my shirt was stained with tears and mascara. I screamed calling for her

absent mother, begging her to pay attention to her daughter just this once. I beat on her chest
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forcing just one more breath the come out, just one more time I could hear her voice say my

name, or say anything at all. The light in her eyes vanquished as the blaring sirens drowned out

my consciousness.

“You know what is sad about the idea of soulmates?”

“That you have to find one person in over eight billion?”

“No, that they could die.”

“Well ya that’s kinda given, everyone dies.”

“No not like that, like you know that homeless man on the corner of University and

Colfax?”

“Ya, everyone knows him.”

“Well like what if his soulmate died when she was a teenager from like smallpox, I don’t

really know how old he is.”

“Well if you are gonna believe in soulmates than you have to believe in fate so his

soulmate couldn’t have died because they wouldn’t meet or fall in love and all that jazz.”

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

“You kinda have to, marriage would be way too scary if soulmates weren’t a thing. Said

we get married at like 30 or something that’s like at least 50 years together. And to make that

decision that will literally affect more of your life than you have ever lived by a substantial factor

is an absolutely insane idea. That’s why humans as we do created this idea that we are all meant

for each other that there is some great power in the universe that wants us together. Something

more than mere procreation God forbid.”

“So you’re saying if I get hit by a truck tomorrow there is already some girl queued up to

be the love of your life?”

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“You’re lucky I love you so much but no I’m not saying that because it would be

impossible for anything to happen to you because I have dubbed myself your knight in shining

armor. Nothing is allowed to happen to you alright?”

“Alright.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” They kissed on the promise.

My feet dangled off the edge wishing to be untethered from the requirements of force and

just fall. I stood up and took a step. One step forward and the graffiti would turn to love. The

slander written on my posts for caring too much. For being a man who has loved, and a man who

has lost isn’t socially acceptable. I was supposed to suck it up and not show any emotions. The

tears that I drowned in weren’t supposed to come out. I would have choked on them but here I

am choking on the noose society wove for me. Screaming at me to be a man. The teachers who

were tired of giving me a break because the average mourning period was over and I had to focus

on my life again. What life? Why was I forced to walk these halls without the possibility of ever

seeing her again? I was labeled weak for showing emotion. Fragile for loving. Cowardly for

being someone who isn’t afraid to shed a single tear over the loss of someone who warmed

everyone's day not just his own. I am fine. I kept banging that into my head. I’m fine. I am fine. I

thought it began to be the truth until I took that step.

One step backward and I throw myself back into the nightmare of my life. Walking the

halls, where the only person who truly understood me was pushed so close to the edge that all

she had to do is fight back, just to be pushed completely off. Every action has an equal opposite

reaction. The push back sent her over. I tried to catch her but her fingers just slipped out of mine

and she went into the darkness all alone. For I was all alone walking these halls. Sometimes I
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thought I saw her turning a corner and I would rush just to see nothing but a growing pit of

despair within myself.

Frosty air nips at my nose snapping me back from my train of thought. I am still here on

this rock. Looking over the sky and seeing the first signs of the sunrise. The whispering in my

head becomes louder and uncontrollable.

“Look at yourself, a red flannel over a long sleeve shirt so no one can see your pain,”

says the voice.

“She can’t know my pain. She doesn't want to know my pain.”

“You will never find someone like her there is no point.”

“How can I give up?”

“How can you forget her?”

“I’m not forgetting her I am trying to live my life. She will always be a burden I have to

carry with me.”

“You wouldn’t have to carry her with you if you once, just once told her how you felt.”

“She knew.”

“If she knew then why isn’t she here with you? Why wouldn’t she stay.”

“She had to leave, it was her only way out.”

“She left you with no one, with nothing.”

“She had to leave.”

“Look at yourself and ask her why she left you.”

“SHE DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE!”

“We always have a choice, what will yours be?”

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Tears stream from my eyes. My thoughts overcome with her. The voice that was right.

She did have a choice, and she left me. She left me here. My feet dangle off the edge. My eyes

are blurry as I look across the horizon the red is dotted across the field below my feet. Spilled

paint spewed across the sky, mixtures of red, orange, yellow, and blue. What would one more

dot be added if I pushed off and let the air take me? There’s a beauty in the broken that goes

unnoticed only upon reflection did I ever realize. The way she would look at things. It was an

admiration of the simplest of qualities. The array of light that would reflect off a stop sign on

midnight drives or her constant attempt never to step on leaves because she didn’t want to crush

something so beautiful.

“Hey”

“Hey Cosimo”

“What ya doin?”

“Trying to sleep, how about you”

“Trying to show you that I am the comfiest pillow on this bed”

“Are you really?”

“Come a little closer.” My arms pulled her closer to my barren chest so she could feel my

heartbeat

“Do you hear that?” I asked her

“It’s hard to avoid”

“It beats for you.”

She pulled my ear to her lips and whispered four words,

“I love you too.”

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