About
The Number 80
For a minute, the winds were blowing about him, and he swore he could hear the world. The crash of waves and call of seagulls, the engines of the city streets, the screech of monkeys in the jungle. Everything was open to his ears, to his eyes; Ryan’s racing heart was ignored, however. Given the back seat to the contemplation of space and time. Slowly, with eyes hooded in their own dark emotion, he gazed down to the craggy cliffs and lush, rolling trees. Space. Tilting his neck slightly, his gaze rose to the sun, which was falling to the daily embrace of its womb, the horizon. Fiery red, spilling like a pool of blood, but shrinking instead of growing. Time.
Gently, careful not to fall just yet, Ryan spread his arms, parted his lips, closed his eyes. A gentle prayer to the shyly peeking stars, and a curse to those who led him to this day were spoken in one breath. Arms spread wider and eyes squeezed tighter, then relaxed. No, it was no one’s fault for his existence here, today in his fantasy realm. Nobody’s fault but his own. Mocking voices, jeering stares, none of these mattered, were significant. All that mattered was him, the ledge, and the breeze that played gentle whispers and comforts on his face and bared chest.
The sun was setting quickly, and time running short. In his embrace of destiny, Ryan planned for just one ray of light to strike over the horizon, like a beacon to the world of spirits. Ever since the flight here, to Romania, he’d come straight to the mountains, paid off his guide, and seen the breathtaking phenomenon for himself. Alone….
To this, he paused, and opened his eyes once more, brown eyes that saw, but never looked. The eyes of a dreamer, that swirled and danced and stared right through you as though something on you shoulder was far more interesting than your words. Yeah… his family would surely be in a panic by now; he’d been missing for a whole week. ‘Course, he’d be missing forever if he could have his way, but evidence would surely turn up sooner or later if nature’s creatures didn’t dispose of him first.
And then the wind died down, and a gentle just came over the land.
A pause as he took one last look…
One last breath…
One last apology to those who might have cared….
His feet took one step forward, a teeny-tiny step, and fell into air; his body followed accordingly as it should. And here, so simple, yet so confounding it happened: he was falling. He was flying. The winds once dead leapt to arms fiercer than ever in his life, blowing a tale of excitement and promise, screaming frighteningly of the promises that would come with death. The sun was falling too, slowly, but oh so quickly. The ray were dying out, and he found he couldn’t breathe. The ground was growing larger and larger with every second, and he spread his arm like wings, and closed his eyes. A single tear stroked his cheek, then fell to the sky like a diamond offering, glittering a bloody orange in the last light.
Two minutes later, Ryan lay on the ground far below, a bloody package of tangled cloth and limb. Miraculously, he had not crushed against the sides of the cliff, but had fallen straight and true as an arrow shoots. But his body, bloody and pulpy though it was, was strange. Transformed. The last ray of light was golden and soft, and the single beam fell perfect on his features. Shadows were warped and tattered, and those to whom they belonged, transformed. The sun granted one last wish, it did: no longer was he a miserable boy, a hollow teen. Nor was he a mess that looked like a tomato in the blender on ‘apocalypse’. He was… a bird, jet wings spread wide, and eyes closed for one last, eternal slumber…. Account name Molla, real name, Ryan. Call me Molla though, if you have a chance to call me anything at all, really. I had a few paragraphs down here, but they're all bullshit, now. In general, I'm tired and irritated and don't pay attention to what's an inch from my nose. Most or any of my former lustings have lost their luster, and that is that.
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