"𝚟𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚗" | 𝚙. 𝚓𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚘𝚗

𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚗, 𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚘𝚗𝚎

They Get Featured In the Newspaper as Known Fugitives

AND

A God Buys Them Cheeseburgers

third person omniscient

-

THERE'S A POETIC thing about falling to death. Well, in Estella's short life, she found that she could find poetry in most anything. That was something she knew about herself. She was unsure if she liked that about herself- she was unsure about herself completely.

But falling to death implied that you were so high up that it was impossible to get back up. An autumn leaf that was once green. A podium so tall that toppling meant death. It suited her, she thought, or maybe not.

What it felt like? Hardly like dying. It felt more of solemn acknowledgement that she was eventually going to stop flying, that she was going to hit rock bottom. For now, she felt like a sky-child, like the freedom of the air appealed to her even when she knew it would be her undoing. But she came to her senses. She was not a sky-child.

For a moment, the whistling in the air and the skyscrapers that sped past her vision slowed, she thought that this was her wasteful end. Nothing to leave, nothing to lose. Her whole life, she feared the bitterness of having less than what was demanded. To be an autumn picker content with plums. Now she would be less. She didn't have enough.

The harsh voice of her father sounded in her ear. To be something great, to take more than what she was handed. He was a smart man. He lived a decent life. He had had a successful career. Now, she was to be better. That was never going to happen. But she became self-conscious, a little self-aware. She worried about her father being disappointed at her. Not her death, just her.

She remembered watching the news with her father, her six-year old self looking at the flashing box with an expression of apathy.

"Those people," her father pointed at reports of suicide as it cut to a choppy, grainy video feed of a 15 year old girl falling as people screamed and pleaded, "aren't clever enough to survive. They had their chance. You have yours. Make the most of it."

"Okay." She watched as it flipped to a news anchor with a grim expression pulling up a less-than-cheerful statistic. He clearly didn't want the job. She wondered what was going on in the lives of others, especially in the life of that girl.

It was a little funny. Here she was, blowing her chance.

She was only dimly aware of Percy positioning himself so he would hit the water first.

He was scared. His face torn into an expression of terror that matched his emotions hurtling down with them. It was strange seeing courageous Percy that way, fearful in a way that was obvious. Sometimes he hid it better than she did.

She could see the water churning below, hurtling towards her with the promise of swift death. Now, she could see beauty in drowning. It was nearly a shame she would die on impact. They hit the river in a whiteout of bubbles.

Turns out, she didn't die on impact. Another thing, Percy had let go of her and had been lost in a swirl of silt and disgusting garbage. Stelle struggled to straighten herself, find her bearings, survive. She sank thigh deep in mud and trash.

How does it feel to drown? Until now, it was on of those things she saw on TV, lifeguards valiantly jumping into dark pools of water to save children, crappy sitcoms where the main character gets bullied, and the occasional caught-at-sea news. It was things she would look at in passing, shrug, and move on.