Eighty Nine

I have old memories of driving into Tahoe as a kid, and there’s this part of the road where I seem to recall us straddling the mountain. On one side, a granite slide into the dark smear of the forest, with its lean and pine and dirt, where the animals would burrow in winter. The other side was also a drop, into the bluest water I’d ever seen, effortless to the sky, and fathoms deep. We would drive that twist of the ridge, and I would look out either side, nervous, a little sick to my stomach from the road and reading in the backseat. I hated heights, and I wondered… would the wind blow us off? What if a tire went? What if the brakes don’t work? Which way would I go; would I disturb the woods or the water with my fall? Which would be better? Or would they both end the same? I clutched my book, worrying the pages with my wrinkleless hands. I always seem feel I’m on the edge, on a thin line; my fall waiting at the will of the wind, between the woods, and the water.