University Falls

Well wouldn't you like to slit your throat to see the most beautiful thing...?

"University Falls"

        Already the water had nearly evaporated from the soles of my feet, the rocky sediment beneath me flat and having absorbed so much heat that I'm sure if I stood still long enough, everything from the back of my heels to the tip of my toes would be fused with the earth. And yet I froze in place and prolonged the scorching pain, forgetting for an instant the fragility of my burning skin. Any watery track I had left behind begun to vanish one by one, as if some sort of higher being was slowly running the track of my existence with a magic marker.

        I heard behind me the waterfall, maybe twenty feet or so high, crashing silently upon the giant pool beneath it. A sudden splash disturbed the quiet scene, its echo halted only by the gigantic trees surrounding the area, no chance for escape. And then there were a couple plops; the girls were catching up.

        The reason I had stopped was due to the fifty foot descent down a slanted bed of rock with an angle sharp enough to acutely swallow and claim the life of any reckless adventurer. It was the only way down. Unsurprisingly, Dan descended cautiously halfway to the bottom already, his large build apparent even at this height.

        My stomach growled but I couldn't wait for the girls to bring our snacks. I stretched and twisted my body a bit. The sun stared instrusively at the bare of my skin. I ran my hands across my arms, the remaining drops of water making it feel like the glazing on a donut. I pulled off my shirt.

        “Sexy,” I heard one of the girls say. I let out a chuckle of appreciation and humor; I became immune to their perpetual sarcasm and mockery. I turned around to watch their progress, but in such distance the miniscule size of their bodies was nothing compared to the rocks, trees, and waterfalls we had descended towering above all that no longer seemed to matter. The rocks were the stadium; the trees the spectators, and the waterfalls their encore. Along with a hint of pine came a scent of confidence.

        I swung my arms in the motion of swinging a bat. “And the crowd goes wild!” My focus fixed on the obstacle ahead once again, I hopped down a couple rocky ledges and began to “back” crawl my way down, my shirt now tied around my waist. I didn't look up.

        “Careful you guys. Remember the description, old people have died here before!” one of the girls exclaimed.

        “Yea,” I directed my voice towards the man who was now nearly at the bottom, “careful Dan, old people have died here before.”

        He laughed a bit, and I couldn't help but to laugh myself, our voices bouncing off the silent rocks around us only to have the echo muffled by the angry waterfalls. The looming trees around us shivered with every passing breeze. I looked down and wondered what was at the bottom. It was waiting, like a venus fly trap.

        I took a few more steps down before suddenly my foot slipped, my torso collapsing and my elbows colliding against the wall of rock. My hands searched desperately for a crack or crevice, but my momentum was picking up pace – the moment the venus fly trap had been waiting for. I couldn't turn my body. My back made friction against the jagged earth as I plunged faster; I glanced hopelessly back up and half expected to see my skin, ripped away by the unforgiving slide. It burned like hell. The girls were screaming but their voices could not penetrate my forming deafness in the face of death. My arms now flailed in every direction, as if the higher being retracted his guiding hand from my reach. Without warning, I felt someone grab my flailing arm, and I yelped as I felt my shoulder dislocate. I was now sitting next to Dan. Every breath I took was cold like inhaling chunks of ice, as if my lungs were already prepared and used to the absence of air. Slowly this subsided, and I felt the blood of my veins creep back to circulation.

        “Hey you better look at this,” Dan said, and we looked down to see maybe a two foot fall into a large body of water. Lowering my leg into the pool, I discovered it was deep enough to have had cushion my fall. We laughed, uneasily at first, but soon our mouths were big enough to fit our knuckles in. He reached over and began plucking rocks and pebbles off my back. If acupuncture had somehow evolved into a type of punishment, this was it. “Well aren't you gonna get it?”

        He confused me at first, but I looked down once again to see my wallet floating gently among the surface of the water. “Oh.” I didn't look up.

        The trees no longer had individual shades, however all the shades combined so that only little spots of light remained. Our walk back proved challenging as the day slowly began to die. We were in the middle of the woods, our leafy paths yellowy, brown and crispy. The girls went on ahead as Dan and I stopped briefly to take a piss off to the side, and then suddenly the girls ran off ahead laughing. Twenty minutes later, Dan and I trekked the forest alone, lost and confused. It was getting cold.

        We talked about many things: the trees, food, philosophy even. I felt like the mindful duo of Rosencratz and Guildenstern until witnessing my good friend positioning a leaf in front of his mouth and burping to see how far it would go. No, more like Dumb and Dumber. I joked, “You think we'll ever find them?”

        He shook his head. “I hope so. I'm getting hungry.” He checked his cell phone once again to see if it caught any reception. I did the same.

        “Hey, thanks for saving my life back there,” I hesitantly but calmly mentioned.

        “Ha! Anyone would have done the same. Well, not me. You're just lucky I like you,” he said.

        It was nice knowing the face and soul of the man who potentially saved my life, at least protecting me from harm. Twenty years down in the future, it will be the only thing I will remember of him, yet I will also end up carrying such a memory to my grave. We walked, now confidently along as the dead leaves jumped and followed our feet. The whole way back I kept my head down as if wary of another fall.

        

        

 

 

Author's Note

This is definitely not perfect, and also the first creative non-fiction piece I've ever submitted for a class - Creative Writing. It got an A-. Unfortunately, it lacks character development, but I did try to keep it under three pages. Hope you enjoyed it! :)

Reviews

[Cedric D. Jr.]

The writing is perfectly descriptive; it lacks nothing. The story is great, too, but what stands out most when reading this story is how easy it is for the reader to feel as though he or she has been placed in a position in which one can watch the entire story unfold. It's easy to feel what the main character is feeling, because you did such a great job of investing in the character himself. Overall, the story is great.