The Jumpers

“Mr. Hanks, over here.” Ralph turned minutely, acknowledging a lanky brunette with thick glasses.

“Mr. Hanks,” she continued, “what role will your wife, the previous world record holder, play in your jump?” He smiled inwardly, thinking of his wife backstage, who was undoubtedly rolling her eyes at what she knew he was about to say.

“She’ll be in the command center and in my ear throughout. You could say she’ll be my wing woman, or my wingless woman.” A murmur of nervous laughter rippled through the flock of reporters gathered around the stage.

“Mr. Hanks,” another journalist called, “How does your wife feel about your attempt to break her record for the highest skydive?”

“She’s excited about the challenge,” he grinned, “remember to ask her that question when she’s on the stage in two years beating my record.”

“Mr. Hanks,” this was a mousy-haired man in a sweater vest, “are you worried about the dangers of falling from 150,000 feet?”

“Of course,” he began, the admission unleashing an earthquake-like tremor that radiated through his body from an undefined point in his abdomen. He swallowed, “but I have the best team in the world building my equipment and standing by on the ground. I’ll have more than ten minutes of oxygen for six or so minutes of free fall, and a next-generation suit that’s going to keep me warm and properly pressurized. Nobody wants to see my eyes explode on live television,” more subtle laughter, “hopefully.”

____________

She rolled over to face him, shaking off bewitched sleep with an arched back and a loud yawn. She opened her eyes to find him already awake. Or perhaps still awake. They were silent for a long moment.

“Are you ready?” His face was overrun by a mischievous half-grin.

“I’m fucking terrified. But yeah, I’m ready.”

“Good,” she smiled her eyes closed and stretched again, curling her body into a parenthesis, enclosing him. She listened to his heart beat in his chest, cognizant of the new tempo it kept and the new urgency she felt to memorize the tune.

“What is it like?” he asked quietly, and she felt the question vibrate through his chest like it issued directly from his bones. Like his whole body was part of the asking.

“What’s what like?”

“The fall.”

“You mean the jump?”

“Yeah, the jump.” She pulled herself up onto her knees, looking pointedly at his creased brow to avoid his searching gaze. She knew this question would eventually come, and now that is was here, she was surprised it had taken so long. She flew back to the long moments she had spent descending from the edge of space those many months ago, searching for words to capture what she had learned. There was a barrier in her mind between her life before the fall and her life after, she could not describe it because since then, the meanings of words had changed subtly. They’d begun to fail.

“I honestly can’t explain it,” she finally answered, “you’ll just have to see for yourself.” He looked as if he was about to press, her but she continued. “It should tell you something though, that even though I know how dangerous it is, I want this for you.”

With the sudden horror of being the victim of falling bird poop, doubt splattered across her conscience. Had she encouraged him to take this risk for the right reasons? Were her motives pure? Did she want him to know that paradoxical earth shifting which is only found when your farthest from it, or was it simply that she didn’t want to be alone in the knowing?

An accusation breathed through the cracks in her subconscious, You’re risking his life to have someone to talk to. On it’s heals came the demonic suggestion, Ask him not to do it.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked gently, brushing her forearm.

“I wish,” she whispered, her feelings and thoughts and emotions tumbling end over end in a race to reach her lips, “I wish-”

“I know,” he said, suspending her almost words in an anti-gravity lump in her throat and pulling her towards him until she collapsed into his arms, “I know.” She lay there defeated, listening to his heart tap out its erratic Morris code, a secret message she couldn’t decode.

“I wish we could do this together.” The quiet tenor of her voice made him pull back to look into her eyes, but then he smiled again.

“Worried I’ll need a push?”

She remained silent, feeling a tightness in her chest that made her want to stretch again.

“You will be careful, right?”

“Of course,” this was the part he knew was coming, when they would accept their roles and follow the script.

“You’ll come back down if the suit malfunctions or the oxygen pump is fogging?”

“Yes.”

“And you won’t do anything-“

“This time tomorrow,” he interrupted, “we’ll be right back here, exactly like this.”

She nodded in faux-satisfaction, curling back into him so he wouldn’t notice that she’d spotted the lie, a lie he didn’t know he was telling. He saved her the charade.

“Well not exactly like this,” he sighed, looking over her head this time into some distant place. “Even better.”