Frank & Red

by Matt Coyne

He had once heard a saying that went something like: ‘You don’t need a parachute to skydive once.’ That’s what he was thinking about: that falling in love with someone, and allowing yourself to do so, was like falling without a parachute. And that’s okay when it’s the love of your life, because you only intend to skydive once.

But sitting in that hospital room, forty-five years to the day after they’d first met, Frank knew that in some ways, he had been falling the whole time. Falling without a parachute for decades. And Marcie couldn’t die, because if she did, he would hit the ground hard, break every bone in his body, and his remains would be spread until he was a thing unrecognisable.

I’m writing this because you are going to be a mess. I know you, Frank. You have a poet’s heart but a big dope’s head. You’re going to think there’s no point, and you’re going to drink too much and think that life beyond us is a big hole. Well, guess what? It is. Life is a big hole, unless you fill it with things, people and experiences and stuff. And that’s what you need to do.