For the Fans

by Nyla K.

the thing is, I know I should back up. I know I should do everything in my power to launch myself backward, away from sudden death. But it doesn’t happen that way. Every time, like some sort of suicidal Freudian slip… my foot slips. And I fall. I’m falling and falling, but not fast. It’s slow. Suspended in the air, I float past each of the building’s windows. Birds fly by as I spot people inside, going about their business. Sometimes I recognize them. Mom is usually in there. She looks up and sees me levitating outside her window. And she smiles, which always twists my stomach into knots. She looks happy, and I think it’s because she doesn’t know the truth. She’s blissfully unaware that her son is about to die. But the thing is, that while I’m in my weightless nosedive, I’m not afraid. The thrill of descent takes over, hypnotic reverie bringing me not to death… but to life. I always wake up before I hit the ethereal ground, shooting upright in bed with that eerie sensation that you’ve literally been hovering in the air, and when your consciousness snaps back into place, you actually crash back down onto the mattress. I used to think it was aliens abducting me in my sleep. Or the programming of my simulation. Could be true. But maybe it’s more like a bridge, or a gateway. A door left open by the mind’s eye. And no matter how scary it can be at first, I just can’t help but wonder… How it truly feels to fall from up high. None of this is literal, of course. I’m not morose, an...