He Will Be With Us (A Confrontation of my Fears With the Stone-Flinging God)

As a kid, I was never scared of monsters (that I remember). They were too cool to be scary. I was never afraid of them hiding under my bed or lurking in my closets. Frankly, the notion might have actually excited me (I was that kid). There was nothing to be afraid of in the dark.

Then I grew up (relatively speaking). And let’s be honest: It would be nice, sometimes, for someone to just tuck you in, then check the closets, and issue those reassuring words from the doorway: “There are no such things as monsters. There’s nothing and nobody outside that wants to eat you, or crush you into the ground, or bury you alive, or tear you into pieces.”

But that’s not quite true, any more. Life itself wants to eat you. The world wants to crush you. Time wants to bury you alive. And there are plenty of people and things that seem perfectly eager to get at having a piece of me. They all want some, and frankly, it is terrifying. I am staring down the throat of the future like some enormous game of Russian Roulette. The cylinder spins, and you twist your fingers for all your worth. What will you wind up with? What kind of fate will click back its hammers and pump two cartridges of responsibility and anguish into your face?

An Unpleasant Newsflash(1): Life doesn’t pull punches. It hits hard, and it hits as often as it can. It beats you down, and then kicks you. 

An image for contemplation: Twelve spies. A Deuteronomic people, on the verge of victory or destruction. Ten spies agree, shaking in their boots:

“Moses, dude, we can’t go over there.”

“Yeah, man. Those cities are huge. And the people are giants. There’s no way that we would survive out there." 

(It’s dangerous outside. Unbelievably dangerous. Grab a power-drill and some screws and make sure that door stays closed. Board up those windows, pull the curtains. Put spikes in the bottom of your chimneys. Never shower during a lightning storm.)

But then there were two voices that were different than the others. Joshua and Caleb stood by, tight-fisted and square-jawed. “Hey,” they shouted. “What are you talking about? God said that the land is ours. What do you have left to be afraid of?”

An Unpleasant Newsflash (2): They never once said: “Oh come on, the giants aren’t that big. We can take them.” Because they knew that they couldn’t. Not alone. 

And we know how that story ends. Joshua conquered those giants. Not by himself; and not thanks to any strength of his own. He survived because of a promise. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” (Judges 1:9) Joshua was brave because he had a sure promise of victory. 

A Pleasant Newsflash(1): We have the same promise. 

  

Another image for contemplation: A man hiding in a winepress. A God who told him to come out. Gideon was afraid; there were too many enemies (more than could be counted). What chance did one man have? He whimpered. “But I’m not that guy. My clan is small, and my tribe is small, and who am I to lead them?” There are too many. (The giants are too big.)

God disagreed. He did not see Gideon as he was (refer to hiding in a winepress). He called him “mighty man of valor.” 

Mighty men of valor do not hide in winepresses. They do not hide (period). Gideon was not that; not yet. But God did not see him as he was, then; he saw the finished product. He saw a man pursuing His glory. He saw Israel’s victory, and Gideon’s role in it. 

He saw the ending, not the middle. He saw the victory, not the overwhelming odds. He saw Gideon as he should have been, and as he would be. Not as he was.  

He calls men not because they are right for the job. But because he is. He calls weak men. Because he is a strong God. 

God: “33,000 men are too many for me to work with.” 

Gideon: “How about 10,000?” 

God: “Too many.”

Gideon: “Well how many do you want?” 

God: “Try 300.”

Gideon: “300?!?” 

(Note: He didn’t say “Oh come on, Gideon. There aren’t that many.) 

God: “I am with you. What do you have to be afraid of?” 

Well, not Midianites. Not giants. 

Numbers don’t mean anything to God; not millions, not dozens. Size is meaningless to the One who balances the universe on a fingertip. Not hugeness; not smallness. He doesn’t use boulders; sometimes he uses pebbles. 

Sometimes he flicks pebbles at giant’s heads from a little boy’s strap of leather and shatters them. Sometimes he calls 300 men to destroy a countless army with nothing but jars and torches and trumpets.

Another image: A storm is trying to swallow a boat, like a cork in a whirlpool. Fishermen are panicking, spitting water and trembling in terror. The boat is filling. In the front of the ship, a sleeping Godman sits up, eyes them, and speaks. (Note: He doesn’t say “Guys, come on. The waves are nowhere near big enough to hurt you.” Not even close.) “I am with you. What do you have to be afraid of?” 

He speaks. Storms die. He breaks their spirits, and the water goes calm. The storms fear him. 

Some Things God has Said:

Never: The giants aren’t very big.

Always: Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. I am with you. 

Never: There aren’t that many Midianites out there. 

Always: Come out, mighty man of valor. Peace be to you. You shall not die. 

Never: The waves aren’t that big. There’s no way you’ll get wet. 

Always: Have faith. I am in the boat beside you. And the storms belong to me. 

A Happy Newsflash(2): God does not call the qualified. He calls the terrified. 

He is not in the practice of calling the qualified. He does not (has not) waste(d) his time looking for someone just right for the role. He does not glorify himself through the qualified. He glorifies himself through Gideons without enough men. Through Joshuas who aren’t afraid. Through Davids who did what armies could not. Through Fireproof Shadrachs and Lionproof Daniels. Through Peters who had the faith to put his feet on a different side of the water. Farmers and Fishermen. 

The armies really were endless. The giants really were gigantic. The fire was hot, and the lions had teeth. But God did not call a lion-tamer; he called Daniel. And he closed their mouths himself. 

Because I am afraid. I am afraid of many things, lots of the time. I am afraid of the bigness of the world, of the hugeness of the future. The endlessness of infinity, the depths of eternity. I am afraid of loneliness and boredness and lifelessness. I am afraid of wasting my years. I am terrified of what is going to happen to me, on this boat. Outside this winepress. On the other side of Canaan’s borders. 

There are (fill in the figurative blank)s out there. Giants. Armies. Enemies. Waves. Futures. Dangers. Dragons. Lions. 

It’s all true. (So don't let anyone lie to you.)

But God is the God who calls men out of winepresses (and into his glory). God is the God who is not afraid of giants (neither should you be). He is the Chain-Breaker and the Star-Breather. The Stone-Flinger, the Storm-Tamer. 

He is the Decapitator of Giants. The Devourer of Jerichos. 

The Captain (and Conscriptor) of Shepherd Armies. 

A final piece of good news: There are giants out there. Cities of them. And waves, higher than ships, oceans hungrier than black holes. There is a world that wants, more than anything, to eat your very soul. 

There are giants out there. But God has promised. (So don't let anyone lie to you.) We are not made to fear them. We are not made to fear anything. Not because it isn’t frightening. 

But because he is not frightenable. 

He is unchanging and unchangeable. And he is the God who is near. 

The God who is near shall always be near. 

What, then, do you have to be afraid of? 

All Men Wear Chains (A Story of the Chain-Breaker)(Revised)

All Men Wear Chains 

[Imagine] You are standing in a single island of light, surrounded on all sides by darkness, thick and clawing. A puddle of light. And there are chains dripping out of your chest. They hang off your arms, thick as tree-limbs. They bind your legs and cling heavy to your shoulders, all trailing off into the endless, devouring gloom. 

All men wear chains. 

Some we are born with. Chains, heaved out of lungs. Out of hearts. Out of eyes and ears and mouths. We are born strapped down. And as we live, we bind ourselves to more. We chain ourselves to people, things, ideas. To family, to friends, to loved ones, to possessions. And we chain ourselves to the darkness. Our tendrils trail away, and our pillar of light shrinks. 

You are in the spotlight. Your audience wants to eat you. You had better perform, or you'll be dragged off. 

All men wear chains. And they are heavy. 

They drag and pull and tug and tear, fused to our flesh and latched to our bones. Some chains burn, but we can no more remove them than we can remove our own limbs. They become part of us, with their rust and their razors and iron, their freezing bite inside us. Their infectious metals become one with our flesh. We wear our chains and we love them and we show them off. We chain ourselves to statues, to the unreal.

They kill us. They drag us away. And we let them. 

All men wear chains. From first breath to last, we are chained to Death. He holds the other end, somewhere out there, with a thousand distractions beside. Tugging demons. He wears a mask and masquerades as life. 

All men wear chains. And none can tear them. 

Except for one. 

The chains grow heavier; there are so many, so thick, strangling and poisonous. They steal sleep, they steal innocence and beauty. They leave scars. The drain you, even as they promise to fill you up.     

Then, though the weight of them shows no signs of diminishing, the pool widens. The light spreads. A new spotlight. A man draws near, huge as you grow small, as mighty as you grow weak. His muscles bulge, and they are strewn with scars not from chains, but from whips. His hands are decorated with holes, but they are strong. In them, he holds an axe. A reaper's blade. There he stands, glowing and magnificent. 

Voice cracking, you peer through chains to eye him. “Who are you?”

“I am Conqueror,” he says. “Star-speaker. Death-Tamer. Chain-Breaker. The darkness will come, it will drag you off, and feast on you. But I have come to free you.” 

And he lifts the axe, he who hewed death’s ankles and noosed her neck, he who climbed out of the pit. The axe falls and chains burst apart, they scatter and scream and you scream with them. 

Pain. Parts of you are being removed, torn free. Your bones break under the weight of his tugging arms, your flesh tears and tendons pop. The agony of being dismantled. Your foundations are being uprooted by his plow; your trunks leveled by his blade, until there is nothing for you to hold yourself up with. 

One moment, you scream for him to stop, to leave you be, to give you back everything you had. But he will not. He will not surrender you up. The next moment, your pleas change, and you shower him with tears and thanks and praise. Hatred, still rooted in your bones, fights back. But he fights harder. His scalpel is inescapable, and no part of those rusted cancers are left. He cuts them out, and he flings them away. 

The axe sweeps and the coils splinter, until you are free to stand and he lifts you, your arms light and legs unbound. Fissures boil on your flesh, gaping wounds and staring bones. You are free. But next to the glorious Chain-Breaker, you feel unworthy. Naked. 

There is one chain left. It hangs out of your chest, front and back, running through your heart. “It is the chain of life and death,” says the Chain-Breaker. “And it has been infected. It will be painful.” 

You want to protest, but can't. You don't. Maybe you want to. Either way, he reaches out his hand and dips his fingers into your flesh. They burn and tear and the pain makes you scream, scream for him to stop, to leave. But then, the chain pulls free, snaked through you, and your heart is tugged out with it. You are hollow. You are a skeleton. A husk. 

And then, the chain breaker shows you the heart, still growing around its chain, and it seems rotten, blackened and infected, polluted and dead. “You must be regrown,” he says. He reaches his hands into the hole of your chest, and in it, you feel fire growing. New flesh is squirming, a new heart. A stronger heart. Unpoisoned. Unmolested. Unbound. It swells in your chest and fills you up anew. 

The Star-Speaker waves his hands over your wounds, spills his precious, shining tears onto the gaping scabs and horrible gashes. He mends your bones, and supports your wavering spirit. The flesh returns. You grow strong, and lifted by his mighty hands, you can stand. No longer do you look like you once did, when you were prisoner to the parasite darkness. Now, you look like some pale copy of the Chain-Breaker. As though, someday, you could become like him.

“Here,” says the Chain-Breaker. “I have made you a new chain. A new anchor. Bind yourself with it. Cling to it. If you do not, the darkness shall return.” 

The chain he offers you is bright and made out of shining silver, untarnished, fresh-forged by some heavenly hammer. The Star-Breather's hammer. His anchor is huge; it stands upon a hill, thrust through the heart of death itself, and there he binds you, as you bind yourself. “The darkness shall be burned away, soon,” says the man. “And all those who are in it shall be swallowed. But not here. I will keep you in the light. I will keep you strong. I shall hold you here, and I shall bind you to my anchor.” 

And there are no other words to say. None that seem adequate, none appropriate. Only tears, hot and new on your cheeks, washing the dark rubble that remains from your soul. “Thank you,” you cry.

He leaves his axe beside you, because the shadows will draw near again. The chains will reach out, to claim their old victim. “But they have no hold,” says he. “You are new. You do not belong to them any more. Peel them off. And if they seek to subdue you, I will return. For always, I will be with you. You are mine.” 

And into the darkness he returns. There are others who must be freed. 

Because all men wear chains. And none can tear themselves free.

Except one. One man who was born with chains. One man who tore them out, pried them from his bones and dug them from his chest. One man who scratched and tore and roared and could not be overpowered. One man who took the grave in his hands and broke its back. 

The willing amputee. The willing dead. 

One man, one God. Star-Breather. Death-Tamer. Slayer of dragons, freer of souls. He who breaks chains. 

And who gives eternal ones. 

He who keeps us in the light. 

The Bell-Ringer (The prologue to a book I actually AM supposed to be working on.)

Prologue—The Bell-Ringer

Orange light spilled down from the horizon like a dry sea. Where the waves crashed, dust was left dripping from the fields and the hills, clinging to the air and the lungs of those who passed. In that light, all was gold.

Two men, slathered in that dryness, one soaked in the weight of long furrows and the other a longer road, sat in a pool of shade, drawn together by nothing save a common thirst. A thirst for water. And a thirst for knowing.

“Strange things,” said one man knowingly, with a slow nod of his head, and a brief stroke of his dirt-blackened hand through his dust-browned beard. “Strange things have befallen these parts. I will tell you that, right off. But if you’ll be wanting more than that from me, you’ll be needing to share yourself.”

The other man nodded in response, and took a drink. He was a smaller man than that across from him, and by comparison, nearly clean. “Strange things have befallen all parts.”

“True enough,” offered the filthy plowman, as he turned his thoughtfully crooked brow towards the furrows, before him, and the road, in whose shadow he lay. “But I could have told that to myself. These ears have heard much, stranger; you’ll be needing to dig a bit deeper to find something as they don’t know much of.”

To this account, the stranger seemed willing to pursue. He leaned forward, and now that the dusty hood had been removed from his head, his details could be more easily made out. Eyes of the most severe and ravaging sort of blue shone out of his weathered face with such intensity that the bearded frowner did not at first notice the brightness of his hair or the strength of his jaw, though these came in turn. “Isn’t it amazing,” said the stranger, “That everyone seems to know the secrets that no one is allowed to tell?”

At this, the large man chuckled. “Yes, that I’ll grant you. And I suppose, though I don’t know much of you, to speak of, that secrets are the trade of a man such as you?”

“Sometimes,” replied the other.

“Then I think that we are not so different. You have your trade, and I have mine, and we both grow weary of our toil beneath the sun. We tumble into shade, now and again.”

“Indeed,” this from the traveler. “I am, I suppose, a merchant of secrets. Though I attempt to avoid being their cultivator. A friend of mine once said that all things planted in the darkness must sprout forth into the light, eventually.”

The farmer lifted his eyebrows. “A wise friend.”

“Perhaps,” said the other. “One accustomed, at least, with nature. Secrets grow in the hearts of men, as grain grows in the soil. In the darkness, they blossom. But they outgrow the darkness, in time, and they spring up.”

“And you are the dealer of such seeds?”

“I am. I carry them. And when necessary, I plant them. But more importantly, I prepare them for their bursting forth.”

“Tell me a secret, then,” said the dirty man, crossing his strong arms, and leaning back into the hill, once his throat was wetted enough, and the skin lay beside him. “And I will, perhaps, give you an answer, if it is an answer that you seek.”

The traveler laughed. “Would you give out your crops for so little?”

The farmer smiled wornly. “Very well. Tell me more about this trade, if not that. You have made me curious, and that is no small feat.” 

Pointing his eyes briefly at the far edge of the sky, where a razor drew out the line between blue and gold, the stranger spoke quietly. “We are surrounded by secrets; we are all their merchants, their planters, their tenders. We are all gardeners.”

“Go on,” prodded the farmer, after a pause.

“The spring is such a secret. It comes in, quietly, planted deep beneath the leaves, when the snow falls upon them. And there, in the dark, she grows. The winter knows nothing of her until the time comes, until the darkness can no longer contain her, and she bursts forth. The greatest secret ever kept. And everyone knows it.”

With an unsettled pinch to his brows, the farmer said quietly, “Are you a poet and philosopher as well as a merchant?”

“Perhaps.”

“And a traveler as well. That sword you carry, can you use that too?”

“I can.”

The farmer narrowed his eyes. “You are a great many things, then.”

“We are all a great many things.”

The man laughed, one long burst, and then settled back into his seat against the bank. “Very well,” he said, rubbing more dirt into his beard than it could hold, “you have dully impressed me, even if you have given me nothing to speak of. You are an educated sort, for this part of the world. Many times I have sat here and had my drink with strange men. Perhaps you are the strangest of them all.”

“I would not be surprised,” said the traveler, with a small helping of a smile that he did not seem to indulge in much. 

“Whether you are or are not, I will answer a question of you, if I can.”

The question came promptly. “What do you know of the AllDragon?”

Another laugh rang into the orange sky, longer than the last, but settling no deeper than the throat. The man’s eyes were still hard. “I know what everyone knows,” he chuckled.

“How do you know it?” Asked the stranger, seeming to lean closer whether he did or not.

The man shrugged. “I suppose I heard it as a boy.”

“Illegally.”

“Perhaps.”

“The story is forbidden to tell. But all men know it, don’t they? Why?”

The man looked puzzled. His frown deepened. “It is a legend. And an ancient one.”

“Yes,” the stranger smiled again, a very calculated, measured sort of smile. “One of the best kept secrets in the world. And everyone knows it.”

The farmer chuckled, and this time shook his head in amusement. “I suppose that you are right.”

“Do you believe the legends?” The stranger pursued, to which his companion sighed.

“I believe in few things. I believe that there is a force in the earth that makes the wheat to grow. And I believe that such power may be prevailed upon, by the touch of the rain and the sweat of man’s labors. Nothing more than that. And when it comes to belief, it benefits us little, in these parts. I do not believe in the legend. I have no reason to.”

“Yet,” the traveler set those eyes heavily upon him, “you believe that spring comes after the winter.”

“Yes,” the farmer muttered. “I have lived through enough winters, this last one only so recently passed as it was. I’ll ask you this, stranger: if the legend is true, and the AllDragon lives, then why hasn’t he come? Mind you, I’m not complaining. I’ve got it right, here in this dirt, lowly as it may seem to such important types as you. But there are others. Those up north, it’s their legend. Why hasn’t he come for them?”

He was relieved when the stranger lifted his gaze, and hung it back on the horizon. “Spring must wait until the right time before it can arrive. The winter becomes old; the hammer of time must be lifted, poised to fall. The arm that wields it must grow strong, for it must be strong enough to split the world in two. Spring comes in her time. She always does. Sometimes, she just needs to be awakened. Sometimes, she needs a bell-ringer.”

The farmer did not address him. He narrowed his eyes, and crossed his arms at the strange man. “You might want to be careful,” he said at long last. “People don’t talk like that around here. And oft times, they don’t take too kindly to those folks that do.”

“Careful,” said the man with a distant tone. “Yes. Careful.” His fixed stare, so intent upon the line that separated sky and earth, as though he was trying to read some hidden words, tucked into the crash of color. Eventually, he broke his eyes away, and turned his attention back to the farmer. “One question more,” he said, “and then I will be off.”

“Ask it.”

“I have heard tell,” he said, “of a young woman who lives not far from here. She is famous, in her own way; even as far away as the border.”

“Nonsense,” laughed the man. “No one is famous out here.”

“She is,” the other argued. “The story is that she found a boy in a forest, and that she took him in, though she was barely fifteen years old, and raised him by herself. The story also says that, by now, she has several such children under her care, all orphaned, none of them her own. They call her many names, and none of them right. Around here, they simply call her ‘the Virgin.’”

At these words, the visage of the farmer darkened, beneath his mask of beard and dirt. He raised a meaty hand and pointed a chipped nail. “Now you see here, stranger,” he said forcibly, “I don’t know what your business is. But if it be ill towards that angelic young creature, so help me, I’ll tear you in half with my own hands.”

“I mean her no harm,” the man said with defensive vigor. “None at all. In fact, I mean to do her as much good as I can. You know her?”

“Aye, I know of her,” he said gruffly. “Everyone around here knows of her. And a more divine creature I’m sure there cannot be. What is your business with her? I’ve a mind to know that much before I let you got a step further, you mark me!”

The stranger did not seem affected. “I am looking for someone—a secret someone, before you ask. And I have reason to believe that she could help me.”

“If that be your business only, then be about it prompt-like,” replied the farmer with the same coldness. “But you mark me. I’d kill you myself, if I thought as you’d be any harm to her. And so would the whole countryside. She’s a dearly loved thing, that child.”

“I understand you perfectly,” said the stranger, eyes passing back along the path he had so long walked. “If I carry on this road, will I find her?”

“Yes. In a small village called Eastgate, though I’ll tell you no more.”

“You have told me what I need. Thank you.” With this, he took up his water-sling and pushed himself up, onto the road again. He straightened the sword in his belt and pulled the hood back over his head, though he wore no cloak to hide the rest of him. “I thank you for your hospitality, friend,” he said.

The farmer had already risen, donned his own sling, and returned to the scene of his plow, which he lifted back up easily, and set into its furrow. “Good fortune be with you, stranger,” he declared. Then, as an afterthought, added, “I should warn you. There’ve been words spread about wild dogs in the area. They hunt about after nightfall, killing flocks up in the hills. I’ve never heard of anything like it, myself. Strange things.”

To this, the mysterious man with the dusty hood let out a long laugh, aimed at the air. He let his heavy eyes dart to the skyline, as though to pin it down, before he turned back to his brief companion. “Dogs?” he repeated, speaking through smiling lips and frowning teeth. “No. Not dogs.” And then, with a nod of farewell, he allowed the last words, “Strange things indeed, my friend. But stranger things are waiting yet. Still… spring will come. She just needs to be woken up.”

And with that, the bell-ringer turned. He eyed the road, and then he set his feet moving along it. The sinking sun draped off his shoulders like a cape, until finally its splendor faded from gold to gray. He shrugged it off, and shrouded in dust, the bell-ringer hung a hand on his sword, and let his eyes hang on the line. The sun would rise, there; soon. When the darkness could no longer contain the secret of its coming.

He filled his nostrils with night-time, and he pushed on towards Eastgate.

Catch Me (An Introduction)

-I-

“Would you catch me?” She asked. The wind sucked past her, gnawing at her skin with cold gums.

“Hmm?” Was the only response.

“If I fell, would you catch me?”

He shrugged, and came up beside her, until his toes were on the very edge of the building. She wondered what made him get so close; how he seemed so unafraid. Glass crunched under his shoes; she couldn’t tell how it had gotten up there.

The sidewalk looked up at them both from seven stories, with a very strange sort of grin. The manhole covers were eyes; the open storm-drain was a mouth, with a psychotic grin. Small clusters of things living and things once alive trickled along, spent or spending. Debris tumbled out from down steep alleys, and crawled into the gutters with leaves a decade old. People tumbled out from long tramcars and collected in the corners, with the leaves.

“I’m not sure,” he said finally. “From this height, I don’t think it would save you. It would probably just kill both of us.”

She nodded, eying the cracks in the sidewalk that scattered like veins, or the gaping mouth of the storm-drain wanting to swallow her. What would it be like to land on the cracks? Would she make more? Or was the cement too sturdy, too weathered, to notice the last sigh of one more person? Or what if she landed in the drain itself? Would she fall straight into the sewers? Into the river? Would she survive?

They did not speak for a while, as they stood at the very edge of the building, knowing full well that if the wind picked up, it would sweep them over the edge. At least, she knew it. She still wondered if maybe, somehow, he didn’t. Maybe that is what enabled him to stand so close. Maybe he was just an idiot.

He took a cigarette out of his pocket and tapped it against his jeans for a few moments before tucking it into the corner of his mouth, and fishing for the lighter in his shirt pocket. “You gonna have to jump?” He asked calmly.

Loosening a tight fist, she glanced at the paper wadded between her fingers. Her sweat had made the ink run, but the words were still there. “Yes,” she said quietly. “But I will wait until you are gone so that they won’t suspect you.”

He nodded. “Handy. Thanks.”

Silence. And then, she inched forward. One of her toes was hanging off the edge. A strong wind would ease her off. A strong wind. That’s all she needed. She should jump, right now. But instead, she took a step back and turned towards him. “Tell me again,” she said.

He eyed her for a few seconds, took the cigarette out of his mouth, and bounced it against his leg again. “Eyes like chocolate. Hair like old coffee. Tall, bony. Pretty, I guess.”

“Do you know me?” She asked.

He shook his head. “Never seen you before in my life.”

She moved a little closer to the edge and threw the paper note out in the wind. It fell before her, but would not land until long after she did. The wind would play with it for a while, first. “Where will you look first?”

He shrugged, and bit the cigarette, working it between his teeth. “Probably the wharf. After that, maybe Pete’s Pit. Those are my first guesses. They like to keep you moving around.”

She nodded yet again. How many times was that? Three? Maybe more. She was nervous. Seven stories seemed high. Higher than anything had ever seemed before. Debris tumbled or walked by, tossed by the wind or by the current of the side-walk. There was nothing in her mouth to swallow, but she tried just the same. “I’ll see you soon,” she said.

He grunted, and then turned and moved towards the fire escape on the far side of the building. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Avi.”

The wind stole away the sound of rust as he made his way to the alleys, and darted quickly away from the hotel. She was alone. She took a deep breath, heart hammering inside her, hands knotting and loosening. She had done this a dozen times; why was she so afraid?

It’s just a fall. You won’t even feel the ground.

She bit her lip and leaned out. Headfirst. She kept her arms pinned to her side as the air rushed past in in a stampede, the sidewalk opening like a mouth to swallow her, closer and closer and closer. Catch me, she begged. But there was nobody there. Just sidewalk veins and sewer mouths and debris in gutters. Catch me. She did not crack the cement when she hit it.