“I can’t wait to spend my life falling with you”
Prologue
This short story was written a week after I met Shona. I knew the moment I met her that she was my forever… I knew this because when you feel your soul mate you know. “There you are”. Not when you see them… not love at first sight, love at first contact of two souls when the songs in your hearts are re-written into a harmony. The universe shifts, and a future emerges. Love isn’t something that happens though, its a fall… sometimes terrifying, sometimes healing, and sometime lost and alone and trying to find your way back home to her. That is where I am today, lost in a cloud… hoping I can learn to fly fast enough to not miss the rest of this life with her. Every day we are losing the only real currency we have in this life… Time. Every kiss missed, every laugh that won’t ever have time… lost. But I will find my way back to her in the darkness of this storm cloud. I will…
Part 1
He stood on the edge of a cliff gazing out over a beautiful sea of clouds… A high cliff. This young man who appeared as a cross between Disney’s Tarzan and Disney’s teenage Hercules…
A gangly red head with some sinew he was in shape without being even the slightest bit bulky. He didn’t look strong or threatening… the kind of appearance that one might assume they could easily push around or bully. A somewhat assuming form at over six feet tall, yet kind in the face. He was not “classically hansom” in the slightest, but the word “cute” would probably come to mind to those who took the time to notice him. A little punk rock meets hipster in his outfit… Con slightly large feet. He wore a black button up t-shirt untucked, with a white dragon printed on the front right side that wrapped around to the back. Around his neck he had average sized and misshaped turquoise beads almost as tight as a choker. His nails painted to match. Accessories that one would expect to find in a store for young teenage women’s jewelry. He was standing a little pigeon toed in his skinny jeans with suspenders hanging off his hips, and on his left wrist he wore a thick .
Confidently styled, messy copper hair and freckles. Appealing, just not “hunky”. He had some muscles, but not bulky or overly cut. A thin waste but probably did not possess the washboard abs underneath the shirt. His skin was adorned with bright colorful tattoos that suited his style.
Part 2
As he stood there overlooking the expanse of the mountain overlook, a woman walked up the hill slowly approaching him. A beautiful curved form, with the composure of a model. She approached in a slow feet crossing feminine runway-like walk… She appeared to almost glide towards him as he stood overlooking the expanse. Her walk at first glance might have appeared trained as if she went to female charm school, yet within a few steps it would be clearly apparent that she just did this naturally with no focus or effort applied to it at all. One might recognize that she was probably the type of woman that charm school girls train to look like, rather than someone who went to charm school.
She wore a short sun dress that somehow went well with her l. The dress appeared at first to me somewhat formal but on closer examination one could see a little punk rock detail in the style of the lace that flowed around her mid section. As she walked this dress moved like a ringing church bell around her thighs in tempo with the cadence of her strut. As she approached it was clear she was close to his height, but standing next to him from behind she would still look up to meet his eyes if face to face if he turned to notice her… which he still had not. If they stood closer still, it would be clear she could rest her head on his upper chest and neck comfortably. She struck the almost perfect balance between classically beautiful and a modern day tom boy.
She wore her hair short. A feminine punk brunette style with deep antique brass highlights… her hair was shaved in the back up her neck to the base of her skull, with long lopsided bangs that swept down one side of her face tracing the contours of her jaw and ending just above her chin, almost covering her left eye. This messy razor cut balanced her dress and boots flawlessly. She wore no makeup, yet she had the tones that someone wearing make-up would try to copy. The overall sweep of her hair from her right to left side ended at a point as it curled the contour of her thin face like a frame…
She was elegant, and mockingly lady like, with long slender fingers. She had the visible muscles in her arms of a rock climber, but was not manly or body builder-like at all. Nice hourglass curves were accented by a tight bodice leading up to decent sized breasts that fit her size and shape, yet noticeably stood out as a prominent and attractive feature.
Her attitude and form reminiscent of a burlesque dancer. She seemed tough and confident yet not a sex object… in fact she was probably the kind of girl that if men approached her randomly with unwanted advances in a bar, she would spit out her drink from the laughter. Proud of and in control of her sexuality and sensuality she would be able to curtsy one second and then stomp around and mockingly flash her butt at you the next.
Part 3
She walked towards him, gawky and goofy standing on flat grassy cliff overhang, probably a bit too close to the edge for the comfort of most. He admiring the the clouds resting below this bluff. He shyly rhis arm…
She struts up behind up him, almost his height, elegant, beautiful, muscular, soft, friendly, with the gait and flowing hips of a confident runway model. She had beautiful kind facial features, and deep blue eyes. He gets the feeling of being watched, and he slowly turns to peer over his left shoulder. His face lightens in repressed amazement as this beauty invaded his personal space. He jumps with alternating steps a little, in order to turn and face her.
He quickly fixed his hair and slightly puffed his chest up… She reacted. She looks at him with an eye roll and one eyelid squinting as the opposing eyebrow raises in a look that said “like… really…?”…
She invaded his space farther, by reaching up to re-tussle his hair quickly with one hand, using spread fingers to return his hair to it’s original full spikes. This bizarre and assuming act one would normally reserve for their own child… many would have deemed a bit over stepping a non-verbal first introduction. However, for him it appeared to have the opposite effect it would for most people. It disarmed and relaxed him. He breathed out, and his puffed up “manly” chest and shoulders exhaled with him.
He silently gave her a somewhat puzzled look… and Slowly with light feet she began to walk around him confidently one step at a time with a pause at each step to inspect him coyly. Moving like a Latin ballroom dancer who isn’t dancing, she circled him in a manner one would have expected a roman to inspect a slave at auction…
She ran a gentle hand along his upper torso as she circled admiringly… enjoying him from all angles, and as she did, he went a bit dreamy-eyed like he just got drunk suddenly from her gently caressing his neck. She passed his three quarter and he sunk even deeper into her spell. His knees buckled together slightly on his pigeon toed feet lowering his head height to meet hers. Weak-in-the-knees as he admired her boldness. As she circled back to his front he met her gaze and as he looked into her eyes his lids drooped slightly into a state of relaxation. She stopped pausing at his front and she tauntingly leaned in towards him. He, expecting she was going to kiss him, licks his lips while blinking and glancing quickly down and back up at her eyes still locked on his. Surprised, shyly, he quickly and awkwardly leaned into her. He swallows nervously the spit that wasn’t even in his mouth. As she leaned closer still, in anticipation, and tilts his head to the left and relaxes is lips in a small smile as he breathes in a startled little breath cut-short by her moving even closer. He slowly closes his eyes and leans in the rest of the way, but didn’t meet her lips…
She put a gentle slow hand on his chest one finger at a time beginning with her pinky and ending with the index finger… Then ever so gently she leans in and tilts her head to the side… And She shoves him daintily off the cliff with a quick elegant follow trough of the wrist and fingers… like the gesture of a fine lady at tea gesturing “stop it” to a friend who paid her a compliment…
Part 3
He fell, flailing wildly as a faint scream faded away from her fast, now along on this cliff bluff overlooking puffy clouds below. She walked towards the ledge just in time to watch him squirming in the air. She leaned over and playfully purses her lips curiously as he flies downward, and raised her trimmed eyebrows cutely as she leaned out to peer over the edge. Her back leg toe on point behind her and arms slightly out to balance herself. She settled back on her back foot and with her swaying hips and silent ringing of her bell dress against her thighs she walks 2 steps to the edge ending with both toes over the bluff’s edge like an Olympic diver…
She fearlessly, and slowly leaned forward as her arms widened, and confidently allowed her body to fall into a swan dive off the edge.
Part 4
dress flowing like flag in the wind she put her head down and arms tightly at her sides. She tucked and accelerated, like a torpedoed sky diver towards him… His body still kicking flailing, as he screams so loud that he hit the upper register of his voice, so hard that he ceased to make a sound. He clawed and scrambled for something to grab in the air, a branch, a tree, anything to stop this descent.
As she approached she opens up her arms and slows perfectly to meet his gangly body squirming in the air in a mess of limbs and panic… She observed him briefly, and tilted her arms back to drift closer to him… As she does, he managed to grab a hold of her with a random flail and instantly grabbed her with a death grip and snatched himself to her. He was now clinging underneath her there for dear life. He swung his first leg up and over her and then with a double-take effort to wrap her entirely he tried twice to hook his second leg around and succeeded. Underneath her he frantically looked down and instantly in total terror, he scrambles and climbed around to her back. He was now on top of her like a baby gibbon with limbs wrapped around her chest under her arms, and legs around her waist.
She smiled brightly at his display and allows it with only sings of amusement… She paused, and then cutely wiggling one shoulder, then the other, with arms slightly down she scooted, shimmies and twisted to spin around in his grasp. She finishes her comical maneuver in flight and ended facing up with him on top of her. His arms now around her back, and face (inappropriately) squished and buried in her full breasts mushing his face… his eyes were still closed as tight as they can be. The wind was making his exposed cheek and lips look like a dog in a hair dryer as the wind flapped his cheek open and shut…
She tapped his cute button nose lightly twice to get his attention with whimsical playfully raised eyebrows… as if to say, “open up… you sweet little frightened thing”… He jerked at the touch and pulls her tighter, clung to her for dear life… She giggled and tapped his nose again.
Part 4
He loosened his death grip slightly, and opened one eye… looked out around her breast like he was peeking around a corner. With a raised brow of terror he and quickly shut his eyes again, scrunching back up and pulling tighter into her chest… She chuckles and shakes her head… And tapped him again a third time with a whimsical air of “come on… it’s ok…” that went with a small playful head raise with her long elegant neck tilted to see him… His breathing slows slightly, and he opened one eye, and looks directly at her breast as he lifted his head… He made a brow down puzzled look, and then… as if trying not to stare at the woman’s breasts, he looked up at her rather than around her this time…
A little relaxed in the face but still clinging… he caught her eyes and was suddenly stunned into forgetting everything going on. He opened the other eye slowly in amazement as he sees her playful expression without an ounce of fear on her face… he looked in her eyes and knew see wasn’t afraid. This calmed him farther. Still not letting go of her, his shoulders relaxed. He was now just puzzled, and a curious look spread across his face.
Part 5
He released the death grip on her… As he did, the space between them begin to grow wider as they fell. He slowly relaxed his shoulders farther as they came apart… She let him lift off her gently as they fall… Holding both his hands softly as he wobbled a bit in flight…
When they were nearly arms length apart, she does a quick effortless move and righted herself so they were both falling belly down. Still had their eyes locked and holding both his hands like skydivers the descend together…
He flinched and blinked and steadied himself with almost joyful exertion on his face, and a small grin when he is successful… and they continued to fall…
She began to let go of him… left hand first causing her to circle to his right side a bit. He nervously looked down with a look of fear, but as he glanced back up to meet her smile, he relaxed once more. He wobbled in the air to steady himself… He initiated letting go with his right and… he teetered in flight and corrected… free falling face to face with her but no longer touching…
she opened her eyes wide with adventure and moves her arms and suddenly she flew around him in a circle. As he followed her with his head she disappeared behind him, but then she continued and he caught her coming around the other side. On her second pass she only does a half circle and he looked frantically left and right for her, worried he had lost her. He acted… He began to kick, squirm, and doggy paddles his way around to her when she didn’t come around. In this action he overshoots and began an uncontrollable spin in place… He passes her once… twice… and on then managed on the third pass half circle to steady. He spun to face her and he squashed his nose right into hers, almost touching lips, forehead to forehead.
He found himself face to face with her already in a huge playful open mouth grin. He looked surprised and embarrassed… He breaks into a huge happy soundless open mouthed grin matching her excitement and energy… They drifted away from one another, and he makes a shrugging “I don’t know” gesture that sends him accidently into a backflip as the wind catches his hands… Surprised he returned to a basic arms out position and stopped his flip. With a bobbly, dog paddle like gesture, then a more skilled recovery (with a bobble here and there) he smiled in an elated state of surprise and delight…
She let out a triumphant laugh through her full open mouth smile and a triumphant laugh. She was just as delighted by his display as he was. She squints, and then cocked her head to the side and up as though to say “oh yeah? Watch this!!!” and quickly she tucked her legs and shot them down to stand vertical in flight… She dropped fast below him, spinning like a helicopter blade. As she did so, the clouds below enveloped her and she vanished in a puff.
He became a little nervous, but his resolve held fast and he puts his arms to his side and dives after her head first through the clouds…
Part 6
He pierces the other side of the clouds, and was alone. Only him against a cloud canopy falling alone… He looked left, and right, and spins, and the look on his face is concern as he searches the sky for her… And then just as he seems to peak in worry (not fear but concern that he lost her), he sweeps his head left and mushed his nose into her smiling face once a again, just as before. This time he let out an almost identical loud laugh as she had over his uncontrolled flip. He giggled once again with a look of exhilarating elation…
They paused in flight for a moment, eyes locked together as he seemed to forget he was falling at all. He carried no tension anymore. The world vanished for him as he became lost in her eyes. He snapped out of it quickly, grabbed her head gently behind the ears and Kisses a small peck on her cheek just to the right side of her lips… She mouthed a kiss back missing his lips and a little startled… he paused… cocked his head as she did earlier to the side with an eyebrow raised, and duplicated her helicopter drop perfectly into the distance.
A warm smile washed over her entire body… She tucked, and bulleted after him and they both flew down. As she caught him he stops spinning and both of them with arms and legs apart, head to head face to face… as they fell, circling one another, her upside down him right side up the spin… It isn’t clear anymore which way is up as the spiral together in the sky. He looks in the direction of what he once believed was down, and it seems he was now slowing down and falling upward with the clouds now below him once again.
Part 7
Slowly the same bluff of grassy hill they began on appears above them as they slow to meet it… sticking out just at the apex of their deceleration arc, and just in reach of them where they could land on it… they looked at the ground, and at each other as if to say “want to?”, and they both grin… He bent his back, and peeled away from her… She stood upright, tucked, and dove straight for him… As they fall away towards the clouds once again the gentle breeze blows the grass of the bluff, as if the universe let out a loving sigh that it only makes when two strangers begin the journey… forever falling in love.
Epilogue
Falling alone is terrifying. Fighting your demons… realizing they are a mirror. Realizing that even though they shaped you, they no longer need to control you. This is where I sit at 4am every morning now. The sun sets and she calls me home… and I know I can’t go yet. I love you my Shona, wherever you are, sitting in your pain like I am now learning to sit with mine. I hope you will find me again too. I will never stop looking.
TheGrayJedi 