Chapter 4 – Love At
There was something immensely soothing about hurtling towards the ground towards certain death at what felt like a million miles a second, just falling - unaided and unabated. The earth stretched below us as we stared at the maze of colours below.
This way up, the city below looked like the engine of the old combine harvester that lived in the back of the warehouse of our derelict abandoned home. The harvester had stood alone; dominating the corner of spider webs and shadows for as long as I had been alive. Every part of its worn and rusted body was coated with a decade of dust. Everything that is, except the engine. My father spent an hour of every day with his head stuck amongst the oily gaskets and pistons while I crawled underneath the corroded belly of the machine to check the fuel intake and the oil consumption. I spent years of my childhood staring at that engine, willing it to turn over and roar to please my father. I was eight and I would have given anything to turn our lost cause into a working machine and to see my father's work rewarded. It was only after that I realised it was the only because it was a lost cause that my father cared at all.
But this way, turned nearly a full 180 degrees, staring at a blurry brown and white mass it looks more like the cracked black lacquer on the ancient forgotten cupboard that used to be my secret hiding place so many years ago. I used to crawl inside the rotting wood from a hole that years of woodworm had excavated in the back of the wardrobe. If I was careful and moved slowly, I could sneak in and out without disturbing a grain of dust that had settled on its abandoned doors. My brothers and sisters all ignored the antique lost in time, when undertaking a vigorous yet always unsuccessful hunt for their elder bother. All except Lucy. The second eldest – there wasn't a year between us, but she was ignored while I became the pure white sheep of the family. But Lucy was smart. She knew where I would hide would be somewhere logic ruled impossible. That's why it was her who finally found me, years later when the game was long over and I had lost. The cupboard had stood alone; filled with lonely clothes, stained with memories, coated in darkness; it was a place logic didn't reach.
In my old house, a lot of things stood alone.
I stared blindly at the ground steadily climbing up to meet me. As soon as we hit the ground the impact would cause every bone in our body to splinter into a million tiny fragments, puncturing our lungs, heart and brain. But of course this wouldn't affect us, as the cracking of our spinal column would render us totally paralysed and probably dead as the nerves are torn from the brain stem causing instant yet immensely painful death.
The bomb casing will break upon impact. It'll detonate instantly. Jesus... I can't let that happen. If it detonates now it will kill hundreds. Half of those deaths will be kids and babies. I can't murder children. You're going to regardless of what you do now, Jasper. Just accept it. No. The bomb relies on my core body temperature remaining at 37.0 Celsius. It needs to have a heat source to allow the gasoline to react with the carbon in the cola, but if we were dead and there was no heat source...
"Edward, you have to kill us right now!" I screamed my voice weak and lost in the whistling wind, making it indictable to human ears yet Edward still turned his copper head, chuckling.
"You do enjoy the drama, don't you?" he called loudly a smirk etched on his perfect features.
"No Edward, I'm serious. You have to kill us now to allow our body time to cool before we hit the ground. If our body is still warm when the impact of the landing crushes the bomb's casing, it will detonate. It will kill hundreds of innocent people who can be saved, if you help to kill a potential suicide bomber who has more sins and blood on his hands than all the potential victims' combined." We yelled fighting to raise our voice a fraction above the wind shouting in our ears. But Edward appears unaffected by this as his grin only widened and he began to look almost impressed – there was no other explanation – he was clearly insane.
"No, I'm not actually – although I can see why you may think that... But no, I was just wondering about your sudden personality change. Half an hour ago, you were ready to end your life and the lives of 243 other passengers, not to mention the civilians of New York who would have ended their afternoon stroll with an exploding plane falling from the sky. You were happy to condemn thousands of these types of people and yet now you are contemplating suicide to save rather than destroy. It is a remarkably quick change of morals from someone ready to die for their cause. I am impressed at the way you are battling your psyche, but I would like to know - what brought it on?"
Jasper's strange obsession with your sister, a girl he has never met and yet is already hosting imaginary conversations with... Stop! It's probably best not to dwell too much on Alice, when her apparently mind-reading brother is the only one standing in the way of our certain death. And yet, I still can't stop. Say something quickly – he's waiting for our reply and you don't want him probing into your thoughts and discovering your little crush, do you...?
"Is now an appropriate time to discuss moral compasses?" we gasped as the steadily increasing pressure caused the gravity of our combined weight pushed us towards our graves. "I have just informed you that unless you strangle me or stab me or something – hundreds of people will die. You have to kill me before I hit the ground. My body needs to be cool to stop the reaction taking place and the wind will cool my body sufficiently - if you do it now."
"No" Edward growled at me as the focused his body into an impossible shape that appeared to reduce our air resistance dramatically as we shot through the air.
"Why not?" I screamed desperately "What possible motive can you have for wanting to endanger innocent people to save a potential bomber?"
"Well firstly, because my sister would quite literally tear me limb from limb if I let anything happen to you." I blinked. "And secondly, because beneath all the melodrama, drug abuse, schizophrenia and angst you are actually quite a good person." I swallowed as we entered a solid looking cloud only to fall straight through. It was quite possible that my brain would shut down at any second, resign in protest of all the crap I'd forced it to endure over the years. It had handled my parent's death. It had handled the sale of my siblings. It hand handled the years of drugs. It had handled the concept of suicide bombing. Admittedly it had handled them all very badly, often resulting in me trapped in impossible situations with no real choices or options, but it had handled them. But this beautiful boy with his impossible assurances and old fashioned manner was pushing it over the edge. And I was pretty sure he had mentioned Alice in that explanation which was not aiding my struggle for mental stability.
Suddenly, the seemingly endless cold cloud that enveloped us dissolved and I gazed in horror as I saw 100 meters of air between us and the a small forest just off an unknown city. Edward rocked forward until he was parallel to the earth, spreading his arms and legs widely he shifted our combined weight onto his feet as if crouching in mid-air. We were fast approaching now; the trees were looming higher to greet us visitors for the sky with every millisecond that passed. "Hold on to your hardhat!" Edward yelled before he prepared to land.
SMACK!! We heard rather than saw the impact of our landing in this forest. Instead of the instant yet agonizing death we had anticipated we felt our neck jerk back as the impact shuddered through our body but as we looked down we saw Edward, still frozen in his bend amazingly unharmed.
The ground which had cracked and rippled under the force of such a violent attack, creating wide crevices and fissures in the rocky surface of the earth all stemming from Edwards hands and feet. He reached up and slowly began to release the numerous safety catches and locks on the underside of the harness. We knew when he had succeeded as our body fell sharply to the forest floor landing with a thump on the hard ground free from cushioning plant life. We stood slowly.
We felt numb.
We didn't want to recall the dreamlike events of the previous minute or the events leading up to them; however our mind refused to comply. We glanced down at one shaking hand that looked odd and out of place in the fractured sunlight of the trees. It looked strange and alien, the pale flesh starched tight over the long bones unmarked save for two wide angry welts down the centre of the palms from the harness, crimson against the pallor of the skin.
We shivered.
What was going on here? We had just fallen 30,000 feet, we should be dead. But we couldn't be dead. This wasn't death – there were no flames or pitchforks there was just an impure, tainted world. There was an empty coke can lying by my feet and the hollow aluminium lying forgotten on the grassy ground. This couldn't be heaven or hell, it was too mediocre. Unless that was the real hell; being trapped in an existence with no choice of being good or evil, just being. That this was it.
We fell back as we surrendered to the blackness that was crowding my brain rather than face this adequate existence. We just wanted to give up and go to sleep in this comfortable lethargy currently consuming my limbs. We hit the ground asleep, never wanting to wake. Nothing could make me wake up.
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"Jasper"
Pure notes - sweet honey coated drops of sun -danced through our weary brain like the burning path flames through a deserted light-starved wasteland, pulling us up from the dreary gray shades of nothingness into a world of pain and anger. We opened our eyes.
There before my blinded eyes stood the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Her hair shone darkly like the night sky illuminated with a million stars. The soft curve of her lips put the pouting plumpness of a ripe cherry to shame. But it was the expression in her bewitching golden eyes that transfixed me as I basked in the emotions pouring from her soul. She was not an angel – she was far too pure and beautiful to be a mere messenger. She was surely a Goddess or another divine being. I was not dead or alive then, for this stunning fantasy would not belong in this world or the next. She would have entire galaxies created in her honour, I had obviously alienated myself so far from humanity that I had ended up in this dreamlike place that greatly surpassed any ideals I once had of a human heaven.
Such a pure soul radiating love and warmth and hope. I had never felt such love. When I was little, lying under the body of the harvester with my father I had felt conditional love. Love that was granted as long as I was useful and paid my dividends. Hiding in cramped corners, hidden from my siblings I had felt conditional love. Love that was granted so long as I remained hidden in mystery and provided them with my absent presence. The love I felt from her was unconditional, genuine and indubitable. She was the epitome of perfection.
"I'm Alice"
Of course she was. There was no other presence in the universe that could send fire roaring through me with a word. I sat, tilting my head to drink her ethereal beauty in.
"You've kept me waiting a long time." What? Had this beautiful blazing goddess being waiting for something as unworthy and despicable as my tainted self? The thought chilled me and in that moment I wanted nothing more than to remain here forever, at this divine creature's side.
"I'm sorry, ma'am" I tried to avert my gaze for her, but my eyes were unwilling to release the gorgeous apparition in case the most beautiful thing they had ever beheld or ever would behold disappeared and revealed her perfect form was made of nothing but insubstantial clouds and mist.
I reached and took her small perfect hand in my soiled palm. It felt like bright white lights mixed with the soft scent of fresh fruit in the summer.
It was my home.