Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
Once upon a time there was the feeling of falling. She held tight and laughed, falling to Earth. David seemed happy, though focussed on not letting go. They were a long way up, in a time and place when safety was a minor concern.
David was thinking of death. If he plummeted and it all ended now what would become of him? What would life be then for Sara? God figured in David’s scheme of things. How the Universe moved and evolved meant nothing to him without Good overlooking every motion, every action, every thought.
Sara always found this perverse. Her smiles were expected by all those around her, she infected people with her joy. Every day she woke and realised how much David had become infected too. Not with joy, but what she came to call his God disease.
If David desired so much the Nirvana of God, he spoke of it often enough, then why not just get the fuck there? It’s just too strange. So bizarre to see people living in anticipation of death.
So as she falls all this flows through her and she thinks “One day, one day honey, if you don’t shut up about God and this perfect after life, I’m going to make your God disease terminal.” And that’s when she realised she was not really joking.
In that moment of joy and the sensation of falling, she had transformed. Because of that, she now knew that her life with David would change. What would she do when this short precipitous fall had ended? She now had only moments more to decide, and it was enough.
The pace at which she felt all this, played her thoughts through her heart was terrifying. The smile vanished. The joy froze in her heart. She knew it was over.
The man she had only seconds before radiated love for, was looking like a stranger. Because of that she would let go. Better her than him. His pain at losing her would be a shadow of the loss if she were to abandon him. Until finally as they drew to safety she thought, “Fuck. What an idiot I can be.”
Her life would never be the same. David would break and heal. Letting go would certainly have been fatal, but heartbreak isn’t. With a huge sigh of relief she reached the end of the ride. A simple carnival flying fox had been cause of her greatest epiphany. Her narrow brush with death.