Falling in Time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Shotzee

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blood dripped from the comer of my mouth. I didn’t have time to wipe it before I was hit again. This time my head was rammed into the corner of the wall. I could feel the concrete wall make a new cut near my temple.

 

“Hit him again!” I head one of them yell.

 

 “No, I don’t want to get his nasty blood on my hands,” The leader of the gang joked. “You got that on tape, right?”

 

 “Yeah, it’s uploading onto Spacecase right now.”

 

 Spacecase. I hate that website more than anything. The website is a place where kids can post anonymous videos of a group of people bulling, , beating, or abusing another person. It’s messed up. You like the ones that are brutal or good. That is what this world has evolved to, or rather devolved to.

 

 9 p.m. October 17^th, 2552 was the day time froze. All clocks froze. No one knows how long the clocks were stopped for. I guess that is the strange thing about time. You can only tell time by a clock, and if all clocks stop, then you can never be sure just how long it had been. After that, time began to run backwards. Seven to six to five to four and so on.

 

 The year is 1990 and time had been counting down for over five hundred years. People believe the time is counting down to something, we just don’t know what. Ever since it started counting down, people have become mean. They do what they want, and if someone gets hurt along the way it’s collateral damage. I can’t even imagine what they will have degraded to by the zero year.

 

“You know Adam, you’re really popular. Tons of people liked your last video.”

 

“Go to hell,” I responded, wiping the blood from my mouth.

 

 They didn’t seem to approve of my answer. The leader kicked my stomach again. I grunted and grabbed at my midsection.

 

“Don’t tell him what to do,” The leader commanded. He swung his foot into my stomach unexpectedly. “For good measure,” The others laughed along with him.

 

They left me there on the seventh floor bathroom. The senior bathroom to be exact. I had been found in there once before when I was younger. The senior boys had dragged me in there and had a great time beating me. I cried when they hit or kicked me way too hard. They left laughing just like these seniors did. It was the first time I was ever beaten by the other students. The worst of it all was when I was found. It didn’t seem to matter to the principle whether or not I was beaten to the point that I couldn’t walk. I was an eighth grader, and I wasn’t supposed to be in there.

 

I felt the tears run down my face as the memories flooded back into my mind. All of the beatings I had endured. All of the times I was told to toughen up. All of the times I was told it was my fault. It was my fault because I painted my nails and liked girls’ clothes. It was my fault because I liked boys and not girls. It was my fault.

 

I pushed myself up off of the cool tile floor. I headed out the door and down the dark hallway. I pushed open the door to the stairway, and mindlessly walked the four flights of stairs that led up the roof of the nine story building.

 

The roof of the school was a Japanese rock garden. It was one of my favorite places in the world. It was peaceful and calm, so different from the busy city down below. Not only that, it gave you a view of the sunset, and it was like nothing I had ever seen before. That is why I chose it as the place I wanted to die. I sighed in contempt, and I slowly made my way to the edge of the roof. I lowered my sore body onto the ledge and swung my legs over it.

 

“I wonder how far it is down,” I asked myself.

 

“About a hundred and eighty feet.” I jumped at the sound of another person’s voice.

 

“W-what are you doing here?” I turned my head towards the voice nervously.

 

Zander Townsend, the captain of the basketball team, stood behind me. His black hair was tousled by the wind and it made his blue eyes even lighter.

 

“Most likely the same thing as you,” Zander said walking over to the edge of the roof and sat next to me.

 

“And what do you think that is?” I asked carefully.

 

“Suicide,” Zander replied. I whipped my head towards him. He was looked up at the sky for a while. I studied his features; I looked at the sharp edge of his jaw, the slight smile that laid on his face, the dimple that was barely visible, and finally his eyes. They were looking at me now. His head was tilted to the side giving me a better view of his face. “Am I wrong?”

 

“No, Zander, You’re right,” I admitted to him. “You could probably guess why I want to jump, but why are you?”

 

“I’ve been planning to kill myself for a while. It’s mostly just been a matter of date and method,” He avoided my question easily without telling me why he wanted to jump. “How do you know who I am?”

 

“In case you forgot, we were friends till the fourth grade.” I gave him a sad smile. “I understand if you don’t remember me, but I just want to ask something that’s a little personal. Why would someone like you want to jump? I mean, isn’t your life perfect?”

 

“Nowhere close to it. I’m sure you don’t believe this, but I’m gay. I’m tired of hiding. I don’t want to be made fun of for who I am, but every single time I try to tell someone, they blow me off.” Zander looked out at the city. “I’ve told my parents, my brother, some of my team, and I tried to tell you yesterday. Like you, they all thought it was some sort of stupid joke.”

 

“You want to kill yourself because no one will believe you?” I asked.

 

“There’s more than that… I just… I have stage four lung cancer. I don’t know. Everything’s just a hopeless cause from now on.” Zander rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably before changing the subject. “And um- believe it or not, I actually have no clue as to why you would want to jump.”

 

“Really?” I raised my eyebrows. A slow blush spread across his face. “Maybe the fact that at least four times a week I get brutalized by someone because I’m different. Maybe it’s because I am so tired of my parents yelling at each other every night trying to find something to do with me. I’m tired of going to an authority figure for help and having them laugh in my face and tell me it’s my fault. I’m tired of everyone looking at me as a freak. I’m just so tired of it all.”

 

“Wait, what do you mean ‘what to do with you’?” Zander asks quietly.

 

“My mother wants to send me to some camp to help heal me, and my father just wants to send me to a psychologist to see if I just need to take medicine so that he can have a normal son that has nothing wrong with him. Then they get annoyed and tell me to kill myself, so that they can regain their honor and status.”

 

I took a deep breath to calm myself down. I leaned forward to look at his face. My left thigh slipped off of the edge of the wall. I frantically grabbed at Zander’s jacket sleeve to keep myself from falling. He grabbed onto my arm quickly helping me regain my balance.

 

“You don’t want to fall just yet,” Zander advised quietly.

 

“Why not?”

 

“You have to see one last sunset before you go.” Zander’s grip on my arm loosened and then let go. “At least that’s what my dad always used to say.”

 

“Your dad said you had to see one last sunset before you die?” I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

 

“Yeah.” Zander grinned, dimples showing brightly. “He would say if he died, he would want to die seeing the thing he loved most. He wanted to see the red sunset one last time before he died. He’s changed the saying now to ‘Normality gets you places’.”

 

“I think I like the first one more.”

 

“Me too.”

 

Zander leaned back, sighed, and looked up at the sky. I looked up too. The blue was getting darker. It was pretty, in a sense.

 

“Have you ever heard of the time before the clocks stopped?” I asked him, completely curious as to what he was going to say since we weren’t really allowed to talk

about that time.

 

“Yeah, a little bit,” He admitted.

 

“Could you tell me about it?” I looked out to the cold metallic city. “I haven’t ever heard much about it.”

 

“Well, there used to be buildings the size of mountains, and people used to travel into space to see the stars, and the lights used to illuminate the night sky. They used to put these things called telescopes up in the sky, and they would take pictures of the earth. The ones at night were awesome. They outlined all of the different countries and made them look like they were stars themselves.” I could see his face light up as he told me of the old world and what it used to look like. He talked for a long time about different things. “Did you know that in 1800 A.D. they put this colorful pasty-liquidy substance on this certain type of paper that was soft and velvety?” I shook my head. “It’s called painting. They used to paint things so well that if you put them next to the real thing, you couldn’t tell the difference between the two.”

 

“How?” I was interested now.

 

“It’s similar to how programmers used to program the robots to act like a human, but then they were too life like so they stopped. It was too perfect. It scares people when perfection happens. Because when it goes wrong, it really goes wrong.”

 

“Like how people decide that the equal relationships aren’t actually right again, or how we shouldn’t be able to dress any way we want.” I rubbed my hands together nervously. I looked at my chipped pink polish nails. I can’t believe I was going to do this with chipped nails. “Like how guys aren’t supposed to wear make-up, or nail polish.”

 

We sat there in silence for a little while.

 

“Sometimes,” Zander began, “Things are intended for one thing, but then they find a better use for it.”

 

“Oh yeah, like what?” I wasn’t convinced.

 

“Like, this thing called Playdough. It was originally made to take paper off of walls. When they stopped using paper on the walls, this man thought he was going to go out of business. Until a woman suggested he make it into a toy for children because it was moldable, like sand, but it stuck together like clay.”

 

“So did he turn it into a kid’s toy?” I asked. He was grinning again.

 

“Yeah. He added non-toxic color dye to it, and started to sell it. He made millions!” Zander exclaimed. “Somehow, my father got some when I was little. It was really fun.”

 

“I wish I could have seen it,” I whispered.

 

“Me too.”

 

It was getting closer and closer to dark. I couldn’t believe it. I was actually going to do this. I was going to jump. Could I do it alone though? I was always afraid of doing this alone. Would he want to jump with me though?

 

 After a while of sitting there with him, continuing to talk about random things of the past, I noticed that he was staring at my hands.

 

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but why are you staring at my hands?”

 

“I was just admiring your nail polish.” He replied blushing in the process.

 

“Here.” I held out my hand. “They are really chipped, and I was going to redue them the other day, but I forgot to.”

 

“No.” He held my hand and examined each nail. “They look amazing. I like the pink with the white. It’s elegant.”

 

“They are so chipped and ugly. Really, they can look so much better than this.”

 

When I was expecting him to let go of my hand, he slipped his fingers in between my own and closed his hand. Now it was my turn to blush.

 

“What are you doing?” I asked. I bit my lip.

 

“Sorry.” He went to pull his hand out of mine.

 

“No, don’t let go.” I tightened my fingers around his. He smiled and blushed alongside me. We sat silently in each other’s presence for a while.

 

“You know, I’ve liked you ever since before the fourth grade. Actually, since the moment we first became friends,” He suddenly rambled all in one burst.

 

“What?” I smiled brightly. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

 

“I don’t know, Adam. I was scared. I mean, like, you’re so beautiful. You’re make-up is perfect, and your nails are always stunning. You’re kind to everyone, even if they don’t approve of you. You work so hard to just be amazing. I didn’t think I deserved someone like you. I was afraid you would only get hurt more than you already were.” I listened to him compliment me again and again. It was flattering and it made me feel love. Real love was something I hadn’t felt in so long. However, I also listened to him degrade himself again and again. I listened to him say that he wasn’t strong enough for me, and that he wasn’t smart enough for me, and that he wasn’t handsome enough for me. I couldn’t believe it. He was good at everything, and I wasn’t. He was the one with it backwards.

 

“Why do you keep degrading yourself?”

 

“Why do you?”

 

“Because I’m not perfect.” I said quietly.

 

“Exactly. No one is, but you are too beautiful… too perfect, and it scares them because perfection is scary. It means that they aren’t worth anything compared to it… compared to you.” He scooched closer to me and rested his arm against mine. I hadn’t noticed the smell of rain and nicotine coming from his jacket until now.

 

“It’s almost sunset.” I pointed out.

 

I’d never actually kissed someone who liked me back. I’d always wanted to. I looked down at his lips. They were a light shade of pink. I wasn’t brave enough to kiss his lips, so I did the next best thing. I took my hand that was unused and placed it on his right cheek. I pulled him closer and kissed his cheek. He blushed a deep shade of red, and I am sure that I was blushing too.

 

“I- I’m sorry. I wanted one last kiss. I don’t really-” My sentence was cut short by his lip pressing against mine, and his hand pressed firmly against my cheek.

 

He pulled back from the short kiss and I leaned forward, kissing him again. When I pulled away, he leaned forward and kissed me again. We continued on like this for several minutes before we stopped to catch our breath.

 

“We should watch the sun set one last time.” Zander whispered to me.

 

 His forehead was connected to mine. He pulled something out of his pocket. I glanced down and noticed it was a music player. He slipped one earphone in my ear and began to play some music I didn’t know. There were no words, only instruments. There were strings and violins. They made the sunset twice as beautiful; it made it more dramatic. When the red showed up, the brass symbols clanged. When the orange appeared, the saxophone became louder. When the sun touched the horizon, the cellos played. The moon began to come out, and the flute began to flutter softly, and then adding in the harp with the stars. The piano player had a small solo as the darkness consumed the city. Finally it all quieted until it stopped completely. It was the most exquisite thing I had ever witnessed.

 

Zander took his hand out of mine. I looked at him in the darkness. He removed his jacket and placed his music player in it before taking my hand again.

 

“I don’t want to jump alone.” I admitted to him. “What if I don’t make it to the bottom?”

 

“How about I jump with you? That way if we don’t reach the bottom we will be together.”

 

“You still want to jump?” He nodded as an answer. “The stars couldn’t look better. If we fall backwards we could see them as we fall. It would make it less scary.”

 

“It won’t be that bad. We should die instantly. After that, we’ll meet in heaven. Don’t forget to find me, okay?” He laughed and nudged my shoulder.

 

“Like I could forget to find you.” I nudged him back.

 

“I mean it.” He warned.

 

“So do I.”

 

He helped me stand up on the ledge. We turned around and switched holding hands.

 

“Here.” He gave me his senior game ring. “Wear it, so that in heaven I can find you.”

 

“Then you wear this. So that I can find you if you can’t find me.” I gave him my favorite bracelet that had the name of my favorite band on it. “There.” I smiled. It strangely looked nice on him.

 

“Are you ready?” He asked clearly nervous.

 

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I took a deep breath, and held his hand tightly.

 

 “Okay, on three. One.” I looked at the cherry blossom tree that no longer had any blooms. “Two.” I listened to the silent city that suspected nothing. “Three.”

 

 9p.m. October 7, 1990 we stepped back and fell. It was simple. I didn’t think of anyone or anything in particular. I just watched the stars move further away in almost slow motion. The building seemed to become bigger and bigger, cutting my view of the sky in half. I’d never imagined a site being so beautiful. Never in my life had I had a day filled with so much beauty.

 

Little did I know, it was all nothing compared to what I was going to see next.