Without saying too much, she was quickly falling down the hill: out from the front door, approaching the cliff. She was laughing, having fun. She could feel each blade of grass as she plowed through the field. Her eyes were closed tight and her lips were tight too from how hard she was smiling. She rolled-rolled all the way to the cliff where her body slid off like a quesadilla from the pan: but she reached her arm out and with fingers dug into the earth. Quickly and without exerting too much effort, she stood up again on top of the cliff and looked over the edge to whatever lied below. She brushed off her skirt and placed a sweet-blade-of-grass in between her lips and she set out, down the mountain, the long way.
She pulled out from her bag: a box of matches and she lit one and placed it inside her ear: the flame would keep her going.
“I do not care if my punctuation is accurate”
She was on the phone with her editor.
She kept on down the mountain until finally she ran into just the guy she’d been looking for and he was sitting there with closed gleeful eyes and holding his hat in his hand. He had taken it off because at that point the sweat from the fabric was worse than the sun in his eyes. The small bear (maybe he was a bear), was impatiently tapping his foot as she approached.
“We are always late for dinner”
They were always late for dinner. He looked at her with some uncle-ish disdain. She didn’t do so much as-to-look-his way. God sometimes she hated walking down the mountain. They walked along and she dug her toes into the mud and she would kick and flick it around. Uncle Bear just kept on walking and sometimes he would put his head in his hands for a moment when her complaining got too much. They trudged on down.
At the base of the mountain, finally, was the door. The door, to the inside where the dinner was happening, was big and stone and you couldn’t open it with your hands. On the other side of that big stone was the dining table where everyone had probably already sat. There would be these gorgeous porcelain bowls, painted on. A fire somewhere in the room, a hearth. There were sweets and treats and fruit too because this kitchen knew-how to throw down. She let out a sigh and walked through the door after Uncle Bear who gave her one last bored look before throwing those paws up into the air and stepping over the threshold himself.
Those big great wooden chairs and the wide, and long, dining table. The polished wood sparkled in candlelight. There were flowers everywhere. She took her place at the table, where familiar faces took turns greeting her warmly. They spoke to her like they had long been friends. And they had, long-been-friends. She had fallen off the cliff that morning but she was still not doing good. She was not quite back to life. She was on her way. One at a time they came up to her.
“We missed you last night”
Some of them had even brought items and objects or things to eat and drink. This is when Uncle Bear took the mic. Up at the back of the room where the stage was, or stands or something, he had a microphone in his hand. His other hand was placed on his forehead, to comfort him through this speech.
“You, are terribly lost,
You, have forgotten what it means to be,
You, we have all gathered here to see.”
He went on and on down the list of all her loved ones. He talked about how loved she is. He looked her straight in the eye. He said now it is your turn to do this for yourself. And they disappeared. They all left.
She sat there alone at the table. Her teeth fell through tender meat. And she wept.
It was easy for her, to forget life, to run away, and to quit. And so, they all thought, let’s give her what she wants: let us leave. Really they were all waiting there in the kitchen, waiting for her to get over herself. It was not so easy. But, she did not quit. For what, she thought, was the first time: she did not quit. She sat there at the table and ate her meal by herself and she wept. And she imagined she just had to walk up the mountain by herself and keep on going.
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