Photo by Patrice Bouchard on Unsplash
by Kathryn Kulpa
That time you hung, frozen, at the top of the giant water slide, between the Monster Mansion and the funnel cake stand, queasy with the smell of chlorine and fried dough, such a long, undulating ride down. Stop holding up the line! your mother scolded, & grim-faced carried you back down the ladder, all those metal steps, when all you really needed was a push.
That time on your honeymoon, sky-diving, This will cure your fear, he said, and all the way up you thought of birds, the friendly flutter of cedar waxwings, double-dutch loopings of starlings, the dead stillness of hawks riding air currents, trusting the wind to carry them, if they could do it, why not you? But still your legs trembled, still your stomach bucked, and you only took the jump when he gave you a push.
And this time, this perfect blue stillness of a September day, one leg out the window, one hand clutching the ledge, trying to keep your eyes on the clouds in the distance and not the haze of smoke between you and anything else, not the columns of vermilion flame shooting from windows below you, not the breaking glass, not the sirens, not the screams, only that window of blue, the cool air raptors could ride, so why not you? And when the stranger from the office next door offers you his shaking hand you take it, you promise not to let go, thinking that maybe this time you will be the one to give someone else a push.
Kathryn Kulpa is the author of For Every Tower, a Princess, forthcoming from Porkbelly Press, and A Map of Lost Places, forthcoming from Gold Line Press. She likes old books, good coffee, and obstreperous cats.
