My intent was to write a story about people falling ultimately to their death, including the Falling Man of 9/11 or the Flying Tailor who jumped off the Eiffel Tower in his attempt to test his invention. The Flying Tailor never found out whether his invention worked. His intent was to fly. Meanwhile, the Falling Man’s intent was to get out of his office that had been engulfed in flames. An iconic photo captured the later scene: life and death frozen in a split second. Nonetheless, his skull and the rest of his body crashed all the way down onto the concrete floor separating his body parts which indistinguishably scattered all around upon impact. He died of course. The Flying Tailor suffered the same fate. They died, both of them. What is it like to fall to your death? It never ceases to amaze me, there’s some mystery to falling and dying. Dying has its own mystery to it. But with falling and dying, the combination of the two, there seems to be a higher degree of mysteriousness to it. Will you die of a heart attack before crashing to the floor? I’ve been wanting to try skydiving. Recently, I saw a video from YouTube uploaded by a skydiving instructor. During their flight, the plane where they dived off almost hit him and his unsuspecting female student who is wrapped in harness in front of him. He said in the comments that he could do nothing but ball up upon impact. Thankfully, the plane’s wing only cut their, what’s it called? I’m too lazy to Google it, that strap or thread before they release the parachute? Oh! What if the plane actually hit and killed them? That would absolutely make a viral video! It’d earn more views on YouTube. Though if it had happened there would have been no video recorded. Just shocking news about two skydivers dead on the ground, bathed in blood and broken bones, internal organs splashed everywhere. Just an ordinary and boring news on TV. Nothing beats the video captured firsthand. Everyone loves first-person perspective – POV porn, POV games, POV porn games, God, love it!

Let’s get back to the premise, this story is supposed to be about a compilation of falling people. Wait, if this is going to be a video that’d be perfect – a video compilation about falling people! Or cut it out, how about people getting struck by lightning? Oh, I remember that character from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Nope. No video, just a story about falling people. No moving images. Be moved by the magic of words. When words collide, worlds collapse. Imagine your skull and the asphalt corresponds to a word. When those two words collide, different worlds collapse.

“What worlds to be specific?” the girl in ponytail asks.

The trickster answers, “Just worlds. There are a lot of worlds. Their names escape me. Much like of words.”

“Nah, you’re just too lazy to Google it,” the princess rebuts.

The trickster cast its sinister smile and released a pendant and dangled it before her. He opened it. It unfolded a pocket black hole. As soon as it opened, it swallowed the princess entirely, leaving just an empty space reminiscent of tattoos devoid of whatever meaning – the kind of meaning you’ve been meaning to figure out so you’ve been searching every single day, hungry and angry, gloating, snarling and bleating, which you’re so desperate to get you’d come looking for it to the end of time. For all you know, you’ll find it among places where you least expect, like in the story of The Alchemist. So why not go back to the place where you came from? From the cliff or window or tower where you launched yourself. Search among stalls, rummage through malls which are technically zoos that hold people captive rather than plants and animals.

“Has it ever crossed your mind, the idea of you jumping off to your death?”

Most likely you’re not suicidal at all, just thrilled by the idea of it, you know, just fancy thinking, can’t help it right? Because it’s really interesting. What is it like to die from falling? Or after falling? Depending on whether heart attack actually kills you first, in that case, you’re already dead even before you hit the asphalt. If the idea of falling excites you, you’d rather become an astronaut.

“Go to space and free fall!”

For there will be no concrete to wreck your skull into pieces. Plus you’ll experience better inertia. If I can recall correctly as I’m too lazy to find its meaning online, ‘inertia’ means the resistance of an object to change its existing state of motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Meaning, when you fall, you’ll fall forever. The outer space is infinite and it’s still expanding. God knows where your fall will take you.

“How about falling in love?”

The anxious poet writes, “She’s all I could ever think of. She’s all I could ever see. I could not rid her image off my head. It’s like a shadow forever attached to my body. Like a tattoo forever etched on my skin. I love her more than anything. I love her more than I love myself. She’s a treasure I can never find elsewhere, an ethereal gift breathing at my doorstep. Whenever I see her I end my search for the meaning of my life. She lifts me out of time, stirring my imagination, transporting my soul every time on a fantastic journey. But the horizon had been tinged with red – the color of jealousy – when I learned about her husband. Sure the world is huge and inexhaustible, but she’s the only piece of land where I can breathe alive.”

“Love is a cultural invention.”

Love gives stimulation to our existence; you’ll go beast mode once you’ve felt it. Love is rereading past messages as if the words would change in favor of what you wanted them to be. Love is understanding the hints, the clues, the clever foreshadowing for the unsuspecting audience. Ravishing and exuberant. Love is writing until the pen bleeds no more, until black becomes gray, until the marks create no more ink but mere etches. Then poke it around like a mindless, savage, murderous, unmerciful beast. Until you hear no more the sound of mouse clicking.

“Just keep on swiping right until we match, alright?”

Until everything makes sense. Until every leaf and every ray of light makes sense. When we match, you’ll no longer be lonely and when you finally ran out of ways to get lonely, you’ll have no choice but to be happy. That’s when you’ll stop mourning over unending revisions and numbing rejections. You’ll no more be stuck hiding behind curtains waiting for the ghost amidst the warmth of winter and shivers of summer. There’ll be just us right there over the edge of the cliff or window or tower or wherever you want. But before we jump, let’s have this final drink. This is funny and awkward at the same time. This gives a whole new meaning to ‘one for the road’. ‘Cause we’re going to hit the road, right? Unless you rather want to be in space.

In case you want to bring more people along, don’t throw the pen just yet. Give it some use. Why not turn it to an ice pick? Thrash it around people and threaten them if they don’t jump off, you’re going to stab them.

“Stab you or you jump? Decide!”

Wait a minute, why not both?

“I stab you and then you jump, okay?”

‘Cause he’ll lose his balance after the stab, no? So win-win!

“That ain’t funny, psycho! Better have your head checked.”

“No need. I believe it’s been broken from my latest jump.”

“You parkour?”

“No, I’m a cosplayer.”

“Have you seen Suicide Circle?”

“Not a fan of Marvel. I like henta–sentai, my bad! This is sick. I’m not receiving any notifications from Tinder.”

Swipe right, swipe right. My mind's blank, not black though. It has an eye and it sees the future. It says we're doomed. In a happy kind of way. Happy and wild. On esttous des savages. It had anticipated that Leo would win. Finally. A sign of the imminent apocalypse.

“We are all savages!”

An idiom, time and again.

“You’re really smart.”

“I beg to differ. I’m just sick.”

Idioms for the idiot.

“Just write until you see nothing.”

“For how long?”

“Just keep on.”

“Alright.”

“When you finish then we jump.”

“Copy.”

“Do you bleed?”

“Still.”

“Just cross out the words on your sticky notes.”

“I haven’t done any of them yet.”

“Pretend.”

“Well, they’re not important anymore.”

“You’ve still got a hell of a lot of pages to fill. Cross them all out right away.”

And begin again. Let the words fall onto the new pages.

“Oh! Look, the pen still writes!”

“Good. We still have a long way to go before we jump.”

“This is a miracle! I thought this pen’s no more!”

“It’s got its second wind.”

“It’s alive again.”

“Second coming.”

“It writes pretty well. Like its ink has been refilled. It writes more vivid than it ever did.”

“Second cumming, if there’s such a thing.”

“Oh, God! I’m so happy.”

“Happy for you. Ever experienced orgasm? That’s the only thing I’m happy with. Woah, it’s a match!”

“Be careful that could be a trans.”

“Oh wait, let me check. No way, pre-op!”

“May I take a look? Wow, that’s a beaut!”

“For chrissakes, I don’t go for guys!”

“You don’t fall for guys?”

“I’m straight, dumbass!”

“Pretend.”