Harriet’s Crossing
Taking a step closer to the edge I looked over the side. Clouds covered the massive expanse that I gazed into, and there was nothing above me but the sun and moon. Stars reflected at me on one side and on the other side clouds that rose higher than the ones below me were dotted against the sky. I was currently on this large floating wood platform. Towering above the clouds the platform magically floated in mid air, seemingly suspended by an invisible force. It felt like I was riding on an old river raft that had lost momentum above the clouds and had stalled below the sun. My left leg was chained to this long bundle of rope that sat next to me. There was this large towering stack of rope sat next to me like some type of colossal exotic snake on the platform. Its chain on my leg had a grip that seemed impossible to break free of, and after a few minutes of tugging at it I decided that it wouldn’t give. All I could think of was why I was here. Something inside of me told me that I had to jump off the platform, that the rope that I was attached to was supposed to support my fall towards the nothingness that was hidden by the clouds.
The only other thing that was alive on the platform had left it a few moments ago. There was this other man on the platform that had jumped off. . He also had his leg tied up to a large coil of rope and when he jumped the coil started to feed rope off the edge. We hadn’t said a word to each other, besides our names. I’m not sure why he did this, but maybe it was some type of attempt at comfort. “Harriet” he had said, before leaping off of the edge. There wasn’t anything else to say I guess. There wasn’t much two men on a platform floating above the clouds could say to each other, especially two men who didn’t know each other.
Two minutes after Harriet had fallen the coil of rope stopped feeding into the clouds below me. He must have stopped falling. Harriet must have hit something hidden under the clouds, but what? What could be hiding under all those clouds? Glancing again over the edge I could see the rope trailing down and vanishing into the clouds below. Would he somehow survive the crash? No, that’s not possible. No one survives a fall like that. He must have fallen through the roof of some apartment building or something. Harriet would crash through the roof and wreck whoever’s living room he had landed in. I could picture him just smashing through and smearing himself all over some random family’s living room. Blood would splatter all over the carpet floor as the poor family would jump back in shock and aw of this man falling from the clouds into their living room. They had just been saying grace before eating and were about to dive in before all this shook up their meal. The little boy in the family would step closer to Harriet and daze at him in curiosity. Taking a fallen plank from the now demolished ceiling, he would go up to Harriet and poke him as if he were a squirrel that had just been run over by a truck. Nobody would notice the long rope extending from Harriet’s leg up through the hole in the ceiling and beyond, that is if his leg was still attacked to his body after that horrid fall. His leg could of just as easily have snapped clean off on impact and ricocheted across the room. I could picture the blood following that splintered leg across the room to slam feet first into the family’s prized vase. The mother would shout first at dismay of finding her vase broken into pieces before realizing what and who was the cause of the crash in her living room. She cares so much more for that vase that on impact she runs over, totally ignoring the bloody dismembered body in her living room, and starts to cry over the shattered remains of that vase. The father might not care at all either of Harriet’s death. He might be so furious that the ceiling he had worked so hard to maintain over his family’s head was no nothing more than a piece of paper with a massive hole punched through the middle in such an angle that even the wittiest student couldn’t manage to fit it into their binder. He would scream and shout in bent frustration up through the hole at the man he called god and demand why he had to be picked for this demise to fall on.
In short Harriet’s life wouldn’t be remembered at all. All that he was before the jump went to become nothing. The only person that would remember anything at all of him was me, and that didn’t account for much because here I was stuck in the same position he had been in. I felt sorry for him. His life became a burden on those poor people and all that came to him now were curses from mad fathers, cries of agony over vases from wifes, and being poked like he was some type of animal strewn across the living room floor.
What on earth am I talking about? I’m just assuming that all of that I just told you happened. For all I know, the exact opposite could have happened. He could have fallen through the clouds into an entirely different universe for all I know. Harriet might have fell into a world in a different time period. Maybe he fell into whatever sat below me and didn’t die. That’s it! I can picture him falling into a small village and somehow surviving the fall. That’s not much of a stretch of the imagination when you think about it - I’m standing on a magical floating platform, aren’t I? Harriet will survive the fall and meet the local villagers. The local villagers would reel in awe at Harriet’s survival of the fall and the rope attached to his leg and proclaim that he must have been the one the prophet had been speaking of: the savior to fall from the sky! Harriet would be swept off his feet and carried away and crowned as a god. The village would light up in massive celebration in this event and bring out its best forms of entertainment. Bands would line the streets and massive crowds of people would cluster together to watch the mighty Lord Harriet walk by and wave, periodically stopping to kiss a newborn’s bald head and smile for the masses. Yes, Harriet could take the most out of that jump and come out a King.
The problem I had with that fantasy is I wondered how it would relate to me. I knew that if I did jump and survive as he had that there wouldn’t be room for two kings. Harriet might even go so far as to call me a demon that has arrived to take him back to where he came from, stealing his village of their god-like king. He would fill the naïve ears of the villagers with lies that could only be justified by the fact that he had fallen from the sky first, and was thus the rightful leader. I would be stripped of everything and carried to the altar and brutally punished, beaten, and ultimately sacrificed all in the name of Harriet. Part of me wishes that I had jumped first. That way I wouldn’t be standing here right now pondering the infinite possibilities that await me below the crest of the clouds.
Now I have come to my decision as whether or not to jump. I know that if I don’t jump that I’ll just spend eternity up here on this lonely platform and never find out what truly happens. The only thing I have to fear is the fear of the unknown before me, and I have convinced myself now that the fear of not knowing is greater. The greater fear of ignorance of what truly happens pushes me forward off the platform today because the last thing I want to happen is for me to never find out what happened to Harriet. Whatever Harriet’s crossing came to be doesn’t matter in the end. All that matters is that I make my own crossing. Hell, I might even survive the fall!
