The Man Who Fell Off the Cliff and Lived Before He Died

by Michael Lawrence

A man and his wife were standing on the edge of a cliff gazing at the wobbly blue sea and taking in the sweet springtime air. The man, Elias, was short in stature, had a curly mustache, and rather resembled a rodent. The wife, Sherry, was so plain that she didn't particularly look like anything.

Elias was feeling rather poetic at that moment. Unfortunately, he wasn't much of a poet.

“Live every day as though it is your last,” said Elias to his wife, believing that he was speaking the wisest of words. He briskly took a deep breath of that crisp, spring air through his pointy little snout. “More than that, I think you should take every breath as though it is your last!”

“Alright,” Sherry said.

She pushed him off the cliff.

Elias made a terrible fuss about falling a great distance just like you'd expect from anyone to. He screamed for dear life, wiggled his arms around as wildly as he could, and he even quickly prayed that those rapidly approaching rocks below him would be turned into an infinite bed of marshmallows.

But as Elias fell further to certain death, he realized that there was no point to all this panic. As a matter of fact, the longer he fell, the more he realized that he was having quite a lot of fun. He had never felt anything like this before—the air blowing through his hair and flapping around his mustache as he approached terminal velocity was all a brilliant new experience for him.

Why, it was more thrilling than the time when he was a kid, and caught a glimpse of Eli Wallach in the middle of a crowd! He tried his mightiest to emit the world's loudest and heartiest “Woohoo!” of all time, and he damn well would have succeeded if it wasn't for the fact that the air pushing against his Adam's apple was choking him so terribly.

As Elias grew more relaxed, the speed at which he was falling seemed to slow. He closed his eyes fully submitting himself to fate, and he began to fall like paper, lightly wafting with the wind and twirling with the eddies. He closed his eyes even further, and he became lighter than air—floating up and up, above the cliff and into the clouds.

Elias opened his eyes, and he was an eagle with a wingspan most magnificent and yellow eyes as proud as can be. He was towering through the atmosphere, looking out at the landscape one mile below him. He flew over a giant freshwater lake and spotted an unsuspecting largemouth bass swimming alone in that watery expanse.

He swooped down to snag it, but then he became the bass, a mighty swimmer with a tail hard and strong that was pushing himself through the dense, blue water. He dove deeper and deeper into the lake until he reached the bottom where the sunlight could not reach. Then he swam up as fast as he could until he reached the surface where he leaped out high.

When Elias landed back into the lake, he became a water molecule, the building block of life. He was constantly pushing against other water molecules, whose motions were directed exclusively by the forceful wind and of distant and unseen creatures. He wafted toward the edge of the lake where he was sucked up by the thick, wiry root system of an ancient oak tree.

He then became the oak tree, a majestic and steadfast feature of the landscape. He had hundreds of swaying branches full of leaves that reached high into the sky collecting as much precious sunlight as they could. He stood there, his feet motionless, but his branches were swaying in the breeze. He felt its age and its majesty. Just then, a beaver approached the base of his trunk and began to gnaw.

Elias was the beaver, digging through the tree with his teeth, feeling the texture moss-ridden bark before hitting its tasty, woody heart. He never knew how much fun chewing on a tree could be, and he felt like he could continue at it for days. He heard something trot up behind him. It was a white-tailed deer.

His hooves were as sharp as daggers, acting as four tiny machetes as they hopped at five miles per hour through the tall grass of the meadow. Out of the corner of his eye, he located a small patch of the greenest grass he ever saw. He promenaded up to it and took a bite. The more he chewed that succulent vegetation, the more delicious it seemed to him. It was the finest combination of crunchy fibers and sweet chloroform than he ever deemed imaginable. A housefly came buzzing by his head, but he flicked it away with the twitch of the ear.

His wings fluttered so fast that he couldn't see them even though he had a million eyes. He flew about the countryside quickly and aimlessly looking for his next fix of whatever he could find. As hard as it might be to believe, Elias felt comfortable as a housefly, because he knew that food was never in short supply. That said, there were certain foods that he craved. He caught a whiff of something that smelled most delectable. It was a turkey sandwich with mayo sitting on top of a picnic bench. Elias buzzed toward it with immense anticipation.

~*~

“Damn flies!” Moses Moote cried after he swatted one with the latest edition of The Town Creek News. He unwound the newspaper and glared at the oozy guts that were smeared all over the front page. He squinted his deep-set eyes and growled. “That little bugger just buggered my newspaper!”

Moses was the owner and manager of a rusty gas station that hadn't had a customer for 10 years.

'Click!'

That was the sound of a snapping camera operated by his 14-year-old nephew, Terry, who dreamed of becoming a photographer. He had scraggly and unwashed hair, and he was so tall, skinny, and pale that he resembled one of those Halloween skeletons.

“Confound it!” Moses swore. “I thought I told you to put that contraption of yours away and get to work!”

“Work?” Terry said casually. “Doing what?” He took another snapshot of his uncle, who attempted to block it with his palm, but he was too late. Moses sniffed and grunted.

“I told you to mend that pump two months ago, and you haven't lifted a damn finger!” Moses growled, re-rolling that newspaper with the intention to smack his impertinent nephew on the head if he tried to take another photograph.

“What for?” Terry shrugged. “We don't have any gasoline, anyway!” He put the camera up to his face and was viewing his grumpy uncle through the visor. Moses snarled angrily and gave his nephew the most frightening death glare that he was capable of giving. It would have been pretty potent if Terry hadn't long been immune to it.

'Click!'

Moses bellowed like a roaring lion. He swung his rolled up newspaper aiming to whack his nephew's head clean off his neck. Fortunately for Terry, his uncle moved like a normal person would inside of an astronaut's suit, so dodging that incoming periodical proved to be no match for his agile footwork. He even had the time to quickly snap another picture before he ran off. He figured he gave his uncle enough trouble for the next half hour at least.

“Yer a lazy good-for-nothing!” Moses hollered after him.

~*~

Moses was inside the gas station's convenience store that had nothing in it but a moldy Moon Pie. He was quietly reading the newspaper that had fly guts all over it. He had a sour look on his face. He really hated reading the news.

Terry was in the garage, which he had temporarily converted into a dark room. He was working as fast as he could on the workbench developing the photographs that he took so far that day. He didn't like speeding up the developing process, but he also didn't want his uncle to barge in there unexpectedly and ruin everything.

He seized the photograph that had been soaking in the chemical bath, and hanged it on a fishing line with a clothes pin. It was the picture of his uncle giving the death glare right before he tried to smack Terry with the news. His eyes looked as though they were on fire, and Terry could swear that he could make out tiny pillars of smoke billowing out of his flared up nostrils. The photograph was beautiful—he reckoned that it was the most beautiful photograph he had ever taken.

“My uncle!” Terry said, overwhelmed by it. Not being able to keep his eye's off his uncle's picture, he removed the red plastic wrap from the light bulb and began to drain the developing fluid from the sink.

~*~

Moses looked up from his newspaper only to see his brainsick nephew crouched in the station's parking lot aiming his camera at a rusty can that had been laying there for decades. The parking lot was so cracked and overgrown with weeds that it barely could function as a parking lot.

Moses had it with his nephew. He crinkled up his newspaper and then threw it back on the counter.

“Terry!” Moses cried, storming out the door. “Quit goofing off and mend the pump!”

Terry was so close to lining up the perfect shot that he didn't want to risk responding to his uncle lest he would never capture it again.

“Terry!!” Moses cried again, louder this time. “Am I a mute or something?”

Alas, Terry found the perfect shot.

'Click!'

Moses threw up his arms in despair and emitted a loud groan to the heavens.

“And fix this parking lot!” he exclaimed. “There are cracks in it!” Terry causally got up from the crouched position to face his uncle.

“You do realize that we haven't had a customer since I was in Kindergarten. And that was my mom,” he said while advancing the film with his thumb. “Besides, I like this parking lot just as it is—it's like no other parking lot in the world.” Terry aimed his camera carelessly at the blue sky above him, and took a quick shot.

“Are you on prescription medication, or something?” screeched the uncle with utter disbelief. His eyes looked as though they were about to pop out of their deep sockets. “What'd you take a picture of the sky for?”

“I like the sky,” Terry shrugged. He aimed his camera up again, this time more carefully lining up his shot before snapping a picture.

“You see the damn sky every day!” Moses said with intense force. “What is the point of that?!”

“The sky is different everyday,” Terry reasoned. “If I don't take a picture, I'll never remember what today looked like.” He then pointed the camera toward his uncle, who once again gave his nephew the death glare.

“I swear, son, if you take another picture of me, I'll turn that contraption of yours into mashed potatoes!” Moses threatened as his nose flared up.

'Click!'

Moses' temper fumed so much, this time, that his face turned a shade of purple-red. That was a particular color that Terry wasn't used to seeing out of his uncle, so he figured it was time to run as fast as he could. Even though Moses normally moved slowly and clumsily, he could move like a rattlesnake had a hold of his rear-end if he was egged on enough.

Terry chased Moses up and down the parking lot, into the convenience store and finally into the garage.

“Gimme that camera, you lazy good-for-nothing!” Moses bellowed. Moses had him cornered at the workbench where Terry had only recently put his latests photographs up to dry. With the quick flick of the wrist, Moses had the camera by the lens.

“Hah-hah! Gotcha!” Moses exclaimed before snatching it away.

It was then when Moses noticed the photographs that Terry had hanging on the fishing line. He saw a picture of the tree outside the gas station, a picture of the picnic table that Moses had only recently had lunch on, a picture of the fire hydrant down the block, a picture of a cluster of daffodils that were growing out of the deteriorating parking lot. Moses then turned and saw the picture of himself and his deep-set eyes giving the biggest death glare of all time.

Moses was awestruck.

“I'll tell ya, son,” Moses said, hardly able to breathe. “I see these things everyday, but I haven't seen them quite like this.”