Fall and Forget

         
Fall and Forget

Chapter 1
I ended up here… recently.  I don’t know where – or when – here is.  The last thing I remember is opening my eyes here.  Here in this place, it’s cold, dark, weightless. 
         I’m floating but I can’t be under water because I can breathe.  I check again – I’m not breathing, I don’t need to breathe here. 
          I look around, every movement I make is effort, is heavy, is pain.  I can’t see much, everything is blurry.  I can’t make out distinct images, just light and color.  Could I ever see clearly?  Did everything always look this way?    I couldn’t remember. 
         The colors were soft and dull but they were there, definitely there.  There was a faint sunset pink, maybe a green, possibly blue.  But there was pink. 
         Suddenly I needed that pink, pink was safe, pink was answers.  I tried to run to it, but every inch I moved forward, it moved backward; or was I just not moving at all?
         I closed my eyes, my head ached.  I stopped trying to push forward.  I let myself float and gave in to this peculiar place. 
         And it took me.     

         On October 8, 2009, the lead story in the New Jersey morning paper was titled “TEENAGE BOY FALLS OFF OF BRIDGE”.  The article went on to say, “Yesterday, 16 year old Jonah Blake fell off of the Green Valley Bridge in the late hours of the night.  He was completely alone, but bystander Arthur Jenson witnessed the event from afar.  ‘I was taking one of my late night strolls when I saw a young man plummet off of the bridge,’ Jenson recalls, ‘so naturally I went running after him, but it was too late, the boy had disappeared.’  After a bit of research it was determined that the young man had to have been young Jonah Blake.  With Jonah’s difficult childhood and his unhappy attitude towards life, it is just as likely that he did not fall, but jump.
          Jonah Blake – or the body of Jonah Blake – is yet to be found, and no one knows whether the boy survived the fall, and if so, where he might be by now.”

         I opened my eyes after what felt like an eternity, to find I was lying on a table in black and red plaid boxers.  I remembered struggling towards something pink, and then being flown away, but I couldn’t remember anything before or after that.  Staring at me were two men.  The first had long, straight brown hair pulled back into a ponytail.  He was searching my face with mud brown, concerned eyes.  The man’s face was older, tired and withered.
         The other, younger man, possibly even a boy, also had long straight hair, but his was light blond, and lay carelessly on top of his shoulders.  His eyes were bright, sparkling green, and unlike the man standing next to him, they glistened with curious amusement.   
         I opened my mouth to talk, but before I could get out a sound, water rushed into my mouth.  It tasted salty like the sea, and when I coughed and tried to spit it back out, more sea water attacked my throat.  I tried to tell the men, who were both now watching me in amazement, that I couldn’t breathe, but when I screamed the words, they came out clear.
         The men stared at me for a long moment before the blond one said in a soft, smooth voice, “Well of course you can’t, no one can.”
         Now it was my turn to stare at him.  Then, choking back the odd, watery sensation, I said, “What are you talking about?  Where am I?  Who are you?”
         The man with the mud brown eyes and hair to match stepped forward and spoke to me with the voice of a thousand lives, a thousand experiences.  “I am Arlimond, and this is my apprentice Casper.  You are at the bottom of the deepest depths of the sea.  And as for the other question, breathing is not something we do here.  It is not necessary.”
         I was so confused, I had so many questions to ask, but I couldn’t organize my thoughts enough to ask them.  Before I could even attempt to say something else, the blond boy, Casper, said, “So, who are you?  Why are you here?”
         I thought about that, and the more I thought, the less I knew.  I didn’t remember who I was or how I ended up here.  The most mysterious part was that I couldn’t remember why I couldn’t remember. 
         Finally I said, “I don’t know.  I… I don’t know anything.” 
Casper raised his eyebrows in question, “You don’t even know your own name?” he asked in disbelief.
“I guess not,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, “How does a person get here anyway?”
Neither Casper nor Arlimond responded to that question.  “How would a person get here?” I repeated, more aggressively this time.
“Well,” Arlimond began, seeming embarrassed, “no one really knows, we were all born here, and no one has ever come or gone in all my 3,008 years.”
I paused for a moment, taking in this new information.  Would I ever get back to where I had come from?  Then again, why would it matter if I couldn’t remember where that was?  I looked back to Arlimond, “I can’t remember anything about my life or who I am, but I know that people need to breathe, people can’t live under water, and people don’t live to be 3,008 years old.”
Arlimond sighed and gave me a pitying smile, “Yes dear boy, you are correct that humans can’t do any of those things.”
“But then how…” I began.
“We are not human.” Casper said simply.

Chapter 2
I woke up in a small room with one window, a simple desk with a work lamp, a small mirror and a comfortable looking rocking chair.  Under me was a twin sized bed with plain white sheets and no comforter at all.  Even though I was more or less inside, it still felt like being at the bottom of a swimming pool.  There was one window on the left side of the room, across from the door.  It was shaped like a porthole and through it, I could see a few yellow fish, and past them, an infinity of dark blue, almost black, water.  I shivered, thinking about how lonely and cold the ocean looked. 
Then I realized something was pulling at my head and neck, and after looking in the mirror, I realized that my dark brown hair was not sitting on my head as Arlimond and Casper’s had been, but standing up in the water.
I looked down to my body and found that I was no longer just wearing boxers, but somehow I had ended up in white pajama pants and a plain white T-shirt.  I didn’t remember putting any clothes on, but then I couldn’t really remember much of anything these days.   
I swung my legs around to the side of the bed and attempted to hop off of it.  It was a failed attempt, given that it is practically impossible to jump under water; instead, I floated clumsily off the bed. 
Once my feet were safely on the floor, I decided that I wanted to explore.  I walked to the small, wooden looking door and reached out for the handle, but before I managed to touch it, the door swung open to the outside of the room, pulling a rush of water with it and revealing a very happy looking Casper. 
“Uh.. hi” I said, not quite ready for Casper’s early morning excitement.
    “Hey, good to see you’re awake,” he smiled, genuinely happy to see me, “So, have you remembered your name yet… or anything?” 
I tried to remember, I thought so hard that my head hurt, but I couldn’t remember anything.  “No.” I said solemnly.
Casper examined me for a long moment, and then said, “Well I can’t just call you no-name, so I’ll give you a name.”
I hesitated, not sure that I wanted whatever name Casper was going to give me, but since I didn’t have any better ideas, I said, “Fine, but I get to approve the name.”
Casper smiled and nodded in agreement.  He looked me up and down over and over again.  “I’ve got it!” he finally exclaimed, “Perdu!”
“Per-what?” I said.
“Perdu,” Casper repeated the word, “It means lost.” He smiled sweetly and waited for my response.
I repeated the word in my head, and then out loud.  It was perfect, it was the only thing I knew about myself.  “Okay,” I said finally, looking up at Casper who was a good four inches taller than me, “Perdu it is.”
Casper nodded and added, “I like it, but for short, I’ll call you Perry.” 
And so I became Perry; no last name, no middle name, just Perry, formally Perdu.  I didn’t mind the odd name, after all, when I put it next to Arlimond and Casper, it seemed pretty ordinary.  I liked having a name at all, it was mine, and it was one more thing I could know about myself.
Casper also made a point of mentioning the fact that I was not wearing “real clothes” several times, so finally I let him lend me some of his.  The pants he gave me were tan, made from a soft, light fabric, but that looked almost like khaki pants.  To wear on top he gave me an incredibly comfortable and airy long sleeve T-shirt.  It was a very light shade of sea green, a color I realized, I was particularly fond of.  Casper’s outfit was similar to mine, but instead of a green long sleeved shirt, he wore a light blue short sleeved shirt, and of course, the clothes fit him perfectly, unlike me.  I thought it was weird that Casper’s clothes rested on his body as if he was not in water at all, where as any clothes I wore reacted like they would if I had forgotten to take them off before jumping in a lake.   

“So what’s the deal with this place?” I asked Casper once we had gotten to the pleasant little spot in the backyard of the house I had slept in.  We sat at a picnic table, surrounded by all sorts of undersea life; tropical fish, seahorses, seaweed, algae.   
“Well,” he thought for a moment, “our people are called Mer-Gens, meaning people of the sea.  From what I know of humans, our peoples are very similar.  The main differences are that we do not need to breathe, we are immortal unless stabbed in the heart (I, for instance, am a 600 year old teenager), and of course, we live in the sea.
“But our children go to school, our adults have professions.  We have houses and sometimes pets.  On average we should get about 8 hours of sleep a night, though most adults don’t.  We have five week days and two weekend days.  We have streets and buildings, and we travel mostly by walking and in bubbles, which are much like the concept of a car.  Probably only small things are different.” 
I tried to remember if he was right, if that was similar to my life.  Did I go to school?  I wasn’t sure, though it seemed likely that I did.  How much did I sleep every night?  I couldn’t remember that either.  I had an image of a small, dark blue car, was it mine?  I had no idea.
I nodded, trying make it seem like I agreed with him, “And where are we now exactly?” I asked. 
“This is Arlimond’s house… and now it’s mine too,” Casper smiled, “Arlimond has been so good to me.  My parents both died when I was just a child, and I had lived in an orphanage most of my life.  Last year Arlimond took me in as his apprentice, but he’s much more like a father than a master.”
Casper wasn’t looking at me anymore; he stared at the back of the cute little house, but his green eyes weren’t seeing it, they were somewhere else entirely. 
I waited another moment for Casper to remember I was there but finally, I had to break his trance, “Hey Casper?” I said quietly.  He jumped, blinked twice and turned quietly back to me, “You said Arlimond took you in as an apprentice,” he smiled slightly and nodded, “what are you an apprentice for?”   
He chuckled and said softly, “Well, that’s the thing; I’m not really an apprentice for anything, Arlimond is a doctor, and I want to be an archer.  Arlimond just likes to seem tough, so he didn’t want to simply adopt me or anything like that.  Arlimond told me that he would make me his ‘general apprentice’ and I would just learn how to be a functioning part of society.  He also home schools me, buys me clothes and food, and gave me a home.”  Casper smiled again. 
A twinge of jealousy rushed through me.  I wanted a home and a father figure; I wanted a place to go whenever I needed one, and someone who cared about me enough to take care of me.  I sighed and looked down to my bare feet; I wiggled my toes absent mindedly in the perfectly warm water.  Casper watched my silently for a while and then said, “You know, Arlimond said you can stay with us as long as you.  And he is going to help you figure out where you come from and how to get you there.”
I looked up slowly to see Casper’s sympathetic expression.  I wanted to run around to the other side of the picnic table and tackle him with a huge hug, but instead I said, “Thank you, both of you, so much.”  He smiled gently, and I knew he understood.

Chapter 3
It had been four days since I woke in the simple room where I now lived.  Arlimond worked on medical tests with me almost every minute of every day.  Finally, he thought he had figured out why I couldn’t remember anything from before I cam here.
The three of us, Arlimond, Casper and I, sat around an oval shaped dining room table, Arlimond at the head, me to his right, and Casper to his left.  We sat in beautifully carved wooden chairs, each one made to look like a mermaid, the tail for the seat and the woman’s body for the head of the chair. 
“Alright,” Arlimond said with an authoritative air to him, “Perry, after the tests we did, I have come to the conclusion that you have a type of amnesia.  Transient Traumatic Amnesia is when you can form new memories, but you remember old memories of events or experiences.  This is why you can remember things here, but not from before you developed amnesia.  You are very lucky that you can remember information you learned before the amnesia such as what things are, and how to speak and walk.”  He paused for a moment so that I could take this in. 
I took a deep breath and nodded to show that I understood.  Then, a horrible thought intruded my mind, “And… will I… am I going to…” my voice quivered, I didn’t even want to think about this question.
“Are you ever going to remember.” He stated my question; I nodded.  “Yes,” he said, this type of traumatic amnesia is caused by a traumatic event or maybe even a blow to the head.  It can cause a person to become unconscious or even go into a coma – you were in a small coma when we found you and went in and out of it for hours – but fortunately for you, it is only temporary.”
I let put a huge sigh of relief, “That’s great!” I said grinning, Casper smiled back at me from the other end of the table, “So when will I remember?  How long will it take?”
Arlimond thought about it for a minute, then he said, “Well… given that it has been almost two days and you haven’t begun to remember anything, it will probably come back to you slowly, maybe even in pieces-”
“What are you saying?” my heart dropped, “how long will it take?”
Arlimond scowled at me, clearly he did not approve of my interrupting him, “It all just depends,” he said slowly, “it could take a few weeks or even a few months.”
I dropped my head against the table and moaned loudly.  Casper spoke up for the first time, “Oh come on Perry it’s not that bad, before we didn’t even know if you would remember at all.”
I raised my head the slightest bit to see him looking at me hopefully.  Slowly, I nodded and then a smile spread across my face, “You’re right,” I said with an improved attitude, “I should just enjoy my time here until I can go home.” 
Both Arlimond and Casper grinned at me and Casper said, “So, what do you want to do first?”

We had decided to explore the city of Amathar, the capital city of the Mer-Gens world, and Casper’s home town.  It was about 20 minutes from Arlimond’s house, so, for the first time in my life (as far as I could remember..) I would travel by bubble. 
When we walked into Arlimond’s garage it was completely empty, except for two huge, navy blue tinted, rubber bubbles.  “Is that what we’re driving in?” I asked in disbelief.
Without taking his eyes from the bubbles, Casper said, “Floating, not driving.” Then he clicked a button on a beeper, and a door came swinging up to let us into the smaller of the two bubbles.  Casper got in first and slid over to the driver’s side, and then I got in.  He clicked the door closed as I looked around.  It was surprisingly roomy inside of the bubble, there were only the two seats; they were black fake leather and seemed to be floating in midair.  There was a steering wheel in front of Casper, which was also floating.  There were no pedals, no other controls, not even a key; there was just a steering wheel.  I could see out of every angle of the bubble but the navy blue tint made everything look blue.
As I was staring in awe at the rubber I was sitting in, Casper said, “BAT activate.” A vague beep came from somewhere behind me, “Set auto course for Main Road of Amathar.”  Two beeps signaled that the command was gratified.  The bubble glided gracefully out of the garage, turned right, and zoomed forward.  Casper sat with his arms crossed, looking affectionately at his neighborhood.  Quiet peaceful music began playing all around the bubble.
The underwater world sped by all around me.  Tinted blue, it was hard to see everything, I got a glimpse of children playing outside, some brightly colored houses, and some bigger buildings as we got closer to the city.  “Casper, this is cool.” I said, mostly because the silence was starting to feel awkward.
He looked over to me and smiled, “Oh you haven’t seen anything yet.” He raised his eyebrows and a mischievous look sparkled its way into his eyes.  “BAT suspend auto pilot.  Open front window.”  “BAT” beeped twice, and with that, the entire front of the bubble raised, revealing a clear window instead, and with that, the entire world.
“Whoa.” I said as I stared into the City of Amathar.
“You said it.” Casper agreed.  He grabbed the steering wheel and swiftly dodged some other bubbles speeding along the road.  Now I could see everything; gigantic buildings towering above the city, thousands of Mer-Gens walking around, and even more thousands of Mer-Gens flying around in bubbles. 

We parked in the parking lot behind a store called Beyond the Usual.  It was a small shop with a medieval looking door.  Casper walked right up to the door and pushed it open, while I followed behind him cautiously.  The inside of the shop was small, mysterious, and lit by dim lights.  Every inch of the room was cluttered with odd contraptions and products that I didn’t think I had ever seen in my life.  Some were smaller than my thumb, and others were twice my size, but I couldn’t identify any of them.   
The center of the shop had a large black witch’s cauldron, which was spitting out small bubbles.  When I looked inside of the cauldron, I saw that it was just a machine making the bubbles and there were small, stone looking objects floating inside.  “Hey Casper?” I asked, still looking in the caldron, “What are those little rocks?”
When he saw what I was talking about he chuckled and said, “Perry, those aren’t rocks, they’re candy.”  He laughed again and said, “Here try one, they’re good.”  He reached into the caldron and pulled out a small what I thought was a stone.  Once it was out of the darkness of the caldron, it looked brown, and too soft to be a stone.
Casper handed me the piece of candy, and I bravely popped it into my mouth.  It was so sweet, so wonderful.  I closed my eyes, and I was laughing; I was in a closet with a girl and we were sitting around a flashlight laughing.  I put my hand on her cheek and we both leaned in closer – and then it was gone. 
I opened my eyes in a daze; the candy was gone and so was the girl, the closet, the flashlight, and the almost kiss.  Casper was looking at me like I had six heads.  Finally he laughed and said, “You liked it then?”

We spent the rest of the day exploring the city that Casper knew so well.  We bought a few odd things from Beyond the Usual including a pen that never runs out of ink and a rubber band that can stretch up to 40 feet.  We also bought some more clothes for me failed to impress a few girls with corny pickup lines.  By the end of the day, Cas and I were laughing like we had known each other our entire lives; I had almost forgotten about the dream like image I had experienced in Beyond the Usual – almost.
I thought that the “daydream”, as I had decided to refer to it, might be from my life before this world, before amnesia.  The candy tasted great, and the daydream was almost fantastic.  It was a memory – I could feel it, the wonderful candy had triggered a wonderful memory.  I smiled to myself as I got ready for bed.     

Chapter 4
I walked in the door.  It was dark and way to quiet.  I tried to tip-toe up the stairs but when I was halfway up I stopped.  Had I heard something?  I didn’t want to check.  I kept walking, more slowly this time.  My eyes were adjusting to the darkness; I only had two more steps left. 
“Stop,” came a drunken grumble from behind me.  I didn’t move, but I didn’t turn around.  “Get down here boy.”  The words were stretched out, as if I was too stupid to understand otherwise.  I turned around to face the fat, bumbling man, but I stayed where I was on the third to last step. 
The man clutched the beer bottle in his had tightly.  “Come. Down. Now.” He growled.
I gulped, “Or what?” I challenged.
That made him angry.  He took the beer bottle and smashed against the wall, sending beer stained shards of glass flying everywhere.  He held the bottle by the neck and raised the sharp end towards me.  He advanced as I slowly backed away, farther up the steps.  “Stop!” the man screamed, “stop it boy! I’m in charge here, this is my house!”
I made the slightest movement backwards, and all of a sudden a broken beer bottle was hurtling towards my face.  Then there was blood, dripping, gushing, dark red blood.  It surrounded me, engulfed me, until everything was red, everything was blood, everything was pain.
I woke up on the ground coughing, my head pounding, my eyes burning.  My heart pounded so hard that it hurt.  It took me a moment to realize that it had just been a dream.  “Just a dream.” I repeated in a whisper over and over again.  But the more I said, the less I believed it.  It wasn’t a dream, at least not all of it.  But what was it? A memory.  A piece of a memory.  I couldn’t make sense of it; I couldn’t imagine where I would have been, who that man was.  He said it was his house; so why was I there?  The house felt familiar, so did the man… so did the pain.  Maybe I lived there; I hoped with all my heart that I didn’t.  I wished with all my heart that the dream was not my reality.  But I couldn’t knock the feeling that it was.   
Arlimond was alarmed when I told him about my dream at dinner that night.  I had been in a daze the entire day, fighting coughing fits and wobbly moving from place to place.  I had been unbearably lightheaded since the dream and it was making me nauseas. 
“Are you sure it was a memory?” Arlimond asked urgently.
“Well, no,” I said, recalling every second of the dream clearly, “But I think it started out as a memory, and then the part at the end when it all went red was just a dream.  I can see it so clearly though, not like I’m remembering a dream, but actually a memory, something that really happened to me.” 
Arlimond nodded, “Yes, I think you’re right,” he said quietly, it was probably a memory.  The part that concerns me is the way you’ve been acting since you had this dream.  You said you were light headed?”
The way Arlimond said “lightheaded” was making me nervous.  I nodded cautiously, “Yeah.  It’s just from fear of the nightmare isn’t it?”
Arlimond looked at me skeptically, “I’m not so sure,” he said, “we don’t really get lightheaded here.  You get lightheaded from lack of oxygen, which is not really a problem for Mer-Gens because we don’t need oxygen.”  I must have looked confused because he added, “Being lightheaded is not a normal reaction here.  I don’t think this is just regular shock from your nightmare.”
I thought about that, “But I’m not from here, I think where I come from people do breathe and being lightheaded is normal.”
Arlimond shook his head, “True, but you don’t need to breathe here, just like us Mer-Gens.  I don’t know why that is, but I know it is dangerous for you to get these breathing related symptoms, at least while you are at the bottom of the sea.”
I nodded and shivered at the thought of needing to breathe while I was in the ocean, “Okay,” I said, “If you’re right, this can’t keep happening.”
“Well hopefully it won’t” Arlimond said, “Maybe it was a rare thing, and maybe it’s temporary, but something triggered it, and we need to know what.”
I tried to remember if something happened last night.  Was it when I fell off of the bed in the middle of the dream? Was it just the fear of the nightmare?  I had no idea, but neither of those ideas felt right.  “I’ll work on it Arlimond.  Thank you for helping; thank you for everything.” 
Arlimond tried to smile, “Of course.” He said sincerely. 
I looked over to Casper on the other side of the table; he had been so quiet the entire conversation.  He looked pale and worried.  I tried to smile reassuringly at him, but I don’t think that was the effect it gave him. 

Chapter 5
I sat quietly at the backyard picnic table with Casper. I was eating one of the seaweed wraps that Arlimond had made us for lunch.  It was cool and refreshing and tasted good on my lips, which had gotten particularly dry living in the salt water for the past week and a half.  Casper ate the vegetarian version of what I had. 
“What’s in a vegetarian shrimp seaweed wrap?” I wondered to Casper. 
He chuckled and said, “Well… not shrimp.”  For some reason I found that hysterically funny and cracked up laughing.  Casper watched me for a second before laughing at me, laughing at him.  After a few minutes we were both just laughing for no reason at all.
And then I was sitting on a skate board.  Another boy was doing a trick near me.  He fell and we laughed.  We laughed and laughed and laughed.  I imitated his fall and then he pushed me lightly.  All in good fun.  And all the while we were laughing.  Non- stop laughing. 
But then it did stop.  I was with Casper again, now on the ground near the picnic table.  I wasn’t laughing anymore, I was choking.  Casper wasn’t laughing either, he was running.  He came back out with Arlimond by his side, and then they were both kneeling with me.
I wasn’t choking any more, but it was almost worse.  There was a knot in my throat, like it was blocking the air from entering.  I didn’t need to breathe, I was still alive, but I wanted to.  I had the urge to suck in a huge gulp of air but I couldn’t.
“Perry? Perry what’s wrong?” Arlimond asked, quietly but anxiously.
“I—I can’t breathe.” I choked out.
I saw Casper give Arlimond a disturbed look.  “I know Perry, I know.” Arlimond said softly, “it will be okay.”

I spent the rest of the day in bed, and two more days under Arlimond’s close and careful watch.  While I was in bed I had plenty of time to think.  I remembered choking in the backyard; I remembered the memory of skateboarding, of laughing, of being happy.  The boy I had been with was my friend; I knew he was my friend.  And I knew what had triggered the reaction; it was pain, it wasn’t trauma, it wasn’t fear – it was remembering.   
Chapter 6

Four days had passed since my “episode” and I was bored out of my mind.  The lightheadedness wasn’t quite as bad anymore and the knot in my throat hurt, but it was becoming bearable enough.
“Perry, are you okay?” Casper asked as we walked down one of the busy streets of Amathar.  He looked at me with concerned eyes as I wobbled along.
I wasn’t sure if I was okay.  I felt as if my head was floating above my body, the sensation was sickening; the knot in my throat had gotten worse since we had started walking.  “I… yeah, I just feel a little light headed.” I stuttered unconvincingly. 
Casper looked me over and said, “Perry, maybe we shouldn’t do this.”
I shook my head as gently as I could so that I didn’t fall over from the dizziness.  “No, Cas come on, you said it’s amazing.  I’m not chickening out now, let’s just do this.” 
The worry on Casper’s face faltered, “Alright, if you’re sure.”
We had been walking for almost twenty minutes from where we parked the bubble.  Casper and I stared up at the gigantic skyscraper we now stood in front of with equal astonishment.  Finally, Casper shook himself out of the daze and said quietly, “Here we are.”  We both smiled and walked through the heavy glass doors.
The inside of the building was an enormous open space with a half circle shaped desk in the center.  As Casper and I walked forward to the desk, our shoes made a clacking sound against the tile floor, which echoed around the entire room. 
The young woman sitting at the desk had luscious dirty blond hair and ocean blue eyes.  She wore a white sundress with yellow sunflowers on it.  “How can I help you boys?” she asked, winking at Casper.
He smiled and spoke in a soft voice to match hers, “Hi Leslie, we’re here to dive.”
The woman behind the desk smiled and said, “Of course you are.” She reached into the desk and pulled out two pink slips of paper and laid them on the face of the desk, “Two diving tickets, on the house of course.” 
Casper smiled his perfect smile, nodded once, and slipped the tickets off of the desk, and into his pocket.  He walked to the small elevator behind the desk, pressed the “up” button, and then stepped inside the elevator, with me following closely behind.
We waited for the doors to close, and then Casper burst out laughing.  I gave him my “umm… what?” look and he finally calmed down enough to say, “Leslie is ridiculous.  It’s hard to explain, but we’ve known each other forever and that’s just sort of a game.  She was showing off for you though.”
I gave him a disapproving look, “That is just about the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” I said.
“Maybe,” he said, “but it got us free tickets.”  He smiled and I shrugged my shoulders.
Then a bell rang and the doors opened.  “Here we are,” Casper said, “floor 109.”  I nodded stiffly and we stepped out, my light headedness tormenting me even more than before. 
I followed Casper through a long hallway, and then out a door.  The door led to the roof of the skyscraper, and a man sitting in a white folding chair, surrounded by equipment.  The man’s hair was shorter than Casper or Arlimond’s, but longer than mine.  It was light brown, and just long enough to sit on his shoulders.  When we entered the roof, the man stood up and greeted us, “Casper, good to see you, it’s been a while.  And I see you brought a friend this time.”
“Hi Solomon,” Casper said, “Nice to see you too.  This is Perry, he’s never been diving before… or at least he thinks.”
Solomon ignored the last part of Casper’s sentence, “Great,” he said, smiling, “why don’t you get geared up and show Perry what to do.”  Casper nodded, walked the far corner of the roof and started putting bulky vests and things on.
Solomon led me to the other side of the roof, where different gear was set out on the ground.  “Okay,” he said, “there are two different types of equipment, safety equipment, and drop equipment.  He picked up a bulky black vest and put it on me.  “This vest is just for safety,” he said as he buckled the straps across my chest.  He also placed knee pads, elbow pads, wrist pads, and a red helmet on me.  Then he picked up large black weights on metal chains and began clipping them on my vest.  “This is the drop equipment,” Solomon said, “The weights will make you fall faster through the water instead of float down lightly like you normally would.”
He clipped more weights to my vest.  They hung down from my chest to about my waist.  There were five weights spread out on my chest, each one weighed about 10 pounds.  By the time they were all on, I could hardly stand up, so Solomon let me sit on his white folding chair while he finished his instructions. 
“Once you are about two thirds down, this light will turn green and beep three times,” he pointed to a plastic light that was now red, “The button will press in automatically and the weights will drop.  That will be a lot of force, but from there, you will float lightly to the ground.  You will land in the safe zone, and so will your weights.  You can leave the equipment there, and then you’re done.”  Solomon smiled, “You got it?”
I nodded nervously, “Yeah I think so.”  Casper came up behind me, wearing the same gear that I was.  “You looked good.” He said.  We both chuckled as Solomon lead us to the drop zone. 
“So who wants to go first?” Solomon asked once we were at the edge of the building.
“Casper can.” I said quickly. 
Casper smiled and shrugged, “Okay, see you down there then.”  I waved as he crossed his arms across his chest and casually stepped off the side of the skyscraper.
I stared at the space where Casper had been and my body quivered in fear.  “Alright,” Solomon said after a few minutes, “It’s all clear.  Do it just like Casper and you’ll be fine.”
“Okay…” I said, now petrified to jump.  I knew I had to do it though, so I closed my eyes, crossed my arms, and jumped.

I went down stomach first, eyes closed tight, fists clenched tighter.  My hair flew above my head, and my weights pulled me further and further down.
I was falling.  I was dropping further and further into my own stupidity, my own regret. 
I saw faces.  My drunken father, large, sweaty, angry; my girlfriend, laughing, thinking, beautiful; my best friend, encouraging, joking, skateboarding of course; and my mother, loving, comforting, and then gone from my life forever—dead. 
I heard so much.  I heard my father shouting; I heard my friends laughing; I heard the satisfying crash of a skateboard on landing pavement, I heard trees rustling in the wind. I heard my name – Jonah.
And I felt.  The hot summer’s breeze blowing in my hair; the shards of a beer bottle piercing my skin; my lips pressed against other lips; fresh air blowing through my lungs, cool and sweet.
And then I was standing at the top of a bridge.  Someone called to me but I ignored it.  I closed my eyes and I jumped. Again I was falling.  Again dropping further and further into my own stupidity, my own regret.  The wind was blowing my hair, hitting my face so hard, so fast it hurt. 
Splashing – no striking into the water.
Then floating, drifting.  But always down; further and further down.
And then I hit the ground.  Not hit, but landed.  I couldn’t breathe, and for the first time in two weeks, I needed to.  I choked, I coughed, I gagged. 
I opened my eyes for a second, Casper was leaning over me. 
I closed my eyes and saw the pink.  Light pink; a faint sunset pink.
I opened my eyes again, Arlimond was there, his hand was pushing on my chest. 
And then my eyes were closed, there was green, there was blue, and there was pink.  Pink.
I forced my eyes open, “Perry.”  It was Casper.  “…not from here…” Casper was saying, “…needs air…”
My eyes were shut.  I was face to face with the pink, I could feel myself moving closer.
One last time I opened my eyes, Casper and Arlimond were both leaning over my head.  I couldn’t breathe, I could move, but five words were able to escape my mouth, “I guess… this is it.”
“Guess so.” Came Casper’s hushed voice from beside my head, “I’ll miss you Perry.”  I could just make out a familiar smile across Casper’s face.
I smiled back as I allowed my eyes to shut.  I saw the pink, but I didn’t push forward towards it this time.  I relaxed, I floated, I let it take me.

Epilogue
On October 23, 2009, the lead story in the New Jersey morning paper was titled, “Teen Boy Found Alive after Jumping off Bridge.”  The story read, “Two weeks ago, 16 year old Jonah Blake jumped off of the Green Valley Bridge in what is assumed to be a failed suicide attempt.
Jonah was found on an uninhabited part of the Jersey shore about five miles from where he jumped.  He was drastically dehydrated, barley breathing and in a coma, but he was alive.  Officials rushed him to the nearest hospital where he is now in the critical care wing.  The press has been told that Jonah has not yet come out of his coma, but his vitals are now steadied and his chances of recovery may in fact beat the odds. 
Police had intended to interview Jonah’s father about possible causes for Jonah’s stunt.  When the police went to Mr. Blake’s house to speak with him however, they found him highly intoxicated and thinking completely irrationally.  After close examination of the household, the New Jersey police officers found a large quantity of broken glass and even dried blood.  After much drunken screaming and struggling, Jonah’s father has been taken into police custody for further questioning.  What will become of Jonah’s custody situation is currently unknown.
When asked about her opinion of Jonah’s current state, Jonah’s aunt, Amelia Chase, replied, ‘I was terrified when they first found him, he was ghostly, deathly pale.  I remember crying for hours with his hand in mine.  But then, after who knows how long, I looked up and his face wasn’t so pale white any more – it was almost… pink.  And that’s when I knew that he would be okay.’”