Pit
ㅤElijah took everything he cared about and placed it orderly into a backpack that would surely be a jumbled, bloody mess by the end of his trip. His high school Valedictorian Diploma went inside his Mechanical Engineering Capstone (a design that succeeded but was too light and fragile to be useful). He placed his coffee thermos in the right pocket, mirrored by a kaleidoscope in the left. He took his Leatherman and slipped it next to his keychain in his left pocket. Snap. His pocket clicked shut. His Wera keys, along with his lockpicks, slid down the side of the pack, nestling in between worn fabric and jagged metal.
ㅤHe stacked up his favorite books on his desk: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The New Way Things Work, and To Kill a Mockingbird. He walked over to his shelves, eyes scanning over several now-unnecessary certifications, double-checking that he had everything he needed. His eyes glazed over the Bible, the book that his parents had used against him. His eyes converged on the two notes on the top shelf. One from a girl in his classes who had cared for him more than he did for her. The ink had quiet questions written in an unpracticed cursive. The other note was from him to the world.
ㅤHe grabbed the cursive note from Grace and slid it between the books before setting them all on top of his machine. Maybe it would hurt his parents to hear he had met someone and never told them. Was it wrong that Elijah felt worse for her than he did for his father and mother? It didn’t matter. He pulled up the zipper on his old backpack and closed up his cares before hoisting his burdens onto his back for the last time.
ㅤAfter a quick drive, Elijah arrived at Taughannock Falls. His memories of this place were full of beautiful nature and clunky chains of thought. It was only fitting that he would put them all to rest in this place. Sundew was the only thing streaming down Elijah’s determined face.
ㅤTaughannock was known for the massive waterfall, but Elijah had found another fall that he would go explore tonight. Off the beaten trail, being the only place he could have a good time here, he had found what could only be described as a pit. About 12 feet in diameter, the pit had rocks sticking out, but was deep and dark enough that Elijah couldn’t see or hear anything hit the bottom. Elijah made his way through the trails, gravelly dirt grinding beneath his hiking boots. Every step, his mechanical capstone jabbed him in new and creative ways. He brushed anything that got in his way behind him. The future was the only thing that mattered now.
ㅤElijah’s phone rang. Why did he still have it? He pulled it from his pocket out of instinct. The darkened screen lit up with the name of his father: David Adler. Elijah briefly considered answering it just to find out why he was calling. But that wouldn’t do. It was probably just a call asking about his plans for grad school, which had to absolutely be the last thing Elijah wanted to talk about. He scowled and tapped Do Not Disturb on the top-drop menu before shoving the phone back into his khaki cargo pocket. Snap. Unfortunately, his dad’s face had arrived in his mind. He couldn’t forget the moment he realized that he’d never reach his father’s expectations.
ㅤ“Please listen, son, I am just saying you need to keep thinking of your future,” David said. He sat—elbows on knees—in his red armchair facing the side of a standing Elijah. Eli’s eyes were set on his reflection in the sliding door. “You are the smartest kid I know, I’m just trying to help you use that amazing brain of yours to its fullest potential.” Potential. Eli hated that word. It represented the fact that he had to climb the society ladder high enough to please everyone. He glanced at his father, trying not to betray any displeasure. Hadn’t successfully enrolling at Sibley/Cornell been enough? He had to remind himself that Valedictorian hadn’t been enough either. He took a deep breath.
ㅤ“I appreciate your worrying, but I have a good summer job lined up,” he recited “Octech Automation is not a leading company, but it is certainly better than the retail or fast food that most people my age are working in. Great resume-builder.” He knew that research opportunities were difficult for college freshmen to obtain, but he was still surprised that they turned his application down. He hadn’t realized how big of a deal it would be coming home to a summer job rather than research. He shoved his hand into his cargo pants pockets and turned back to the sliding door.
ㅤ“You are correct, but don’t lose sight of the summit, son. I may not have made it, but I know you can. Don’t let this backslide dishearten you.”
ㅤ“Thanks. Dad.”
ㅤ“You know, I am still trying to climb my ladder. My office started offering in-company classes to learn new accounting concepts and advice. I’m sure it’ll help me get a raise or promotion soon.” Eli looked past his reflection and saw the world beyond their four walls. The world went on and on, and here he was climbing to the top of a skyscraper. What was at the top? Anything more than a worldview? Eli felt he had enough of a view to justify slowing down.
ㅤElijah saw his mother’s dark waves in the reflection of the door before she said, “Octech sounds wonderful. You say you got an internship?” Elijah cringed. His mother was excellent at finding the precise point he was hiding and poking it. She had to know it was embarrassing for him.
ㅤ“No. Just an assembly job.” He opened the door and stepped outside for some fresh air. He wasn’t sure there was a top to this ladder; he resolved to look around him as he climbed from now on.
ㅤHis shadow reached for the bottom of the pit, but was cut off by the sun’s descending fire. The sunset created slanted shadows and twilight that formed tendrils of creeping darkness. Elijah stood, staring as his own shadow crawled out of the pit. Eli wanted a straight fall, so he had lugged a large log to bridge the hole: now he could get to the center without jumping forward. Hopefully, he would hit the bottom before his slight forward velocity would carry him to the wall. Even when he was about to end his own life, he couldn’t escape those physics concepts. He laughed to himself despite his self-made situation. Grace would have found this funny. He sighed. She wouldn’t laugh if she were here. He missed her sarcastic side-mouthed comments.
ㅤ“Today we will be discussing Chapter 3 in our textbook. This is where all your problems with negligible air resistance disappear,” Doctor Burhan lectured to the semi-circle of sitting students. Eli and Grace sat together on the fringes. In front, a practice problem shone onto a screen.
ㅤ“Always introducing new concepts we should have started with,” Grace mumbled next to him. Eli smiled. He felt the same way. Why change the concepts you are teaching? They should have started the curriculum with air resistance.
ㅤ“To introduce this concept, I will begin with a practice problem calculating the terminal velocity of a bear.” As far as professors went, Dr. Burhan was very innovative with his in-class problems. That never stopped Grace from making jest of it.
ㅤ“I suppose any bear living on Mount Thor would be suicidal. Why not honor him with a math problem?” Eli stifled a chuckle as he picked apart the joke’s intricacies. Mount Thor has the highest vertical drop in the world, and was probably one of the only places a bear could realistically reach terminal velocity. Her dark humor was icing on the intellectual cupcake.
ㅤAs their yellow pencils scribbled down numbers and they recalled the equations read about prior. With the given drag coefficient of 0.6, and other over-generalizations made on the bear’s shape and size, he calculated the terminal velocity to be 30.64 m/s. While they watched the board in case of mistakes, Eli looked around his ladder. Dr. Burhan was happy, or at least he looked it. He was getting older in years, and Eli supposed that he had reached the top of his ladder. But what did that mean? Dr. Burhan was probably years from death, but what would entertaining students accomplish in the long run? When he died, what was the point? All his students would die eventually. A great information race against death itself. Always keeping the developments a generation ahead of the great consuming equalizer of the end. Legacy was the only thing worth working for, unless you didn’t care about legacy. Elijah didn’t.
ㅤElijah frowned and glanced sideways towards Grace. Her brown hair cascaded onto her desk, partially blocking her acne-speckled face. He would have to make sure their parting was smooth. If they continued this way, pain would follow their broken connection when an end came. One end or another. She caught his gaze and smiled. He looked at the board. He had solved for the wrong variable; he should have answered in distance fallen before terminal velocity.
ㅤHe jumped into the pit. He knew that it would be a painless death. He still braced for the impact that was sure to come. Thumping intensified as his heart matched the air speed around him.
ㅤHe fell. He kept his eyes shut as he fell deeper and deeper into the pit. His shirt, though tucked in, still fluttered in the increasing wind.
He kept falling.
And—
falling…
ㅤAfter what must have been a few minutes, Elijah’s mind registered that he must have reached terminal velocity. He pried open his eyes and slowly oriented his head up. The sun had set, and there wasn’t anything left. Elijah would die in complete darkness.
…
ㅤOkay, something was certainly strange. He really shouldn’t be continuing to fall. Any second now, he would enter the afterlife. If there was one.
ㅤHe should say a prayer just in case. It’s what his mother would have wanted. He did, and his words were pulled from his throat as the air zipped by.
ㅤHe realized that his backpack was probably pushing him forward due to the cross-sectional area increasing at that point. He tried to angle his legs slowly backward to compensate, but he wasn’t well-versed in human aerodynamics. Carefully, Eli grabbed his phone through his pocket and snapped it open. He snaked his right hand inside and transferred the phone between his hands with a grip that could hold a suicidal bear in place. He slid the phone up the length of his body and started turning on the flashlight. No. He couldn’t be found dead trying to turn on a light. That would be silly. What would be more meaningful? He supposed some last-minute family texts or voicemails would be meaningful, but why? He clutched the phone to his chest as he thought. The air continued to yank at his clothing.
ㅤMaybe this was Hell. What would be more torturous than reliving your last moments over and over, dreading the inevitable arrival of death? Dying over and over again, he supposed. No, this couldn’t be Hell if he could think of something worse. Purgatory perhaps? Limbo? It didn’t matter. The deafening air reminded him his end was near.
ㅤHe resolved to turn on his flashlight. Hell or not, seeing his surroundings might help him figure out his next steps. Tap. Light replaced dark in his eyes as the flashlight activated.
ㅤ“Elijah Adler!” The light blinded him as he walked across the stage to get his diploma. Adorned with several academic tassels and a square hat, Elijah had finally graduated college. He had done all he could in this struggle. He had even been accepted into a great graduate school, but he knew there was no point in going. Knowledge was fun but ultimately pointless. The only progress he could make in this life was going beyond it. At least he would see the end of something. He solemnly grabbed his diploma and forced a smile at the crowd of people who saw his name for the first time only seconds ago. He walked down the stairs and re-joined his fellow Engineering Degree recipients. He looked down at his Mechanical Engineering diploma. It was shining and congratulatory. Another incentive to keep moving forward, but he could leave now. His high school had kept diplomas from the students until the ceremony was over, but he supposed they couldn’t pull something like that in an Ivy League school.
ㅤHe watched the happiest expressions parade across the Bailey Hall stage. Research partners from past summers. Peers-by-proximity. Grace. He looked away. What he was planning was the only way he could lessen the impact of his ending in this world. He would control his impact to end as few connections as possible. If every action had an equal and opposite reaction, how painful would these severed connections be?
ㅤHe thought of his father, an accountant who had graduated from a decent college with a math degree, couldn’t get a graduate school opportunity, became an accountant, and was still trying to climb his ladder. Hadn’t he figured out that it was pointless? David probably saw Elijah as his second chance. He took a deep breath to calm his anger and resolved that it would all be over soon anyway.
ㅤMaybe if his parents had spared the time to come to New York, he would have thought twice.
ㅤThe flashlight illuminated a strange and sheer wall not ten inches from his face. The air stole his gasp upward and away. He tried to calm his nerves, but he was very close to a very painful collision. He didn’t want pain. Something pressing against the wall would push him back towards the middle. Then he could practice moving his body at terminal velocity. Safely. Or as safely as possible in this situation. He thought through what to do. If he could move his backpack to his front faster than any difference in drag would push him forward, he could push slightly against the wall with his backpack and get back to the center of the pit. Based on the curvature, the pit was still as big as it had been when he jumped in. Carefully, he tucked his phone into his belt. It seemed snug enough to stay in place so he could keep an eye on his position.
ㅤHe took a deep breath and gripped his right shoulder strap before disengaging his left arm. The backpack swung up and immediately collided with the wall in front of him, forcing him backwards, as predicted. What Eli didn’t predict was that his grip was only barely enough for him to hold on to his pack. Friction. Lots of it. The wall wrenched his pack upward and his arm with it. He quickly tried to move the backpack away from the wall, but the air pushed against it and sent him back. He had overcompensated.
ㅤThe blur of a wall was again in Elijah’s face, though he was slowly understanding his position more. The more he looked at it, the more it looked to not appear blurry due to imperfections zipping by, but for… some other reason. He slowly inched the flying backpack forward, curving the air so that he fell backward slowly. The air was still wild and battering, but there was a method to its madness.
ㅤWhen Eli seemed about six feet from the wall, he closed his eyes and took a second. He had quite nearly been torn completely apart by the pit’s wall. He opened his eyes to see his phone’s light casting a circle of light against the wall. It had faint lines moving up and down its surface. It was moving, but not as he or the air was. It was… stretching? The wall was smooth because the roughness had been elongated. It must have been happening since he jumped into the pit. What a strange phenomenon! Elijah had a million questions. Were the atomic bonds stretching, or was it warping space itself? What was causing this?
ㅤWhatever was happening probably had something to do with why he was still falling after all this time. At any rate, Elijah tried to slowly bring his backpack down to him. Or him up to the backpack? Balancing himself against the rushing air was getting easier. Carefully keeping the strap held by his hand and the backpack above his phone-light, he pulled out The New Way Things Work. The large book would be thrown at the wall, so the recoil could push him back to the middle. The wonderfully illustrated book was a gift from his grandpa, who had always quietly supported Eli in whatever path he was on. Now, it may save him from fatal injuries
ㅤElijah Adler Sr. waddled into the common room, set his cane next to an armchair, and melted into the cushions. He closed his bespeckled eyes and inhaled the air around him, and he smiled. Elijah Adler Jr. looked at his grandpa, jealous of his living peace. Neither were technically Junior or Senior, but it sure made their joint birthday party easier. Elijah’s grandpa opened his eyes and set them on Eli.
ㅤ“Now, Eli, why did you want to see me? What can I do for you on this fine day? I must say your college has some spacious windows. They sure let in the light, and you know I love the sun. Ah, but you shouldn’t let me get on those tangents!” Elijah Sr. laughed, and the bunch in Elijah’s chest lightened ever so slightly. How come his grandpa was always so much easier to talk to than anybody else? That is not to say what he was talking about was easy, but he instinctively wanted to talk to his grandpa first. Eli set his backpack down and slumped into a chair of his own.
ㅤ“Well… why’d you give me those Gravity Falls pins? I don’t remember asking for them.” Elijah gestured toward his backpack.
ㅤ“Well, lad, you were talking about how you and some friends had watched that show together. You seemed to really enjoy the humor and supernatural elements in it, even though it was considered a children’s cartoon. I thought it would be neat if you shared the pins with your friends to remember the occasion by.”
ㅤ“But, why would remembering that be a good thing? What if it was just a disappointment because we can’t do it anymore?” Elijah Sr. sank his brow into his thoughts and dropped his elbows to his knees. He sat in thought for several seconds.
ㅤ“I suppose it was a risk I was willing to take,” He smiled again through his glasses, wrinkles deepening. “It really was a net gain. I mean, just a bit of money for a possible strengthened connection between your friends! Money is useless at my age anyway.”
ㅤ“What if they did more harm than good?” Elijah steepled his fingers to his chin.
ㅤ“A risk, but I’d like to think good memories are always net positive, even if it brings the sadness of the past with it. They have you thinking positively of the good people you have and the time you used well. I get sad when Mary is brought up in conversation, but I don’t want to forget about everything we did together. I don’t regret remembering a single thing about that woman,” He sat back in his chair and tilted his head wistfully. “Why the philosophical conversation, Eli?”
ㅤ“You are the one who made it philosophical!” Elijah Adler grinned. Both of them.
ㅤ“I suppose I did, but only because you wanted me to. I say, what’s really on your mind, Eli?” Elijah Sr. looked with intent at Eli, who laced and unlaced his fingers in fidgeting motions. Eli didn’t know how much more to ask. Grandpa had some good points, but in the shadow of death, these connections were a pathetic attempt to make something out of the perpetual cycle of death. Eli glanced at his backpack and smiled, seeing two of the pins affixed to the pack: Dipper and Soos. The other two had been given to the one friend he had watched Gravity Falls with. Whatever grandpa had said, he was right, at least in the present.
ㅤSince when was Eli supposed to care about the present? He had to always be focused on the next rung of that rickety ladder his father always talked about. Eli thought about his future. His future was a constant grab for a new future. If his father were right, there would never be anywhere he would be satisfied. He had one more question for his grandpa.
ㅤ“What’s the point?”
ㅤ“In reference to what?”
ㅤ“What’s the point of these connections if everyone will die someday?” His grandpa—knobby finger to drooping chin—thought a moment. Eli appreciated that his grandpa thought before speaking. It was why he trusted this conversation with him.
ㅤ“Well, I am tempted to talk about religion at this point, but I know you are… You don’t accept as truth what I accept as truth. I suppose what you are looking for is what purpose you have here. Well, I say that it would be pretty pathetic of us to come to be, then realize the end is inevitable, and then cease to exist. You could say humans developing society is a sort of rebellion against the forces of nature—I am playing devil’s advocate here, I hope you know.” His grandpa looked at Elijah’s heavy backpack before continuing, “Let me end it here. Just because something will end one way doesn’t make that ending the point. If the only point of climbing a ladder was to get back down at some point, we would never climb one, right? No, the point of the ladder is what we do on the roof.” Eli pondered this for a while before resuming his finger fidgeting. His dad must have inherited his ladder metaphor from Eli’s grandpa. He had already given up on reaching the top.
ㅤ“Eli, I may not always be in town to talk with you, but if you need to talk, I can find time, so let me know, alright? These are big questions, and I know it takes time and talking to figure them out. Frankly, I don’t think I have them all figured out, but… Well… God does.” At that, Eli chuckled. If his grandpa didn’t have it figured out, then Eli must be right in his beliefs. Why did he always have to be smarter than everyone he knew? He knew what he had to do.
ㅤ“Grandpa, thank you for coming. I think I have it as figured out as I ever will.” Grandpa Adler smiled at Elijah.
ㅤ“No, you don’t, but that’s okay,” that comforted Elijah, even though his grandpa was wrong.
ㅤElijah cried. His tears were caught by the ever-present wind and taken from him. He shouldn’t be crying. He had thought and thought, and he had always come to the same conclusions. His feelings shouldn’t affect logic or reality. Yet, there had to be something to them besides an evolutionary advantage.
ㅤHe sniffed and rubbed the water from his eyes as he looked down. His grandpa had been his only family who had truly tried to understand Eli. What did he feel as a result? He thought it was guilt. Guilt for abandoning the person who had tried so hard. His grandpa shouldn’t have tried so hard. His grandpa knew Elijah was smarter than he was.
ㅤHe didn’t care; he could mourn their relationship. Elijah choked on air as the tears kept coming. No one was here to see him. Why did he want someone to see his sorrow? A saying Grace often said during difficult study sessions came to mind. “Misery loves company and misery loves physics,” she would say, sometimes followed by “world’s worst love triangle…”
ㅤEli mourned them all. His friendship with Grace that could have been more. His well-intentioned parents, who never quite got a read on him. His grandpa’s love that knew Eli more than he wanted. His grandpa, who had told him why we climb ladders. Only…
ㅤEli tried to compose himself. He rubbed some snot and tears onto his sleeve and tried to take deep breaths, thought the airspeed made it too easy. He was now in a belly-down position, limbs out to the side. In this prone position, something occurred to him. His grandpa had said that the end of a ladder was climbing back down. That conflicted with his father’s belief that potential was something to strive for—to climb for. Here, falling into a bottomless pit, Elijah Adler thought that maybe potential wasn’t something to climb to, but perhaps something to collect on the way to the end. But. But, the end. It was still pointless, right? If the end came, why do we collect potential? Tears dried from rushing air and crystallized to contemplative thoughts as he fell. Maybe, as with the ladder, the end isn’t something that matters. The time people in this world is very finite. With the end being infinite and unchangeable, Elijah realized that the finite time he had must have significance. His achievements, his tools, his books, and his family meant something to him. That’s what it was! Those relationships were only in his life, not in death. They must be what gave life meaning. Eli realized his grandpa was right. If the end was pointless, that made the present the most important thing.
ㅤThe universe, God, quantum mechanics, random chance, whatever. Something had saved him from himself, and in this darkness, there had to be a way to survive. Eli needed to find that way and get out of here. He had to be thousands of meters down. How could he get back up? Great. He had doomed himself to a pointless existence before realizing that existence wasn’t pointless. However, he couldn’t give up. Not now.
ㅤThe walls were stretching as he fell. There had to be something there he could take advantage of. Bottomless pits weren’t physically possible, so something had to keep him falling when he shouldn’t be. That something had to be affecting the walls. The pit walls were illuminated below him by his belted phone. There was little to grab onto, the detail was so stretched that there wasn’t a concrete top to the jutting stone. Carefully, book under his arm, he pulled out his phone and noticed for the first time that he didn’t have service. He wasn’t expecting it to, but checking it was worth a shot with this warped space. He reoriented and shone the light up, but couldn’t see the top. Grace would have a hay-day with a physics problem like this one.
ㅤHe would go forward with the space-warp theory. If the space was stretching down as he fell, the space he was seeing was much closer to the surface in reality. If he could join the stretched space and return it to normal, he might only be a couple dozen feet from the surface. In order to do anything safely with the walls, he needed to slow down. A lot. He concluded friction and normal forces against the wall would be much too dangerous, and wouldn’t slow him down enough. Maybe he could make a parachute with his backpack and supplies? That wasn’t a bad idea; he had the tools, but it certainly wouldn’t slow him down enough. The more of his mass he could drop or spread out, the slower he would fall. He would have to hope he could lighten up enough. He got to work.
ㅤElijah hesitated before emptying his backpack of his books, capstone project, and rolled up blueprint. They weren’t as important to Elijah as he had thought only a couple of hours ago. He drained his coffee thermos of the last coffee it would hold and threw it away. No more late nights studying, please! His pins and Wera keys were snapped safely into one of his many pockets. Lockpicks became needles, and shoestrings became thread to make-shift-sew the Leatherman-cut layers of his backpack into a strange, patchwork parachute. He left sections sewn together to take advantage of the professional seams, because with the air already trying to rip and twist his creation away, the seams would need to be as strong as possible.
ㅤThinking more, he came up with his shirt but had run out of shoestrings and shoes. Squeezing the partial parachute under his arm, he cut into his shirt, which was more difficult than his worn-down backpack as the wind flailed its flexible material like a thrashing snake. He began to strip his sleeves into longer strands in hope of using the strips as thick thread, cutting with his Leatherman’s blade at the whipping sleeve. Using the jagged strands, he connected his shirt bits to the last sides of his parachute, folding up the parts not in use to keep the wind from catching it. He then affixed two backpack straps and his belt approximately equidistant around the strange shape. The rest of his sleeve strips tied the belt to his pants’ back belt loop. It was finished. He put away his tools. Snap.
ㅤElijah allowed the parachute to unfurl above him. He held the backpack straps close so that the parachute was eased into holding back the air. He didn’t want the parachute to rip. He stared upwards as the parachute caught air and pulled at his shoddy sewing. The gray and green patches held, so Elijah started gradually moving his arms with strap-wound palms outward, expanding the parachute. The fabrics spread out. The stitching held! Gaps allowed air through, but the drag was slowing Eli down. He couldn’t believe it! And the slower he moved, the less air was pushing on the janky parachute. Arms to his side, and now falling belly-first, Elijah took another deliberate deep breath. Now was the hard part.
ㅤThis plan was very theoretical, but if space was being warped on or near the wall, he hoped that he could grab a jutting stone, warp with it, and climb out. Hypothetically, these stones were only two dozen feet from the surface or so. The odd part would be if he could even feel or see his hands climb in the warp. It was risky. It was dangerous. It was terrifying. Adrenaline had been rerunning through his veins, and it encouraged him to try his hardest to survive. Elijah looked down, and locked on what looked like the top of a larger distorted stone, right-hand backpack strap now in his jaw. Eli reached out, prepared for unknown powers to yank him closer to death, and grabbed the stone.
ㅤElijah’s right hand touched the stone, and gripped it as hard as he could. His hand to stretched and distorted with the stone, and as he fell past where his arm became a blur, he experienced an incredible jerk in his right arm, halting him in mid-air for a moment.
ㅤA fireball exploded in his shoulder and engulfed his arm. PAIN. The rock’s sharp details sliced his hand open. He fell, hand losing grip in its bloody mess. Even his unshirted side was scraped open by the passing stones. His parachute struggled and flapped behind him and…
ㅤHis cotton shirt snagged on the outstretched stone, finally slowing him to a true halt. Shock. Knives. Adrenaline. Tears. Bullets. Sight. Cognition. Joy. Rearrangement. Terror. Fire. He grabbed his mangled right arm in his left. The mouthed strap was bit with all his pain. His belt-strap thing must have held because he hung there helplessly. He subconsciously prayed for help through the all-consuming blaze. He sat there in a coma of hormones, chemical responses, and electrical pain impulses. His parachute creaked against the fabric and shoelaces seams.
ㅤAfter tears, blood, sweat, and snot leaked from Elijah, he tried to think through his pain. He was stuck. At least he wasn’t falling. He was hurting. At least he wasn’t dead. Right? No, yeah, he needed to speak to his fami… It’s so painful! Grace, he needed to apologize to h—GASP. The side. The arm. The shoulder—wrong. His hand. Flaming. Fire was preferred. He would call her when he—he could call—Elijah needed to call for help. He looked up to see stars in a pocket of sky. He gingerly let go of his left hand’s parachute strap. The one in his mouth and his belt were the ones holding his weight. He didn’t know how long that would last. He guided his right arm as sparks flew and volcanoes erupted on it to hang along his red-scraped side. The jaw-strap was situated more to the side of his mouth. He winced his way to his phone pocket. Snap. By force of will, his shaking hand death-gripped his only lifeline. He logged in with his wet nose and thumbed to his Call app where he dialed 911. He had service. He couldn’t climb this cliff, but maybe others could help him reach the top.
ㅤRing—Ring! “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?” the call-taker asked.
ㅤ“I fell into a pit—Taughannock Park—my arm—my hand’s shredded. It was path Ugth! Oh, God, it hurts—So muchah…”
ㅤ“A dispatch has been sent your way. You will be safe soon. Do you remember what trail you were on?” Elijah thought the call-taker was a she, and she had a deep and confident voice. It didn’t reassure him, but hearing something other than pain or air was nice.
ㅤ“It was—was North Rim tray—Trail.” Tears streamed anew as his arm hung in limp and constant pain. “I walked towards Park— near the falls I—Park Road. AH—Owgh-ugh-ugh…”
ㅤ“Between North Rim Trail and Park Road near the Falls. Help is on the way. I will continue to talk and ask questions, please try your best to stay on the line.” Elijah answered her questions through biting pain and burning hurt. She talked him into a more comfortable position, curling his left arm into a sling for the other while he held the phone on speaker mode.
ㅤHelp arrived. They rappelled down towards him, and deftly hoisted him back up. Finally, he could lose consciousness. He did.
ㅤHe woke up in the hospital to see his Mother, Father, and Grandpa sitting around his bed. Grace leaned against a far wall and said something, pointing at him. They all turned and gave their own expressions to Elijah. His grandpa started leaking tears of joy into his crinkled face. His mom’s reddened face morphed into a relieved, yet puffy smile as she continued to cry. Before he could see Grace, David Adler opened his arms and ever so gently bear-hugged his son. He would’ve squeezed harder if Elijah weren’t injured. It hurt, but Elijah didn’t care. His dad started crying. David grabbed a tissue and handed one to his wife. Eli realized his right arm was slung up and his hand heavily bandaged. He probably should offer some explanation.
ㅤ“I am okay,” Eli started with, “Grandpa, I figured some things out. About life. Thank you.” Elijah Sr. nodded and wiped his eyes.
ㅤ“I am so glad to hear that, Eli,” Grandpa said before motioning for a tissue. Elijah’s eyes set on Grace. He thought he had seen her for the last time, but here she stood.
ㅤ“I—,” he hadn’t been looking forward to this, “I am so sorry. About what I said. You deserve so much better. Please, give me another chance.” She stood across the room, eyes locked. Her steps forward were invisible to Elijah, but she walked over.
ㅤShe squeezed his left hand, smiled a small tilted smile, and whispered, “I wanted this to work. I think you did too… Are we sure that we want it back now?”
ㅤ“I do,” he nodded, “More than ever.”
ㅤ“Me too.” She quickly squeezed his hand again before sitting in a chair nearby.
ㅤHis mom came in for her own hug, though it was shakier than his dad’s. He hugged back best he could. He smiled. He was safe. He was with people he loved. He was alive.