Dare

Dares are for fools, and those who respond to them are doubly fools----my brother told me this on several occasions. I, being a younger brother resentful of the admitted superiority of said brother in every arena in which we competed, was not inclined to pay attention to such advice and thus, ignored it. Perched precariously atop the church steeple, I decided that he was right. I also decided that those who ignored the wisdom of elder brothers were triple fools. 

“Come on and take the picture already!” called out he who had issued the dare, Brian, who was a friend of a friend, but most definitely not my friend. And after this, probably never would be, regardless of the fact that I was the one who had taken the dare. “Unless you’re too scared to?” he taunted. 

I rolled my eyes. What was there to be afraid of? I had already climbed the steeple in a bunny suit in the middle of winter. All that was left was to take the selfie. The wind was bitterly cold, it’s bite penetrating through the suit as if it were cobwebs.  

“I’m waiting for the sunset,” I yelled down. “This is going to be the best damn selfie the world has ever seen.” 

He snorted, a sneer twisting his face. Brian was one of those generically handsome men----wavy dark brown hair and eyes, chiseled features, square jaw, and a decent body from working out three days a week religiously----that women swooned all over. He was also a jerk of massive proportions who used women and tossed them aside like garbage. He never dated the same woman for more than a week.  

It was this fact----and my own dislike of such behavior----that had led to this situation. We had argued over his abominable treatment of women, and he had responded by calling me a coward. According to him, I only objected to his behavior because I was too afraid to try it myself. He had then challenged me to prove my denials by climbing the steeple of the First Sunrise Catholic Church in a pink bunny suit and taking a selfie of myself. And I, being of course a fool had accepted. But fool or not, I was determined that I not show my regrets to Brian, and thus came my declaration that I would stay up here until the sun began to set and then snap a picture of myself against the glorious pinks and reds of the day’s end, thus immortalizing my triumph in iphone photo.  

“Ohmigosh!” someone screamed. “There’s a person on the church!” 

It was a woman, dressed in typical office attire---black skirt suit and pumps, brown hair in a conservative chignon, clutching a small purse. She had just come out of the bank across the street from the church. She was pretty in a girl next door way, average height and slender, with pale green eyes currently widened in horror.  

“Ohmigosh, he’s going to jump!” 

Wait, what?! 

“No!” I yelled. But she was not listening to me. Her screams had attracted others, and soon a small crowd had gathered. Three-quarters of them had pulled out their own phones and were recording the catastrophe. A quarter milled about worriedly, glancing alternately at each other and at me, trying to figure out what to do. 

“Don’t do it!” the woman cried out to me. “You’re not alone! I can help you!” 

Brian was smirking at me. 

“I’m not killing myself!” I yelled again. “I’m taking a selfie!” 

“Someone call the police!” a voice shouted out from the crowd. 

“No! Don’t call the police! I am not killing myself!” I bellowed, and this time I caught their attention. “I am not jumping!” I repeated. At this, the worried part of the crowd let out a collective sigh of relief and begin to wander away, one old man shooting me a dirty look, and muttering, “Millennials.” Some of the phone people peeled away as well, but just as many remained. 

“Go away,” I shouted, profoundly embarrassed. 

The woman’s skin had flushed a deep red, and look of deep mortification was on her face.  

“Ohmigosh, I am so sorry!” she said. “But you need to get down from there! IT’s not safe!” 

I opened my mouth to let her know that the last person I needed advice from was some random stranger who had arbitrarily accused me of trying to commit suicide, and at that exact moment the wind laughed nastily in my ear and shoved me. I stumbled, and then I was falling. The last thing I saw was my brother’s face, sad and angry as he told me, “Brad, dares are for fools, and those who respond to them are doubly fools. You have got to stop letting people get to you. So they dare you, so what? You humiliate yourself, put yourself in danger? To prove something? To prove you’re a man? All you’re proving is that you are a fool, a grade-A fool.” 

Piercing screams stabbed at my ears, the rush of wind around me as I tumbled towards the ground and doom like the roar of a train heading my way.  

You were right, Paul. 

I hit the ground. Except, there was no pain, nothing, breaking. And since when was the ground so soft? A groan came from beneath me. The ground makes noise? 

I jerked upright, and a familiar, pretty face gazed up at me. I had fallen on the woman, and not just her. Beneath her was a mound of other observers who had broken my fall, having tried to catch me and ended up clustered together. 

“Ohmigosh, are you alright?!” 

Dazed, not quite believing that I was not a stain on the pavement, I looked into green eyes.  

“What’s your name,” I asked.  

She blinked. “My name? It’s---” 

“Sweetheart, your dinner’s getting cold.” I swiveled around in my chair, away from the bright light of the computer screen, and smiled at my wife. Her hair had fallen out of it’s usual chignon, wispy strands framing a very annoyed face. Green eyes glared at me. 

“You’ve been working nonstop all afternoon, and you need to eat. You already skipped lunch, I know. What are you working on anyways, another mystery novel?” 

I stood and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. Her enlarged belly bumped against my front, and I rubbed it, feeling a tingling warmth rushing through me, and a delirious grin of joy spreading across my face. “No, I thought I’d dabble a little in romance. For the baby.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “For the baby?” 

“For the baby,” I confirmed, leaning in for a kiss.  

Best foolish thing I ever did.