Falling Into Oblivion

I don't remember it.

I don't remember taking it. I don't remember being there. I don't remember falling from thousands of feet up into the air. I don't remember grinning into the camera. I don't remember the wind rushing past my body.

I don't know how the photo got so popular either. Suddenly, my face, looming over the white clouds and blue ocean that are the earth, has become the most popular thing ever.

Speculation ran rampant: Space sky dive? Digitally enhanced? Faked outright? Truly just real and amazing?

Facial recognition identified it conclusively as me, down to that convenient birthmark I have on my right cheek. No doubt about it.

But I don't remember it. At all. I don't remember falling out of the plane. I don't remember the parachute opening. I don't remember landing on my feet and running a hundred yards on my feet. I don't remember my brown hair tumbling out of the helmet. 

As far as I know, based on the timestamp on that photo, I was fast asleep at my California home, instead of halfway around the world and thirty thousand feet in the air taking photos of myself.

I started to think it was a prank by a friend. Why not? My friends were notorious for coming up with fantastic vacations, silly celebrations, funny tricks they played on me over the years. They threw me countless surprise parties and a surprise bachelorette party, and then a baby shower. So why not this?

I have to admit, it was once my fondest dream to go skydiving, to really just jump out of a plane and let go of everything. The ultimate freedom. But life took over - work, family, children. I lost the impulse, and with age, fear overcame that need to feel free.

I didn't want to break any bones, a real possibility in my forties. Plus, the idea of leaping out of an airplane high in the sky simply wasn't as compelling as it used to be in my teens and twenties, and even thirties. Now I just wanted to stay safe at home, and my idea of a thrilling risk was restricted to letting my kids play unsupervised or eating something that had been in the fridge too long.

"Come on, Penny, just tell me the truth. This has gone too far, don't you think?"

Penny was silent. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said, finally, all innocence, the expert liar she was. I should have started with someone else.

"Fine," I pouted. "But don't blame me if this turns out badly." I hung up on her.

Mira, Kili, and Arlo all had nothing much to say and also played innocent.

Then, with no other choice, I called Anshu.

Anshu and I hadn't spoken in years. She was my twin sister, and we'd grown up together thick as thieves, doing nothing without each other. Our parents had to literally pull us apart when we were little. People would always say, "Oh, such sweet sisters! Who's older?" because we were literally the same size. But being fraternal, we looked entirely different. I was dark-skinned with brown eyes and brownish hair. Anshu had blue-black hair and the palest skin, and her eyes veered into bluish.

Into middle school and even high school, we stayed close, studying together. We went to separate places for college but met up every break, whether at our parents' place or on our own. When I got married, she was there with her camera.

But she never had that impulse to find someone, to settle down, to have children. She wanted freedom, and she talked about it all the time. I think, now, it's what sparked my desire to sky dive and do similar thrilling things. Just to have a taste of what she was talking about.

But I became a mom, and joined the PTA, and went to my 9 to 5 job, and went to Napa Valley for the weekend with my husband.

She was off to Cambodia and Everest, daring adventures I couldn't even imagine. She even took my kids sometimes to local places when I couldn't get away. Anshu was in some ways the young wild person I wished I could be.

She didn't pick up the first twelve times. I didn't blame her. I'd pulled my children back from her, and accused her of being selfish. I'd insinuated that she would never find happiness without settling down, and that she might not even deserve love. I'd been cruel.

But she had been cruel back. She told me I was scared, that I couldn't cut it anyway, that I'd never be anyone, never amount to anything, never be happy either.

The worst part was, I was afraid. I was afraid she was right.

So we didn't talk for years, and attended family events in silence. I sent the kids to her, but she never came over.

So now I'm not surprised she doesn't pick up the phone. Except on the thirteenth try, she does. She hangs up on me. And then she calls back.

"Don't think this means anything. Are you dying?"

"N-no...," I stammer, shocked she is even on the phone, alive, talking. "I-I-I'm fine. It's...just - the, the photo," I manage.

For a moment she is silent. "Oh," she says. "That."

"Yeah," I say. "So...why'd you do it? Why did you - fake it?"

"Me? Fake it?" I'm not sure, but I think I she's laughing on the other end.

"What? It wasn't you? Yeah right."

She gasps audibly. "Honestly, you're the worst. Of course, YOU didn't call me up six months ago and insist you need to get your life in order. YOU didn't say your life was going nowhere and that you need to shake things up. YOU didn't force me to train you and then take you up above Everest to skydive on the highest civilian no-oxygen skydive. YOU didn't take that grinning photo and post it for the world to see. Right."

I don't know what to say, I'm so stunned. It comes flooding back. The panic after I had my fourth, still in post-partum depression, unable to imagine continuing to live my mundane life. The frantic call to the only person I knew who lived without fear, unfettered by the ordinary. The ensuing adventures, and the feeling of blood flowing in my veins, catching a full breath again.

I start to remember it all - jumping, falling, taking the photo, landing, cheering. And then it's blank.

Bit by bit, things are coming back - the hospital, the kids with tiny bunches of flowers and crayon cards, kisses from my husband.

The remorse, the regret. The return to the safety of my life.

"I'm sorry," I say to Anshu. "Thank you."

It's all I can say to the sister who found me again.