Yura's Town

Yura peered down, down, down, past the toes of her purple sneakers, straight into the dizzying darkness. She inched forward so that the rubber tips of her shoes hung over the edge by just a centimeter. Her mother often warned her not to stand so close to the border, but Yura rarely heeded anything her mother had to say these days. Though they shared the same stocky frame and lightly speckled cheeks, Yura felt that her mother’s fretful disposition had the tendency to drag down her own naturally happy countenance. Besides, Yura knew something about the border of town that her mother did not. 

This half of town was completely empty, abandoned, quiet. Places like this normally made Yura uncomfortable. She hated the silence because it made her feel as though life had been put on pause. At seventeen, she craved life, craved the presence of people. At school she knew every face, and considered all to be her friend in one way or another. 

But this was a very different kind of silence. Not a single soul lived here, but the empty houses and shops were not dead. Instead, they seemed to hum with a kind of anticipation, a potential energy. They crouched beside the darkness as if ready to leap away. 

Or in, Yura thought. 

The town had been built teetering on the edge of the universe. 

When it began to tip over, everyone living on the west side of town had retreated to the east, thinking that they could weigh down the far side of town– like a bus hanging over a cliff, with all its passengers retreated to one side. Thus, the west side was somewhat of a ghost village.

Yura loved her funny little town at the edge of the universe. She loved the westside residents that had taken refuge in her parents’ cozy eastside inn. She loved that there were always people bustling in and out of the inn, sparing smiles and chit chat as they went about their lives. Most of all, she loved that not a single resident had thought to leave town. 

“Yura, what are you doing?” 

The voice startled her, and she nearly tumbled forward into the void. Nobody ever visited the end of town like this except for her. People were too afraid, the darkness made them too nervous to be so close to the edge. Yura herself was expressly forbidden to be as far west as she was, but there was something addicting about the thrill and seclusion of the end of town that she could not give up, and so she found herself staring out at the edge of the universe at least three times a week after school. 

Some said that looking into the darkness would make one mad, but Yura never believed it. 

She took three steps back and turned around to find a boy on a bicycle staring her down. A tall boy. A boy whose barber cut his hair just a little too short so that it stuck out awkwardly in dark tufts around his head and behind his ears. A boy named Thomas, with whom Yura was a little in love with. 

Yura was happy to see him, but his expression didn’t seem to mirror hers. 

“Are you crazy?” blurted Thomas. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“You’re here.” He was clearly anxious. She grinned at him, wanting to put him at ease. 

“Yeah, because I followed you after school. You’re really not supposed to be here.”

Was he afraid of the darkness, or of getting caught? Yura thought the fact that she was standing so closely to the edge might be agitating him. She lowered herself to the ground, letting her feet dangle. Despite the darkness, the ground was soft, and the dewy grass grew thicker near the edge than anywhere else. She tugged a handful of blades from the earth and tossed them into the void, watching them flutter into the nothing below. 

Smiling again, she pointed out. “Did you see that?”

“You’re freaking crazy,” said Thomas, but she noticed he was standing a couple inches closer than before. “We need to leave. We’re not allowed to be here.”

Yura would have been irritated if she wasn’t so pleased with his word choice. We, he had said. We need to leave. We’re not allowed.

So she decided to be patient with him. She ripped another handful of grass from the soil, let it fall between her fingers into the vast supposed nothingness. 

“Gravity,” she explained. “There’s gravity.” 

Thomas sat beside her in physics class. She knew he never skipped a day of school, because everyday he would walk directly to the empty seat next to her even though there was no assigned seating. She knew he was good at physics, because of the way his pale eyes glowed when the teacher called on him and how he never gave a wrong answer. And she knew that the void on which the town was built was a particularly favorite subject of his, because it was a favorite of hers as well. 

So she knew that he would understand. 

Thomas frowned. “The end of the world’s not supposed to have gravity. Everything stops. It’s just–”

“Nothing. But it’s not.” She pointed downward. “There’s bits of grass down there now.” 

His pale eyes took on a more thoughtful expression. He seemed less afraid now. “There could still be nothing,” he suggested, crouching next to her. Yura couldn’t help but think that the distance between them was considerably shorter than the distance between their desks in class. She liked it. His elbow brushed against her for a moment and she decided she was pleased with the entire situation. “The grass could just be perpetually falling.”

“Alright, what about this then?” Yura grabbed his wrist, pulled it over the void so their hands were hovering above the darkness. 

“What are you doing?” He seemed nervous again. Perhaps because she had tugged him closer to the edge. Or perhaps at her touch. 

She stared at him earnestly. His eyes were pale, but hers were dark and wide and quite expressive. “Do you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“Stretch out your hand.” 

“Yura…” 

He complied. He blinked at her. 

Yura wiggled her fingers. “There’s a breeze.”

“Oh, shit.” 

In the supposed nothing, there was a breeze. A gentle flow of wind that danced around their fingertips and carried loose bits of dandelion fuzz into the void below. 

Thomas looked at her. “Where’s the wind coming from?” 

Suddenly, Yura felt excited. She’d always believed there was more than nothing in the darkness, that the edge of the universe wasn’t really the end, and having Thomas there to witness made her feel as though her theories held more validity than she’d ever hoped. She felt empowered, happy, optimistic. She felt an itching curiosity, a sensation that she ought to know more than she did. That knowing more was wholly possible. 

She peered over the edge once again, her right hand still grasping Thomas’ wrist. 

“There’s something down there,” she told him. She felt assured. She let go of his wrist.

“Maybe,” said Thomas. “Maybe you’re right.” He stood, dusted off his blue jeans, extended a hand which Yura did not hesitate to grasp. He lifted her to her feet. “But it’s just speculation, Yura,” he said, tugging her away from the edge. He’d seen the glint in her eye. “We can never know for sure.” 

“Why not?” She followed him towards the westside houses, trotting behind him contentedly as he dragged her to safety. 

“Because we can’t. Let’s go, Yura.” 

Yura frowned because she disagreed. “Thomas.”

“Yeah?”

“I like you.”

Thomas paused. He dropped her hand. 

Yura turned. She walked back towards the edge of town. She looked into the darkness. For a moment, she thought there was a light, in the distance. 

Behind her, she heard Thomas calling her name.