Woolgathering

The moon was high, a mere week from fruition, and its milky bath of light drizzled over the mountains. Lucent, its glow streamed into the river where the water dashed and frothed through the heights, throwing lunar eddies into coils of light that wound through the scintillating waves like ribbon. As these twin currents leapt over the dazzling heights of the falls they spiraled, as though their cascade to shatter on the gleaming rocks below were all an intimate waltz, each tide holding the other close until impact bound them in one, glorious effervescence.

  The tall, dark boy appreciated this from his lofty perch. He was grounded firmly at the peak of the falls, his silhouette looming from a jutting granite boulder the river had yet to efface. He stood in nothing more than a pair of old pants rolled up to the knees, his whole physiognomy flushed with excitement. His heart pounded, roared in his chest. A wide grin was stretched over his lips.

  Every fibre of his being was shaking for terror.

  His grey eyes stared down a 35 meter drop, and reason screamed he couldn't make the jump out from the rocks below. Reason was probably right. But it didn't matter. Every moment or so a convulsive shiver, a warning, would course through the boy's spine, and he delayed only to feel it, the weighty blow of anticipation, imbibing it. By the time he made the jump he wanted to be desperate with fright. Fear was his opiate, or perhaps it was the adrenaline that fueled him. He didn't know. Nor did he care. No, right now his frigid skin, the leering dive, the menacing river and the roar of the falls like a caution were seeping into his being. His breath steadied even as his chest squeezed faster, tighter— even as the air in his lungs thinned. For the barest of instants his eyes closed.

  Then he started to run.

  His bare feet slapped against the worn granite slab, his legs straining, a sudden streak of euphoria blazing through his pupils until—!

  He threw himself over the falls.

  For a moment all was senseless, all was chaos as air whistled shrilly, damningly past his ears, as he heard the water breaking over the rocks advancing rapidly in his sight and he tumbled all out of form, flailing through the air and dreading the knowledge of whether he'd jumped far enough.

  Then there was the force of his impact with the river, and he was sucked under, pain assailing him at every angle, water filling his mouth and nose, chilling him to the bone. But he had rushed into jeopardy, through shock and panic and horror, dozens of times before, and he focused all his energy, all that freezing, dying blood coursing through his veins into the controlled strokes of his arms, a desperate grapple with the river. He wrestled every current— he, who hadn't the muscle of a warrior nor the grace of a diver. There was no skill and no strength in him, only the great, turbulent will for survival powering his limbs. They lashed out at the enemy, all that surging water. For a glorious moment he knew no thoughts, nothing but instinct, and this powered him with such a wave of euphoria that somehow, miraculously, his arms made it to the bank, and he had pulled himself over it before he could so much as thank the heavens.

  Then he lie there in the grass. His head spun, light and giddy. His chest ached as he spluttered. He could feel blood running down his leg where one of the fall's teeth had ripped at the flesh.

  And in that one, horrified moment, he knew the joy of life, just as he had time and time again through similar stunts. Just as he had a year ago, when he last risked this indulgence. He lie there in the grass, staring now at the stars and the heavens, and as his high, that rush of adrenaline, faded back into the dull remorse of his existence he offered a small prayer. Later, he wouldn't recall if it was one of thanks or forgiveness, or even what god he made it to.

  But then, there were few moments as spiritual, as intimate, as the realization of your own mortality.

  It was a shame that he was interrupted by something so cliché as a rustle in the underbrush.

  The noise was peripheral, but it was night, when all was in reverse, and only the softest of sounds could shine bright in the greater tangle of human consciousness. He was on his feet before he could think, some of that instinct in possession of him still, and suddenly the world was quiet once more. But the boy was not appeased. His heart, previously stilling, raced back to its former state. His pupils dilated, his eyes searching the gloom frantically as he scrabbled toward the edge of the bank where he'd left his clothes.

  Intuition was something he denied himself. It ran strong in him, those primordial answers, the reign of subconscious over his being, but though it was rarely wrong he rarely gratified it. This, though, this was a matter of life and death, not of science and reason, and he knew there was someone in the forest with him. Someone, not something.

  Tripping and stumbling over to his clothes, he scooped them up and ran as fast as he could, paying no heed to his feet as they were stabbed by pine needles and bruised over rocks, just throwing himself in the gaps between trees, trying desperately to steer. Behind him, he swore he heard the snapping of a branch, and he broke into a sprint, not daring to glance back, to risk slowing even for a glimpse of the threat. Indeed, he didn't pause at all until he made it to the road ten minutes later, his chest heaving, and that was only to cram his feet into his tennis shoes and continue on his way.

  The shuttle stop, he thought in a blind panic. If he could just make it to the shuttle stop, then there would be witnesses— he'd be fine— or at least no one could get him from behind with his back pressed against the solid interior. Longer he ran, but his energy was swiftly fleeing him, and his muscles burned, his bones ached.

  He didn't realize his pursuer was gone at all until he'd holed himself in the stop, just as planned. It was beyond him when his dizzying escape had proved successful— all he could do was breathe an immense sigh of relief, coughing and panting and leaning heavily against the glass side of the booth.

  He'd run almost two miles, he realized.

  He needed to change, he realized.

  And, because his mind would conjure up innumerable terrors of the night regardless, he pulled off his sopping clothes, praying no one came until the shuttle was due in a half an hour as he slipped into the relative warmth of a dry suit, mitigating the freezing dread that had crept upon his soul.

  In a way, he hoped that God was punishing him. In another, he knew that something much worse had transpired.

  And suddenly, against all odds, he really wished he was home.

  The Virtue of Deception