The Third Alternative

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”

I finished the story and looked up. A heartbeat of silence.

"That was beautiful", he says spellbound.

And suddenly the moment is frozen. To be kept in a safe place and called upon when the colours drain away again and one walks in a swirling mist of gray.

The pain of the evening ceases to weigh so heavily. The treachery of a friend who leaves one to sob on a step in a teeming mass of humanity forgiven.

It would have been the perfect ending to a perfect day. The much-awaited Mirrormask, Thai food, finally being able to afford a Neil Gaiman Sandman and dancing with Muna. But it wasn't; there was just the inability to breathe.

There seemed to be two of us, walking side by side, sometimes hand in hand. The 'real me' held me occasionally and tried to make it all better. "You are just upset because it meant less than nothing and you are not that person", I said to myself.

The night went by in a blur and I found myself at supper reading the story...

“It is sometimes a mistake to climb; it is always a mistake never even to make the attempt. If you do not climb you will not fall. This is true. But is it that bad to fail, that hard to fall? Sometimes you wake, and sometimes, yes, you die. But there is a third alternative.”

***********************************

"That's how I am. I am never afraid to fall cos I KNOW I will fly", he says matter- of-factly

I smile, "Yes, that you do".

The moment unfreezes.