For the Next Generation Mary, boat captain, sailed the world, trying to find her home. She dreamed of seeing the Aztecs, the Indians, the vikings. She embarked of her own free will and followers in tow – no nation in charge of her – but with every stop, as her passengers disembarked never to see the ship again, the boat called to her more than the land ever did. She never did step foot on any other land, and as she grew old, she neither could remember the last time she’d stepped foot on her own. Maybe, she discovered, she’d never left it. When she breathed her final breath and felt the wheels of Time as they were meant to be felt, she kept sailing along beside them. # Nostalgia caught Lilian far too early. By the earliest years of her life, she was thinking about what she had lost. The hidden girlfriend that would never have worked, the fake boyfriend that she hurt. Both had been torn from her life, despite the love she held for each, albeit in very different ways. She never found anything to replace them, and any kintsugi-like attempt to paper over the cracks only left heaps of golden powder at the bottom of her bowl, useless. Only as she was dying did she realize how quickly life was. She still missed the affection of her woman, she still missed the companionship of her man. She had only just started writing, she had only just started painting. When Lilian saw Time bustling towards her, she didn’t give it a second thought. She stuck a hand out, grasped the railing, and was pulled along with it. Maybe it would loop around, she thought, and she could see them again. Maybe it would continue on, and she could leave the painful memories on the tracks behind her. Either way, she was along for the ride. Time slowed, just an inch. # Henry came along with that first generation of real businessmen. His father had hammered into him that money was all that was important, learned from a life of lacking it. Money, money, money, he said. Without the distractions of friends, money, money, money was what Henry earned. He went from inventor to entrepreneur to industrialist, providing for himself and, sadly enough, his family. He was the first on the planes when they began taking off, visiting Paris, Windsor, Berlin. He loved each of them. His gruff nature fit in perfectly with the French, his money charmed the people of England, and his work ethic deified him in Germany. He also owned the first of the new automobiles, and he traveled within his own country too. He often visited the budding cities of California. Gold rush long gone, he found nothing comparable. The wonders of the Panama Pacific world's fair might have impressed him when he was a child, but as the man that he had become, he scoffed at them. He hated their weakness, and yet they celebrated. If this was what the United States was to become, he wanted none of it. His home in East Texas always compared swimmingly to these terrible places on the West Coast. He enjoyed the competition of Europe vastly more. When he strode through his door after coming back from San Francisco, he’d simply laugh and shake his head. Henry knew he had it good then, it wasn’t even a thought. However, when he returned home from whatever conference in whatever European country, and he was appreciative to have confirmed such suspicions of stereotypes as the rude French or the industrious Germans, it was a little harder of a thought experiment. After either adventure, though, Texas always won out. He found he had it all back home. He had charm with his employees, he had fear with those that served him, and he was treated like a God by his brothers and sisters, whom he supported with a miniscule fraction of his paycheck. Why ever go anywhere else? He still wanted more, of course. He had his eye on this fledgling technology business when a heart attack caused him to see death just ahead of him. He looked back, then. Looked at everything he’d done in his life. He had done what he’d set out to. He earned money, he had fun. He’d done bad stuff too – layoffs, scams, arguments – though he regretted none of it. Even so, he grabbed onto Time as it passed, his rough, forceful hands yanking it back. Always greedy, Teddy wasn’t letting go of those dreams he was yet to fulfill. Time stuttered, stopped, and waited for him to climb aboard. The weight of the man and all his cash in tow slowed Time down as it started again. # Ellouise and Rebecca took too long to meet. Ellouise was the big shot in high school, and again in college. She had enough friends to drop any of them at any time and not even recognize them as they walked by each other on campus only days later. She loved her popular life. She could have any guy she wanted, got the best grades because the teachers loved her too. Her father had resented her ever since her mother died. He said and did things to hurt Ellouise whenever she was home, spiteful of the woman growing to look evermore like his wife. When she went to school, for Elliouse it all melted away. And college, even better. She had a dorm room to herself. Although it made her lonely sometimes when she wasn’t surrounded by anyone and everyone, she liked to be alone too. The quiet helped her forget, then, more than the distractions ever had. Rebecca was the opposite. Her home life was hard to get away from. When her parents weren’t trying to keep her from doing drugs by not letting her even leave the house, they were limiting her starch intake because they thought she looked a few pounds off what she was supposed to. Her grandfather was her only real parent, Rebecca would always think. He’d slip her cookies when she was supposed to be eating broccoli, call her beautiful when her hair was greasy and she felt a million miles from it. She would only visit him once a year, but she felt like a princess whenever she walked through his door. She went to the same high school as Ellouise, but they were nothing more than strangers walking by each other in the halls. In college, Rebecca kept noticing this popular girl who always had a man or three in tow – and even started to have a bit of a thing for her – but never even said so much as a ‘hello’. Or a ‘hey,’ since that was her preferred form of greeting. Why would she? She felt far too heavy to even be looked at by a girl like that. Ellouise was better looking, had more friends, always knew what to say to make them all laugh, and, courtesy of the calculus class that they happened to share, Rebecca knew that she was even smarter than her. What did Rebecca have that this girl didn’t? It was taboo, then, anyway. Maybe that’s what was getting in the way, Rebecca told herself. She thought the same at their 10-year high school reunion, and then again after another ten years. While Rebecca had developed wrinkles where her frown lines used to be, and scars around her ankles, Ellouise was as beautiful as she had ever been. They met and quickly got together in neither their home town nor their college town. Ellouise moving to get away from her ex-husband, Rebecca having moved to take care of her grandfather, they both ended up in San Francisco. Rebecca loved living with her grandfather, but it wasn’t to last. On his deathbed, he was smiling at her. He let Time pass him by as he moved his way towards heaven. He had already experienced heaven the second Rebecca had moved in with him, and was ready for an eternity of it. Rebecca cried for him. Ellouise didn’t know him, though she later wished she had. They met at a coffee shop, Rebecca recognizing Ellouise, and somehow, Ellouise recognizing her in return. They loved each other even before the first word. Rebecca called her Ellie, Ellie called her Becca. They were already too old for a sperm donor, and while they considered adopting, maybe they were better off just the two of them. They had so much to do, and so little time to do it. When they grew old and frail, they convinced the hospital to let them share a bed. They spent their time in each other's arms, and on the very same day, both passed on peacefully. Neither of them were ready to let go. Ellie grabbed hold of Time by the ankle, and though it kicked, Time was forced to stop. When Becca arrived, they climbed on, and both held onto the waking world together. It wasn’t that they had any regrets, just… they liked it better this way. When it finally got moving again, Time had slowed to a canter. # Russ would always climb anything he could get his hands on. He scaled the tree in his backyard more times than anyone in his family could count. Daredevil from birth, Ma would say. He was never scared of getting hurt – in fact, the pain only pushed him on. What scared him about the falls wasn’t the pain that enveloped his every muscle as he’d hit the lawn or the dirt or, when he was very unlucky, the gravel. No, instead it was not being able to get up that he couldn’t handle. A branch would snap, he’d miss a hand grip, his foot slipped, and he’d tumble to the ground. If his bones were all in the right places, he’d jump up. Regardless of the pain, he could tell when he was fine. But if he knew something was wrong, he’d scream like hell. Yes, what hurt him was the idea of not getting back up. Cracked knees, sprained wrists, stuff that meant Ma would send him to the doctor. No exercise for days, sometimes weeks. Water sports made it harder. When he flew from his raft and got all banged up, he couldn’t tell. He stayed out of them for a while, but when he bored himself on the trees in his local park, or the boulder sitting precariously close to the precipice, he of course went back. He always expected that whitewater rafting would be the end of him. Maybe he would fly off and hit his head on the rock at the bottom, or maybe he would get a leg stuck under a beaver-built dam. Either way, the way the water massaged his every muscle meant his patented injury check would go astray, and he wouldn’t know when to call for help. Instead, it wasn’t water that caused him to tear his ACL. That one hurt. The rock-climbing gym wasn’t liable – of course – but was it really Russ’s fault that a summer’s camp full of kids was running around right when he jumped off the wall? Did he really deserve an entire year’s break from the rigorous stuff because he’d had to plant a singular leg as he fell to avoid a little boy that he would’ve crushed? Planning his next thrill didn’t stop, of course, but his skydiving plans, hiking Mount Everest, or his next free solo would have to wait. Actually, he would think as he sweat through simply the process of standing up, it was something in particular that would have to wait. A news story had just appeared in his feed about a woman who fell from the heavens. She was a skydiver, a professional who probably knew her craft better than Russ knew his. Even so, one time, her parachute just didn’t open. When she cut it from herself, the backup tangled before it ever got going. The woman just accepted the end. Falling at near-terminal velocity with nothing but the curve of the Earth to watch sounded to Russ like a good way to go, and it seemed this woman agreed. She laid back – if you could call it that, mid-fall – and aimed for a little spot of marshlands far away from where her husband and children were waiting for her. She relaxed every bone in her body. And, whack. She hit the ground. The husband and kids must’ve seen it, she thought near the end, they’ll have been terrified to have seen the end, even if they didn’t see the hole she created. Only, they had no need to be worried. She got up, walked it off, and headed towards her family without a broken bone in her body. It hurt – oh, the article reported that it must have hurt like nothing else – but she was fine. Russ was dying to attempt the same thing. No matter how much the article stressed the pain of the matter, Russ knew it didn’t matter to him. No, Russ loved pain. It was the injury he couldn’t take, and the woman hadn’t been injured. So, in his year of immotility, he planned every step to achieving his goal. He needed to learn to skydive, he needed to practice falling. He needed a family relying on him, he needed two malfunctioning parachutes. He needed to build up the muscle necessary for such a cushion. It would take a lifetime of preparation, but he would get there. And he would feel the thrill that only one other person had ever felt before. He met Kelly only a few short weeks after he had started up climbing again. He was weak, he was slow, he could feel the burn. But he was climbing again. He was moving towards his goal. He was scaling V0s and V1s that showed his ferocity, even the V2s might have been slightly out of reach. Kelly loved him at first sight, despite his weakness. They talked, they fell, they loved. Kelly was perfect. She knew just as much about climbing as he did, she might’ve even known more. She even taught him things. She showed him how to leap from one grip to the next. She taught him how to use his feet as if they had opposable thumbs. And, best of all, she taught him how to fall. She taught him how to twist in the air, curl inwardly, and protect everything important. It might hurt like hell, she would always say, but you’ll get right back up. Russ had never heard anything sexier. They got married in their thirties, had kids in their forties. Russ and Kelly gave them a safe life, but never ceased to look for that hint of innocent danger in everything they did. Through all of this, The Fall had always been Russ’s plan, and Kelly knew it. He told her about it on her first date, and still wouldn’t shut up about it by their 10th anniversary. It was never in doubt, and Kelly understood: Russ was doing it, and he didn’t care how much he might be leaving behind. By his fifties, he knew he was ready. He’d practiced the free fall from a plane, knew how to fix his spinning and tumbling so he could enter a relaxed state. The kids had gone off to college – barely – and he wasn’t getting any younger. Kelly couldn’t bear to go with him in the plane. They hugged and said their goodbyes, Russ treating it like just another thrill, Kelly treating it like the last time she would ever see him. Russ looked her up and down, looked into her eyes. The plane took off. Kelly stayed for a minute, watching her husband’s plane shoot for the sky. Then, she walked off to a local bar, and ordered herself a beer. When she turned to find a table, Russell was behind her. He couldn’t do it, it didn’t matter to him anymore. As soon as he had left the ground, he knew he had made a mistake, and the plane didn’t even reach altitude before asking the pilot to turn around. They watched their children grow up, get jobs, find hobbies as far away from thrill-seeking as they could get. They watched them find loved ones, have families. Russell died an old man, with no regrets in his mind about anything he had done. He didn’t want to go, though. He couldn’t leave his family. When Russ grabbed onto Time, he took it with his grip that he had learned from years of pulling himself up. When steadying himself and climbing aboard, Russell treated Time with the gentleness and affection he could only have learned from a lifetime of true love. And thus, Time slowed evermore. The next generation would have even longer. Ethan Leventhal was born and raised just across the bay from San Francisco, writing from a young age about California's beauty. He has worked before as a ghostwriter of children's stories and as a copywriter. He is now beginning a Master's in Writing from Warwick University in England's midlands.
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