Edge

by Serena Sallow

  “I'm sorry, Freckles.”

  “Me too,” I say. “Maybe we both just forgot about our dreams. Isn't that plausible?”

  I hear the smile in his voice. “Yeah, totally. We both just forgot.”

  It's quiet for a while, and I think that we might start up on the Madame Veneera wrecking again, when all of the sudden it's midday and we're trekking up the staircase in a resigned silence, holding hands.

  ten

  I hate the way my memory works.

  As in, it doesn't.

  Because I don't know if it's been days or weeks or months or years that I've been with Screech, but I know that we've been together for a while and there was a time before that in which we weren't together and it sucked and we hated it. But now we are together, and he's like my little brother or something, and the blood on his back has long since faded to long, white scars. His burnt hand, however, is still as bright as it was the day we met Madame Veneera. These marks make me almost painfully sad every time I look at them. He's just a kid, and I allowed him to get hurt through weaknesses of my own. The thought makes me recoil and cringe, and so I attempt to occupy my time with the mere thought that he's safe now, at least.

  But the staircase just seems to keep getting longer and longer.

  It's endless, we've both decided silently as we trek up. We no longer hold hands, but we don't need to – it's like we've reached this mental state in which we're so connected to one another, we don't need to technically be holding each other to feel like we're not alone.

  Sometimes I hum, sometimes he tries to whistle. I've attempted to teach him at least five hundred times how to whistle and, to put it frankly, he sucks.

  “Well, how do you do it?” he asked one day when I made the observation between chortles.

  “Just kind of...” I whistled aloud, not to demonstrate, but to see how I did it.

  He rolled his eyes. “Wow, that sounds easy, thanks.”

  “No, just... put your lips in a hole-like thing and blow air out, while putting your tongue near your teeth.” I shrug, because I didn't know what to say.

  And even now, he's trying to whistle, but it's coming out more like a low, loud breath of air.

  I can't help but laugh, and he hits me, very lightly, very playfully.

  We're always aware of how close that edge is.

  And we just keep getting higher and higher. I swear I can't see the ocean anymore, but Screech thinks he can. Maybe my eyesight's just getting bad... I don't know.

  “This has to be a dream!” Screech decided either last year or last week. “Because we'd need air if we were this high up, because of compressions and stuff.”

  “Or maybe we are basing the real world off of the realities and laws that our dream worlds are held to,” I reply.

  He didn't speak for what felt like months after that, considering. I guess I said something relatively “smart” again, though I really don't see how anything I even remotely consider can be smart in comparison to his brains.

  We haven't run across anyone else since Madame Veneera, and Screech doesn't plan to. “Anyone this high has probably fallen,” he told me once, reassuringly (and whether or not I use that adjective sarcastically, even I can't tell). I tried not to gag at the thought.

  Yet still… every now and again I think of Todd, and how he was once somewhere up here.

  But no one's here anymore.

  The staircase gets wider at times, and then it gets so narrow that we have to step so slowly and carefully that we get worried about what to do when night falls, and there's not enough room to lie down and stop.

  The staircase isn't easy, it isn't fun. But having Screech here makes everything a bit... better. Even if he is so melancholy it's literally sickening at times.

  And speaking of sickening – one evening, as the sky was beginning to get those touches of black that alert us it is time to lay down, Screech came up with a new idea for what the staircase really is.

  “A metaphor.”

  “A metaphor?” I repeated, unconvinced.

  “A metaphor for mentally ill patients. Because treatments and getting help and all... that seems so... uncertain, you know? Like the top of the staircase!”

  I merely sighed, shook my head.

  He looked back at me with sad blue eyes. “What?”

  “Screech, you're literally proposing the idea that our entire existence serves a purpose for a metaphor, like we're some literary device or a piece of fiction or something.”

  “Yeah,” he said, even his own tone itching with the uncertainty that was driving my argument.

  “That's absolutely insane, even for you.”

  “See, insane!” He hit my arm playfully, walking backwards for a step or two before turning back front again. “Like mental patients.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You're ludicrous. There is no way. We're not some stupid abstract thing – we're real. We're here, we're now.”

  He had only sighed and nodded, hung his head. I guess that was the best job I've ever done of crushing his dreams.

  Everything changes one night, as we're lying on a particularly wide strip of staircase side-by-side as normal. Screech and I have decided to sing a song, and even as I'm singing it, my mind isn't really paying attention, so I don't know what song it is.

  He nudges me in my side, because I've forgot to come in at the right time, and I sigh, laugh lightly.

  “Sorry, Scree. I'm distracted.”

  “With?”

  I shrug, even though I know he can't see. “Life.”

  “Life is pretty simple,” is his reply. “You walk. You fall. Or you don't walk. That's really all there is to it.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I say, because somehow he's made me feel like an invalid.

  Quiet.

  Then, “You ever think of stopping?” I question. I didn't know that thought's been on my mind for a while, but when I say it, there's some sort of weight that's lifted off of me, and I feel safer, and more calm, despite my anticipation of his response.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we both agree. It's endless. Maybe we should... stop walking.”

  “And why would we do that?” His voice sounds as if betrayed by me.

  “Why not?”

  “Are you thinking of stopping?” Screech's tone is rising several octaves and I know I'm frightening him needlessly, but... when he found me I wasn't climbing, after all, and I did perfectly fine back then. Maybe we'd both be a little better without the added stress in our lives.

  “This staircase,” I remind, gently as I can. “It's... well... It goes on for eternities, Screech. There's no point in continuing on a never-ending journey.”

  But we're startled nearly off the staircase by a new voice – one that seems to sound from all around us. It's low, almost has a weird, lulling sort of country quality to it that makes it sound so sweet and so captivating, even if it is coming from the corners of darkness that surround us.

  “Naw, Rascal,” says the voice, “that's 'bout the stupidest goddamn thang I ever did heard you say. And I done heard you say some pretty messed up stuff.”

  My eyes go wide, my mouth goes agape as shock sets into my bones, because it can't be, because it's impossible, and I feel Screech shrink towards me, both protectively and fearfully. His body is quivering from terror, and his small fingers grab at my hand, needily.

  But I'm not frightened, because I recognize the voice.

  It's Todd.

  eleven

  Screech won't let me go as the strange voice addresses us brightly, and he has every right to be worried, of course, after all that happened with Madame Veneera and what-not. But this is Todd, and the fact that he's so frightened is actually a bit funny to me.

  “Oh my God!” I cry, standing up slightly. I feel Screech's hand slip from mine in surprise for rising, and I know what he's thinking – it's pitch black, not like I can see anything. And where am I going, anyway? “I can't believe it!”

  “Ya cain't
believe it? Never thought I'd see nobody this far up! Let alone 'I'm never gunna climb again' you!”

  Not that I ever, ever said anything like that. Maybe he liked to believe it happened in order to mentally cope with leaving me all alone out there. If I'm being totally honest, it does kind of irk me a little bit that he jumped up and left me, but not enough to make a stink about it.

  Because, of course, he's my Todd. One of my climbing buddies from before. A piece of my very small, very fragile, easily forgotten history, and I know this is a rare pleasure and I can't let that go, no matter what petty feelings I have.

  “I just can't believe it,” I repeat, looking around in the dark desperately for his outline. I can't really find it. I can't even see myself, let alone anyone else, but I'm straining my eyes, wildly. The thought of being in the dark is a bit unsettling now, suddenly, though I don't know why, when it's only a friend that awaits me.

  And out of nowhere, two strong arms wrap in front of me and hug me tightly, so tightly I'm lifted off the ground a bit. I giggle loudly and wildly and push away from him for a moment as he kisses my cheek affectionately – for some reason, I'm happy Screech can't see us right now – and then I sink against his grasp, hugging him tight. I like the feeling of contact from Screech and all, but Todd is taller, more my size. And he has a soft shirt on. And he has more than just skin and bones. Rather comfortable.

  “Wow,” he whispers against my hair as he hugs me. “Thank the Lord God Almighty. My luck is just ta fantastic. I thought I were going to go out of my mind up here. Lack of people is rather... well... disheartenin'.”

  I laugh. “I know what you mean.” It suddenly occurs to me that he might not have heard Screech's voice, and might not know I'm with someone else.

  It also is made aware that Screech is more than likely horrified of what's going on right now. But I can't read his emotions or hear his thoughts, and he's not making any outward indication of it – unless it's just too dark and I can't see.

  “Hey, Screech, get over here,” I say, but then there's a silence which makes my heart prematurely race. “Screech?”

  “Screech?” Todd repeats, then chuckles lightly. “What kinda name is that?”

  “It's, uh...” Suddenly I feel really embarrassed about our nicknames, though I never have before. Our nicknames are perfect little pieces of us and each other, but now it just seems like a totally stupid idea.

  “We don't really know each other's names, so we came up with them for one another,” I say. I'm glad it's dark, because I'm beet red.

  His laugh is almost patronizing. “And what's his name fer ya?”

  I feel my heart begin to accelerate. I can't find Screech, and I'm being made fun of, and maybe finding Todd wasn't as fantastic as I thought it was. I kind of forgot how horrible he was, my mind captured on the good parts of him, because of the wild missing one's mind does when another is away for far too long.

  “Her name's Freckles.”

  I release a long bit of breath as I hear the child near me and I reach out, blindly, until I touch his bare shoulder. I hold him tightly, protectively, though there's not much Todd can to do us in the dark without equally risking himself.

  “Freckles?” he repeats. “Oh, I like that. Freckles.”

  I can't see the simper I hear in his voice and I can't see the anger that I feel tense Screech, but either way, I know they're both there.

  “Yeah. We were actually just resting for the night.”

  “Restin' for the night?” he repeats, questioningly. “Why?”

  I blink. It's totally understandable that different climbers have different philosophies and ways to tackle the staircase itself, and I've never minded that fact, not one bit. But I've climbed with Todd and with another group, and our rules in there were clear – don't push other people off, don't go ahead or lag behind, and don't walk at night.

  I close my eyes, briefly, though it's so dark here there's really no point, and I see the baby, the two year old who we lost because she wandered off in the pitch black. I remember being awoken by her desperate cries as she crashed into the ocean. Back then, we were so close to the ground that we could hear the sickening crack that accompanied her death very, very well, and had it been day, we would have been able to see her body break and decay as it fell into the ocean. The next morning when we saw her blood-stained little dress, I was not the only one who had gotten rather violently ill.

  I pull myself out of the memory, and I realize Screech's hand is over the one on his shoulder, comforting. It's only then that I've noticed I've practically been digging my fingers into his flesh, and I jolt a bit out of surprise, then pat him apologetically and release him. Within moments I feel his hands seeking my back and my arm until he finds my hand, which he grips firmly, but for his benefit or mine, I can't determine.

  “It's really dangerous to walk at night,” is all I say, trying to keep the personal feelings out of it. After all, the reason we split was because he broke one of the rules, wasn't it? And he never really liked rules anyway.

  I hear his laugh, and it's kind of annoying, kind of disheartening, but I try to ignore it regardless.

  “It ain't that dangerous, honestly. The staircase go the same way – up – so there ain't no problem.”

  Screech and I stand in silence for a while.

  “But it gets narrower,” Screech finally speaks up, his voice low and quiet like I've never heard before. “Gets wider. You could misstep easily without being able to see.”

  I think Todd shrugs, though of course I can't see. “It's no big deal, silly kid.” There's a beat, a pause of a few seconds, then, “God Almighty. Whatever got inta Rascal for calling ya Screech?”

  I'm red again, stammering, at a loss for words, but for some reason my brain lets me spill out the non-words that occur to my abashed mind.

  “It... it's... it's, uh, he h-h-had theories on the wind.”

  “Coulda called him Wind. Wind Whisperer. That all Indian.”

  “That's not Indian,” Screech immediately interjects. “Indian names are more like Minali or Naveen.” Or Veneera, my mind adds jestlingly.

  “American Indian, idjit,” Todd says, immediately sounding exhausted.

  “How am I the 'idjit' when you refused to specify?”

  “Okay, okay.” I act as the mediator, not because I think they're both correct, but because I think they're both being stupid. I mean, after all, it really doesn't matter what I could've named Screech, and it really doesn't matter what other names I could've thought of. “The point is, I came up with Screech. And that's what I'm sticking to.”

  “That's frankly awful. You heard my nickname for her, right, Screech?” He rests one of his elbows on my shoulder and I jump, making Screech squeeze my hand questioningly.

  “No.”

  “Rascal. Because she is, ain't she? A liddle ol' rascal!”

  He takes the opportunity to ruffle my hair – after all this time, I shouldn't be surprised, honestly – but I'm still so startled I stumble, slightly. I feel Screech's small hands steadying me.

  “Hey, watch it!” Screech commands darkly, and I hear a laugh peel from Todd's mouth.

  “Wow, wow. Kid's made-a dynamite, huh?”

  I blink again, in confusion. That low voice with a twist of Southern always says, as he would say, the “damnedest things”.

  “Yeah. Made of dynamite.”

  It's silent again, because there's nothing left to say. Of course, he will be joining our climbing party immediately. The more the merrier. I'm positive Screech will agree.

  “Listen, Screech and I are actually going to camp out the rest of the night here. If you're not too antsy, will you stay with us?”

  There's a hesitation, and I can't tell what he's doing. I think he's maybe pacing up and down the staircase, because I hear his feet get close and then far away and then all close again. It's honestly a little awkward for me, and a bit horrifying, because he can fall right here, right now, after how long it took to find him a
nd everything.

  But eventually he just says, in a nice, calm drawl, “Aw, sure, Rasc.” I don't see the point of shortening a nickname – but again, I keep silent. “I'd do just 'bout anything to not feel alone.”

  I smile at him, despite the dark. “Great! Here, let me show you our stair.”

  There's no room for him, of course, so he sleeps on the one below us. After a lot of feeling and bumping and holding on and praying we didn't just go over the edge, we finally sink down into the staircase. I think I begin to hear Todd tell a story about the adventures he's been on, and though I want to hear it, my memory skips to early the next morning.

  The sky is turning its light red, blossoming, the brightness beginning to touch the edges of everything around us. I see the staircase, finally, and Screech's sleeping form, which is, for once, strangely relaxed.

  Todd is sitting in front of him, cross-legged like Madame Veneera was, and I take him in, memorizing his figure all over again. I've always known what he looked like, but now I can see it, I can picture it. I've always had the abstract details in my head, but I never had a canvas on which to paint them – until now again, of course.

  His eyes are small but always seem to be in a perpetual state of happiness and excitement, which is rather rare, considering. His body is taller than mine, and still relatively skinny, with long arms and legs that sit awkwardly against his body now as if he's a spider. His hair is still as limp as I pictured it, but I think it's lighter – it's not just golden, but almost white in some areas, and hangs down limply. His face is awkwardly angled downward, sharply, and he has a small cleft in his chin and a widow's peak on his head.

  I smile at him, and he smiles back, and his lips are thin and rather oddly shaped for his face, but for some reason his smile looks correct, like that is exactly how he should look all the time, not only when smiling.

  “Nice t' see ya again, Rascal,” he says, rather affectionately and sincerely.

  “And you,” I return.

  I take in his blue jeans, plain white t-shirt, and button down blue top over it. It's rather dirtied from the staircase, and on some places it looks very, very dusty, but for the most part, I know it's fine. Perhaps he didn't get the... showers... that Screech and I had.