Does it hurt when it lands?
Artful Wobbler
It’s not ideal to say I’m not really sure what this is yet. It’s still feeling its way into being, maybe it won’t ever really be at all. But I know it isn’t about answers. I’m not pretending to have any and if even I did we’ve all seen how dangerous certainties can be, and how quickly they’re undone.
This is writing about writing and so is less a path than a thicket. It’s a swamp with monsters, or maybe guardians and who knows if the monster is a guardian or the guardian a monster. This is more like a fall. The lurch in your gut when the ground dissolves and you wonder if it was ever there. The moment before, during and after everything changes.
One of my earliest memories is standing on a balcony, afraid it would collapse. The balcony stayed intact but the fear remained too. Occasionally someone asks why bridges scare me and the question always amazes me. How does it not scare all of you? Progress depends on bridging gaps but there will be always be people feeling pretty queasy about tumbling into the void between them. Anyway the closest I have to a response might be a snippet from a little WIP that may never be finished (with apologies to the names mentioned, I love you all):
They line up to cross. Caitlyns and Brittanys with their Linda and Debbie moms nervous laughing like ground never swayed under their feet. Like their lungs were never weak and hot, too small for their body. People who have never wondered about the weight of souls or how long it takes a leaf to fall. Does it hurt when it lands? Does something splinter inside or is it’s last moment a devotion in swirling blue?
Or this, from a published piece in JAKE (@publishedbyjake.bsky.social)
…but then he jumped way down onto a mattress someone junked on the grass, like we jumped into the river when we were kids. Before they put a fence up. After someone’s leg broke. I was secretly relieved, I hate falling, I fear breaking, but E falls for everything, especially bleached blonde boys and hope. He thinks there’s always a mattress. He thinks there’s always a river with no rocks. He thinks breaking is normal.
https://jakethemag.com/that-stupid-song/
So that’s kind of what this is about. Everything is either before, during or after falling. You might as well be there for it, describing each stubborn scrabbling second while you can.