A bunch of kids defying gravity doomed to die.
That’s what we are—that’s what our moms tell us we are, that’s what our teachers warn us against becoming, that’s what our dads mutter under their breaths. But we defy gravity anyways.
We defy the gravity that keeps us in our desks, keeps us in the cramped seats and sweaty classrooms listening to the drone of a teacher’s voice and the endless string of disappointments rattling off their tongues that they can’t seem to stop.
We defy the gravity that keeps us at home, learning how to be faithful housewives and good husbands, good rule-followers and carbon-copies of a suburban prototype—we defy the gravity of our moms and dads pulling us Inside when all we’d rather be is Out There.
We defy the gravity of Normalcy—we skip school but don’t smoke, we go to the bathroom and don’t do drugs—we just leave, wandering to whatever Nowhere the road leads us too. We defy gravity to find Nowhere.
We defy the gravity that keeps us productive—we defy success. We take our money and throw it in a fire and watch it burn. We do what we love for the sheer joy of it, not for money, not for status, not for perfection. We laugh at Successful Suburbanites and Exceptional Elitists who can’t stop drinking from the invisible bottle that no one sees but that they always carry with them.
We defy the gravity of Reality—we jump across the gaps that we know we can’t make, we leave our lives in the gutter and don’t feel the consequences, we don’t have jobs but always have enough.
*
A bunch of kids defying gravity doomed to die.
I guess that’s true.
I guess we really are all doomed to die.
I guess the path we think leads to Nowhere really leads to Ruin, as my mom is fond of saying.
I guess I could’ve been smart, I guess I could have made my peace with Gravity and found a way to accept it, to not be in constant defiance.
I guess my life would have been different if I didn’t fall into the gravity of my friends, the gravity of what they wanted to do—if I didn’t feel this pull to follow them blindly, in Defiance but also Submission.
I guess…I can’t really defy anything, can I? If I’m always falling towards something? If I’m always falling toward Defiance, it kinda loses its meaning, doesn’t it?
But then what do I do if I can’t say no to anything? If I’m always being pulled one way or another? Will I let myself be dragged where I don’t want to go? No! I will sit and Defy the Norms while falling into the Norms of Defiance.
*
A bunch of kids defying gravity doomed to die.
You go out with your friends—it’s a sunny Tuesday morning and anything seems possible. You sit in class for a grand total of five minutes before getting up to go to the bathroom and never come back. You elude the janitor that roams the halls, keeping to yourself until you make your way outside and meet up with your friends around the back of the gym.
A kind wind caresses your face, buoys you up into the infinite expanse of blue above your head. Possibility welcomes you with open arms; a smile twitches at the corner of your face. You set out with your friends into the great, wide, unknown.
You walk with your friends down the street to Forever, past mindless workers in tall office buildings, past sleeping homeless men resting on concrete benches, past the train station at the edge of town, past sprawling residential homes just before the base of the mountains.
It’s night when you reach the start of the Trail, feet aching and hearts light. You didn’t know you’d end up here until you did—and yet, you and your friends often ended up here. In trying to defy gravity, you’ve unintentionally still found yourself drawn to the familiarity of the Unknown that is, perhaps, not so Unknown after all.
The Trail winds up the mountains, but you and your friends often stop when you reach the rock slabs and cliff faces. Night has just fallen when you start up the trail—the colors of dusk paint the sky, its last goodbye before Morning.
Eyes wide, you stand still, panting. Quick, sharp breaths punctuate the air around you—it’s the only noise you hear. The mountains, the wildlife have fallen silent. Unease pricks at the edge of your vision, but you toss it away like a dirty napkin. The Gravity of Worry does not affect you.
Around you, a quiet murmur materializes. Here and there, a soft whisper, “Are we going to do it?” “Should we?” And after a moment, an “Of course.” You remain silent, a premonition beginning to cascade over you, causing goosebumps to form all over your skin.
A boy (who it is you cannot tell in the dark) far in the front, marches forward to the base of one of the cliffs. Brush cracks underneath his weight—it sounds like thunder in the silence. We march after him, a noisy tramp of Defiant Kids that have wandered off the Trail.
The cliff towers above him, about forty feet. At the top, the cliff arches over slightly, overshadowing the Trail and the wildlife.
You and your friends hoist the boy on your shoulders; he stands high, a towering tree in the still gloom, and finds a handhold in the rock. Motioning for you to let go, he pulls himself up, kicking off his Converse to find better footing on the rocks. Gradually, he begins to slink up the wall like a spider. First ten feet, now twenty.
Another girl motions to the cliff and again, you and your friends take her on your shoulders and lift her up to reach the handhold. She, too, begins to climb.
From the ground, the rest of you watch in awe—you watch Kids that know no bounds that reach for the sky shed Gravity for Weightlessness. You watch Kids become indiscernible blots on a shadowed mountainside, eventually disappearing altogether the higher up they climb.
You’ve never once done the Climb before. Maybe that makes you feel like an outsider. You watch kids shed all fear to make the Climb, and yet, you are still bound by the Gravity you so badly wish to defy.
A small cry interrupts your thoughts. That was all. A small cry.
It happened in a flash. One minute, a quiet yelp from above. The next—a sickening crack two feet to your right.
Turning to look, you see a Mass lying on the ground. Stepping closer, you lean forward and see—
You turn away, but the image has burned itself in your brain. It was a Body. A head, dislodged from the neck, an arm zig-zagging beneath the body, bones jutting out, red and glistening in the dark, jeans sopping and stained, barefooted, toes broken.
As the crowd of Kids surges around you, you can barely think. You have to leave. Screw gravity. You want to go home and fall into Gravity, into expectations, into norms where kids don’t fall out of the sky and die because they don’t know what Gravity is.
You want to go home to your mom, to have her cook you a nice warm meal, to do what she tells you.
You want to Defy your friends to succumb to everything you were told you should be your whole life but never bothered to listen to.
You want to fall into the Earth, let it consume you, let it never let you go. You want to let the Earth never let you climb again.
Stumbling back to the Trail, you flee the Gravity of Defiance, pulled towards the Gravity of Normalcy. Forcing air into your lungs, your feet thudding on the dirt, then on the pavement, then on the sidewalk in front your home as the sun rises, you think,
We really were a bunch of kids defying gravity doomed to die.
