I Was Told There Would Be Trampolines

A man leapt from the eighty-fourth floor, arms folded back like a V of geese. And though the cameras never caught the Rorschach splatter of his body, I imagine the ground swelled up to catch him. He merely accepted that we were never meant to fly, that sometimes people cannot move trampolines fast enough to catch us all. Before she kept sleeping pills on her bedside table, my mother and I looked into death’s mouth. It is not that we believed flight was too temporary, but sleep too uncertain. She often asked that I check on her as she slept, just to make sure she was still alive. Not until a caravan of Kuwaiti men ran her off a desert road did she associate sand with saffron, honey-spice with triumph, and finally uttered the words I am tired of fighting. Eventually, she will find where I hide her pills, but for now, let her night terrors volunteer themselves to her trembling hands. Only more time to remember how to dial nine-one-one. And I’m sure I can recall how to find a pulse. I’m sure I can assimilate her back into the habits of the living.