Zoe Thanatos (2 page)

The trail leveled and stretched out
before her to the view she so vividly remembered. Hikers she hadn’t noticed were
spread out far away from her, taking pictures or stopping for lunch. A few
steps forward and she was at edge of the cliff some few hundred feet above the
blue-green water. Down below a few orange kayaks the size of dots circled
around a water-lodged monolith. Straight out ahead an ocean liner was the only
blemish on an otherwise pristine horizon. She could picture her home on the
other side where millions of people were going about their lives, unaware that
she watched from a great distance.

She pulled hair from the binding of
her ponytail and set the backpack on the ground at her feet. Unencumbered, she
stood at the edge of her world and closed her eyes. She breathed in the scent
of salt water, a breeze flowing through the goose bumps on her skin and around
tendrils of hair at her neck. The sun warmed the crown of her head, her neck,
and the tops of her shoulders.

One foot at a time she inched
backwards from the cliff, opening her eyes for one final look as determination
set. Her final plan had come to fruition. She told herself that someone new
would come along to occupy her place in the world. It was a thought that
tempered her calm, her resolve as still as the endless horizon itself. With a
ready strength, her right foot planted into the dirt trail, muscle and tendon stretching
as she launched from the stillness. The ground a makeshift runway, she gained
speed, one leg after the next, until she reached the end and her legs propelled
her chest first over the edge. Arms stretched out behind, her back arched, and
she was catapulted into the sky, flying free of all restraint. In a moment
everything was still, weightless with the sky around her, and to her delighted
surprise it was the best she ever felt. She was resigned to her fate and for
the first time in a long time she smiled, the motion reaching up through her
cheeks and to the corners of her eyes. It was the feeling she had been
searching for.

She moved with the graceful
precision of an athlete, determination in every step she took towards the edge.
It hadn’t taken long for him to realize that her resolve had more to do with
finality than with sight-seeing. There was a melancholy to her cadence, as
though she knew the fate before her and with each step she came to accept it.
It was not in his nature to understand why someone would have any reason to
die.

She first caught his eye at the
harbor, the way she watched people with a curiosity similar to his own. He
observed. She studied. What was she looking for? He spent a great deal of time
observing people, a practice he became quite skilled at, and found that for the
most part people were easy to read. Many of those he observed over time kept
their insecurities plainly visible, their faces and body language betraying
their innermost thoughts. Perhaps that was why he noticed her more than anyone
else.

She carried herself with self-possession
unlike anyone he’d ever observed. She gave little away. Her dark, almond-shaped
eyes seemed almost too big for her face while her mouth, pink with sharp lines,
puckered imperceptibly as she observed those around her. It hadn’t been until
he sat unnoticed next to her on the boat that he realized she looked like she
didn’t belong. Her face had the seemingly rare quality of being both stunning
and unassuming, and he figured she was unaware of the effect it had on others.
He often observed how men were affected by beautiful women. Many were
intimidated and merely watched from afar while few others had the nerve to
approach the object of their desire. Not him. He had sat next to her easily,
wanting to do nothing more than be a part of her existence.

It was the way she sat, with her
hands clasped peacefully in her lap, perfectly still with her too-big brown
eyes burning into the horizon of the Pacific, that prompted him to speak to
her. Her initial irritation surprised him, and though she quickly recovered and
was as polite as any stranger could be, it was that first response that
intrigued him the most. She was in her own world and he had interrupted,
brought her out of her thoughts and placing himself into a small pocket of her
existence. When she touched him it was firm and resolute without being tough.
Everything about her, from the way she spoke to the strained smiles she pushed
into her cheeks, intrigued him. Everyone else was so plain and regular it was
no wonder they couldn’t see her; he could see what the others clearly could
not.

He followed her, unseen. She
climbed the trail slowly, expertly finding her footing along the incline of the
dirt trail, shifting the weight of her backpack every so often. Gone was the
melancholy, replaced with resolved determination as she climbed towards Potato
Harbor. He arrived at the top shortly after she had and for the first time his
attention diverted, stolen by the panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean. He’d
been to and seen many places, all manner of grandness and beauty, but it was
that spot, tempered with Anne’s graceful stance, that he deemed to be the most
beautiful.

He watched curiously for what
seemed like hours as she stood still, ensconced at the edge of the cliff like a
statue untouched by time. He thought back to where he came from, his own home
tethered to this life. He thought of the people who lived around him, those he
engaged in conversation with, those he smiled and laughed with, and he could
not recall one that compared to his brief exchange with Anne. The idea that her
beautiful face and keen attention was concentrated only on him was exciting.
She couldn’t possibly tell the difference between the truth and fiction in his
plans, or have known that he was there on that boat for a decidedly different
purpose. And yet, much to his surprise, she had changed the course of his day.

His mood descended from the light
as he watched her take that first step backwards, followed by second and a
third. For a moment he stood dumbstruck, waiting and hoping the conclusion he’d
immediately jumped to was false. He had seen in her an unspoken desire to
irrevocably change her life, but in the moments of watching her in secret at
the foot of the cliff he had forgotten them. It became blindingly obvious that she
was having her final moments, her last steps, and he knew that she could not
end that way.

Evan’s instincts gnawed him from
the inside as he watched her feet move forward instead of backwards, carrying
her with increasing speed over the final few feet of the cliff. There was no
time to consider the consequences of his actions. She used the force of her
motion to launch herself over the edge of the cliff until she was high above
the ocean. Her arms stretched out to her arched back, and with her face turned
up to the sky she was floating as if suspended in time. Gravity pulled her half
the distance between the edge of the cliff to the crest of the water, and
without full consideration of what he was about to do, Evan followed her, his own
strength and speed propelling him close enough to grab her so that she was
tandem in his arms. Seconds later his feet touched the grainy sand of the beach
shore and her body fell limp in his arms, her head hanging back in
unconsciousness so that her neck stretched out unnaturally from her torso.

He breathed in relief. She was not
dead.

She hadn’t expected the
weightlessness to unburden her from her sorrow. In that moment when she was
free in the air, before gravity took her, she felt wholly emancipated. The
feeling of her smile finally reaching the corners of her eyes made it easier to
accept that it would be her last. And yet, it was the unmistakable if not
completely impossible feeling of another body behind her, arms catching around
her torso with great force that robbed her of that last sensation.

Through the disorienting haze of
unconsciousness she felt her body being lowered to the ground and the rough
grittiness of sand as it molded around her back and shoulders. Whatever
afterlife she’d gone to seemed remarkably like the life she’d left. The air
around her nostrils was fresh and laced with salt, and the warmth that radiated
on her skin felt exactly like the sun. Some part in her mind felt a twinge of
annoyance that the afterlife so many people spent their lives pining away for
was no more special than the ordinary world of everyday life.
What a waste,
she thought.

Except... how could she have the
thought? She had willingly jumped knowing that the fall would take her life,
whether by the weight of the ocean above her or from the rocks on the way down.
Yet she had no explanation for feeling that someone had caught her between
leaping and landing.
Impossible
.

Her mind went to each extremity,
internally checking for any clue as to her condition. Toes curled, leg muscles
stretched and pulled beneath skin, her chest rose and fell with the intake of
breath, all ten fingers accounted for and unscathed. Everything was perfectly
normal when it certainly ought not to be.

It took a moment for her eyes to
open fully as they adjusted to the bright light of the sun. The same blue sky
she’d looked up to her entire life was there, the occasional cloud languishing
about. There was the unmistakable sand and grass that covered nearly every inch
of the East end of Santa Cruz Island. She was right back where she started, on a
sandy beach a short distance from the dock she’d climbed earlier that day.
It’s
too quiet,
she thought to herself. As she moved to lift herself up from the
ground she realized the eerie quiet was in her mind. Autonomously she shook her
head until an uncomfortable
pop
brought the sound of atmosphere rushing back
into her ears.

“Are you okay?” The voice came as
suddenly from her side as it had earlier on the boat. She looked towards the
strangely sound and met a pair of intense green eyes. It was him, the handsome
stranger from the boat who talked of the beach as if he’d never seen one before
in his life. How was he there with her?
What is going on?
her mind
screamed. Anger erupted in her center and pushed up through her torso into her
eyes. It filled every part of her, her mind struggling against the weight of
incomprehension.

“I don’t understand!” she screamed  as
tears sprouted from the intense anger that filled her. She tried to fight the
punishing weight of it but only felt worse. Nothing was making any sense and
she hated it vehemently. She shouldn’t be there. Not on the sand of the beach
miles away and hundreds of feet down from where she last stood. She
jumped
off the cliff. Even if her plan failed she should be in the middle of the
Pacific or laid out on a rock with blood seeping from her broken body. There
was no explanation whatsoever for laying on the beach as though that was where
she was meant to be. Her anger blistered into contempt. How had her plan failed
so spectacularly? And how was
he
there with her?

“Are you okay?” Evan asked again,
his tone gentle yet deliberately cautious.

The anger in her ebbed gradually
and her tears slowed. “I don’t understand. I just... I don’t understand.” She
willed her chest to draw in more oxygen. Even if nothing else made sense she
knew she must make sense of herself. With each intake of air she found more
control of her body and her mind. Whole minutes passed as she fought against
her senses for composure. “I’m not supposed to be here,” she asserted with a
shaky voice. She looked up again and found the same unchanged green eyes.

He sat a few feet away, arms on his
knees, his feet half buried in the sand. Incomprehension was on his face too,
suffused with something else. Concern? Worry?

“I couldn’t let you do it.” He kept
his head down as he spoke. What had he done? Couldn’t let her what? Jump off
the cliff? Kill herself?

“You had no right!” she screamed,
her voice straining under the weight of her own incredulity. “Who are you? What
have you done? I don’t understand what is happening!” She was becoming
hysterical, losing all the control she’d managed to gain. She watched as he
crouched up before her and placed his hands on her arms. His touch was gentle.

“You should calm down. The boat is
heading back to dock and people are going to be heading this way soon.” His
eyes searched hers; looking for any clue that she understood the meaning behind
his words. She noticed then that his face was taut with lines, making him look
far more wary than he had that morning. “Please,” he reiterated kindly.

The nagging incomprehension in her
temporarily quelled. There was no sense to his words or actions, no logic to
explain what had happened between the leap and those moments on the beach. 
However, she was certain that it was his arms she felt around her in the air,
as absurd as the notion seemed.

“I don’t understand,” was all she
could manage. She could hear in her voice if not in her words that she was
agreeing to his plea. Sure enough, from the corner of her eye she saw a group
emerge and faintly recognized their travel companions. Out on the water the
boat from the harbor was a growing speck in the distance.

He was on his feet with his waist
bent down, his hands extended towards her as an offering. “Can I help you up?”
he asked. Before she could answer his hands were under her arms, lifting her
gently from the sand. Her feet were steady beneath her but he held her in place
a moment longer. She recalled his words, ‘
I couldn’t let you do it
.’
What did he mean?

“How can I know if I’m dead or
alive?” Zoe asked weakly. Evan’s eyes widened beneath the thick carpet of his eyelashes,
and for a moment he looked puzzled by the question.