Jumping (8 page)

He reminds me of some of the good psychics I met doing a piece on psychics and ghosts for Henry. The real psychics looked at me in a way I've never been looked at by anyone—with a directness and openness that took everything in and
blessed
it, before anything was said. And I sure knew
everything
didn't deserve blessing. But they had such a strong sense of good will that they made you believe maybe everything did. While you were in their presence, they made you feel yourself differently, too.

He told us some things first, before he got into the story of his jump. First he talked about Reggie. She was the most significant person in his life then, and they were creating their lives together. He never doubted they would jump together. He remembered her response to his decision to jump. His description is intensely personal but ultimately less relevant to his jump, so I summarize it here from my notes, to give the reader a sense of Reggie, what she was to him, and her decision.

Reggie was one of ten kids, two of whom had been adopted out because her parents couldn't feed them all. Duncan Robert thinks this still happens, more than we know. Relatives came and made their choice, choosing her and her brother, and when she was twelve, she came from Alabama to live in New Hampshire. She and Duncan Robert met in middle school, arguing fiercely over whose turn it was to use the soccer equipment after school. His friends had backed off because she was black. He hadn't noticed. The question of right and wrong had his attention.

Over the years, they became inseparable and spent many hours on a blanket at the edge of the Void, talking and arguing, a favorite place because no one ever came there. They were gradually creating their future together, sure they'd be in each other's lives forever. As they moved through high school they grew aware that they were tired of the established order of things, restless and wanting adventure. He told her about his philosophical conversations with Miles, and gradually his talk shifted to the Void as their adventure. The Void scared her more than he knew, and she made strong arguments against jumping:

“It's crazy! We could be killing ourselves!”

Or, “It's not something black people do,” she said one afternoon. “The Void is white people's stuff.”

Or, “I don't see escaping into another world as the way to go. I think we're meant to deal with what's here.”

And then one day, “It could be evil!”

That stopped them and made them both laugh. They stood there, near the edge of the Void, and laughed, knowing that their end was written in the laughing, because it meant they had nowhere else to argue to. There was a divide between them now because in her discovery that she couldn't jump, it was clear she would never understand how he could. She had been his biggest test. Once the question of her jumping no longer stood in his way, he was ready.

After the jump, they still stayed in touch from time to time, he said. If he still loves her, he didn't say, but I think he does. And always will. Maybe that's the romantic in me.

He paused at this point. I looked at him, and he looked at me and then at Miles. We knew he had to talk about the jump now, if he was going to. We could tell he'd been changed by it. He's not the person he was, as Miles would say. Miles later used words like
matured
and
steadier
, and
more at home in his own skin
. Duncan Robert's restlessness was gone. Everything I know about the Void and jumping is dancing around in my head, and now I'm trying to imagine Duncan Robert—his courage, his determination—facing down the Void. I'm literally perched on the edge of my seat, ready for his story to begin.

I write as the words fly out of him, describing the fall, the landing, and the return. I write fast and furious, without looking up, in a note-taker's trance, which veteran note-takers will recognize. Here are his words without further comment from me. I'd hardly know what to say anyway.

Duncan Robert:

Miles dropped me off that morning at the Void. Everything seemed the same as always. The light in the eastern sky was just beginning. The clearing was quiet. I walked through the damp, knee-high grass to the edge of the Void. I was nervous, hardly breathing. I was counting on the gravity at the edge of the Void for the final pull if I hesitated.

I stood at the edge, feeling the presence of the Void, and took a deep, shaky breath, breathing it in. The blood stirred in every corner of my body, and I felt something here bigger than my fear. It was an overwhelming eagerness for more, the same eagerness that had brought me to the edge. I knew this was the way.

I bent forward, arms outstretched, leaning into the Void, until I tipped, face forward into the fall, eyes open. It would have been a belly flop if there'd been a pool. In the first few minutes, I cried out for Reggie, because I wanted her to see this, too.

As I fell, fearing the ground was rushing up to meet me, certain I was making a jump I couldn't possibly return from, the exhilaration I felt still made me laugh out loud. I still feel it.

The fall, well, the fall is what you might think, if you've ever fallen. I think if falls are shorter, people remember less—about the fall, about what they were thinking or feeling. In a longer fall, though, you have time. You begin to notice things. Not right at first, though, because I didn't know how long this fall was going to be. At first, right after my feet left the ground, I could feel myself start to panic. I don't think I've ever done anything as final as that jump. It's one thing to
talk
about and another to actually
do
. There was no taking it back, and I felt it in that moment. Einstein or some other physicist said the gravity force is strongest at the edge of a black hole. I can believe that. The force of it at the edge of the Void just took me.

I was in no way prepared for or expecting the helplessness. My heart raced up out of my chest and into my throat, and I couldn't catch my breath. I wanted to scream but only little gasps came out, like the sound a small child would make or someone in pain. I grabbed and twisted and turned, trying to get myself into some sort of protected position, until it became clear the force of the fall didn't allow for holding any position long. I never realized how much having our feet on the ground supported so many other things, like arms and neck and head—and stomach.

The walls of the tunnel moved past too quickly to look for hand or toe holds.

They seemed fairly smooth and unmarked in the beginning. I couldn't see what was down below me, either. It just was dark down there. I had no choice but to let the falling take me.

So, I fell.

Surprisingly, the tension and fear in me lessened pretty fast. That was the other thing I had no way of preparing for or expecting—how quickly we adapt, physically, emotionally, to whatever condition is thrust on us. I fell, and I accepted falling and the peace that seemed to come from not fighting it.

I fell, and my mind still worked, so I was conscious of the fall, and curious about it, too. How far would I fall? Would I be killed in the landing? When would it come? I knew the fall would end—I didn't believe this was the Void to nowhere. Then I noticed it wasn't pitch black and it wasn't freezing cold, two things I had expected. There was some sort of pale glow all around me, and it felt pleasantly cool in the tunnel, not cold, probably because of the air rushing by me that my falling body created. I was just falling now, at a reclining angle, with feet first.

I could see the walls were rock but not as unbroken as I'd originally thought. Now and then, I would see markings of some sort on the walls or I would fall past an opening, at times on both sides of my tunnel, and would get the sense there were other tunnels like mine, extending down. I'm pretty sure there were falling bodies in those tunnels, too, people and animals. It was a combination of hunch and sound. I heard no screams or calls; it was just the sense of wind-brushed, rushing solid masses, of varying sizes and shapes. I didn't know what to make of that. The openings came on too quickly and passed before I could think of calling out myself.

It sounds like a nightmare experience, as I tell it, but I can't say it was. Even though I was falling quickly, I felt suspended somehow, maybe because of my sense of falling and having an awareness of my fall, describing it to myself in my head as I went.

The truth is, falling added to my growing sense of excitement, which was different than my original panic-fueled resistance. Everything around me felt alive, and I did, too. Part of me wanted to whoop and holler. I was captivated by my own experience in a way that was new to me. Sure, I wanted to know where I was going. But I was the central character in my own drama now—I made this happen, when I chose to jump. In falling, I was carrying responsibility for myself in a way I never had. I felt more complete, more whole, more fully embedded in my own existence than I had ever thought possible. I may have disappeared from the physical world, but in this one, I got found.

I don't know how long I fell. It felt like a long time. But what's time in a tunnel? I can't say. I kind of feel as if I have an understanding of the relativity of time now, how it depends on perspective and circumstance. I know a bunch of it seemed to pass that I can't really account for. I can't imagine that I slept while falling (!), but I can't account for every minute, either. I know I had random thoughts, of Reggie, of my mother, of being a child, rolling down a grassy hill at twilight, with other kids, of hearing the call to come in, and not wanting to.

Then suddenly, when I was at my most relaxed, it was as if a gust of wind pushed me into one of the openings in the wall to my left, and I landed on my behind, rolling over to a stop, against a side wall. I had landed in a three-sided rock room. It took me a minute to realize I'd actually come to a stop—the sense of falling stayed with me internally for a minute, as my organs settled into an upright orientation. I wanted to hold onto ‘stop’ for a while, to believe in the ultimate goal of gravity again, which isn't falling but landing, as Newton's apple did. I felt intensely awake and aware, wondering what would happen next, knowing I had been stopped for a reason.

I looked up just as a young man, out of breath, wearing what looked like a white space suit, without helmet, loomed into view over me. He had a great shock of kinky hair that was reddish in color, skin with the hue and sheen of dark, well-oiled walnut, and eyes that glowed gold. He had small gold hoops in his nose and ears, and they glowed, too. He greeted me enthusiastically, infectiously, reaching down to take my hands and pull me to my feet.

I gave him my hands without thinking, as I stared into his face. It's a beautiful, happy, open face, with a wonderfully wide smile. He knows me—really knows me—and is genuinely happy to see me. I notice I can see him in the dimness and think it's because he's radiating a gentle light. Then I think maybe there's a light behind me, illuminating us both, and I turn to look before I realize it's
my
light, a light radiating from me. I attributed it to being in his presence, which somehow upped the energy ante, making it possible for me to glow. I associate the light, the glow, with the feeling I'm feeling. I
like
him, really like him. I feel as if I've missed him, a lot, so much it hurts. I find that, without knowing why, I'm glad to see him, and I'm greeting him enthusiastically, too. Tears are on my face, though I can't even say who he is.

I felt the whole story of me, as I knew it, shifting and changing, and I knew I
needed
this story, this bigger story, to understand the purpose and meaning of my life. Anything else would just be a footnote or, worse, a fiction. And I suddenly realize I love this strange spaceman. I've never felt closer to anyone—not Reggie, not my mother, not Miles, not anyone.

The Void is something more than a pathway to somewhere else. It's a place of meetings, gatherings, like this one. A place you can meet your larger story, through people like this shining man. I'm overcome. Who'd have thought, when looking into the darkness of the Void, you could meet your own light in it?

I ask him, as I continue to hold onto his hands, who he is, where he came from, where we are. I'm so glad to see him. He continues to smile, moves away, crouching down to start a small fire, and says, “Well, you must have sent out the call.”

“What call?” I ask, surprised.

He gestures to me to come over and sit down by him; he has the fire going, in a low spot in the rock floor. He smiles at me and laughs. I laugh, too. It just feels good to laugh. He begins to answer my questions, looking sideways at me, as he produces a pan to boil water in and the water to go in it, from a thermos attached to his pocket. He seems to be watching me, to see if anything resonates with me.

“I'm Guy,” he says, looking to see if I already knew that, but I didn't, despite how well I know I know him. I'm so happy to be with him that I cling to his every word.

“We've had a team connected to Station 1 for as long as any of us can remember. Not that that's saying much, because time doesn't exist for us
here
. Not the way it does for you
there
. We just know that we come together here in this no-place place whenever any one of us gets a call. The call usually just appears in our knowing, and we direct our attention here, and everything else follows.”

He notes my confusion and says, “You'll just have to take my word for that.” He smiles again, and I feel lit from inside by his smile. “Sometimes the call goes out to the whole team, sometimes to just one or two of us. But we always come. Unless, of course, we can't.” He smiles mischievously at that last part, leaving me wondering.

“This time the call was for all of us. I thought it was to be a ‘production,’ for one of Lynette's people.”

Of course I didn't know but was getting the idea that he and his ‘Team’ were somehow engaged in looking after those of us currently on Earth. Who or how I didn't know.

“I don't know for sure how big the Team is,” he said, answering my question before I even finished thinking it. “It can grow or shrink at any time, based on people's progress, based on individual Team member challenges, based on need, all of which can then be telepathed, one to the other. It feels as if it's been the five of us core members, including you, for a while. We're part of the same cohort—we started existence together—and we've known each other for eons, literally.” He knows I'm not quite catching on yet.