This moment that hovered between the decided and undecided, the claimed and unclaimed, the known and unknown, had her frozen in space. No one knows, the voice said. No one knows you wrote this date on your agenda. Stay inside.
No one would know if she took everything off and went back to bed.
But that wasn’t an option, not a real option. The world wasn’t waiting patiently with open arms, it continued turning and churning, expecting her to bend her knees, look back and jump as she and her friends used to do with the merry-go-round on the playground. Was anything more exhilarating than that moment between the decided and unknown, the claimed and unclaimed? Between lifting her feet from the earth and not yet grasping the chipped, metal bars that would leave her palms smelling of iron until lunch time when they would pick up the smell of peanut butter?
If she didn’t lift her feet after a certain amount of time, the other kids would either taunt or encourage. “Come on, come on!” they would say, the verbal signal that she better choose soon or get out of the way. There was designated time to jump on, which came right before the designated time to jump off. And if a kid messed those two up there would be a collision and perhaps some tears and perhaps what everyone feared most: a stop to the jumping on and off.
Just like what happened to the swings. There was no more jumping from swings after the second grade when Alyssa broke Kevin’s arm by falling on top of him. Despite it being Kevin’s fault for not sticking to the designated jump times, it was Alyssa who was blamed for the new rule.
Right above jumping onto the merry-go-round was jumping off swings on Miranda’s list of best in-between times.
That hovering, flying, crazy two seconds of glory that she couldn’t get enough of and each time hoped would be the one time that mass and gravity would break down and she would go flying across the world.
What happened to that girl who wished to fly around the world? Why was she standing in a small kitchen at her back entrance, trying to gather the nerve to go outside into the world?
A few bad breaks, friends that dropped off, one or two terrible boyfriends, a fiancée who quit and parents who cared more about vacationing than her.
And one too many run ins with the masses on the other end of the dark internet. Reviews, opinions, critiques and laughing emojis. That’s all it had taken for her to crumble to the floor and give up. To give up on the in-between times, the hovering times, the undecided times, the unknown times for what she claimed would be her saving grace: these four walls and that crumbled bed.
But food was running out now and work had called three times. Even her mother had picked up the telephone to ask where she was, when she was coming out of her ‘hole’.
“You can’t stay bottled up in there forever,” she had said, the sound of cigarette sucking coming through loud and clear. For the first time in her life Miranda had wanted to reach out and place the cigarette between her lips instead of throwing it to the ground.
The ray of sunlight shifted in the windows, not hitting her directly between her eyes. There would be both smiles and apathy out there. Greetings and silent indifference to her legs taking her down the street. There would be uncertainly. Unknowns. More criticism and perhaps a reporter wanting to know her opinion on the critics hating her book. Or worse, no reporter at all.
Miranda grabbed her sunglasses and took a deep breath. “It’s time to jump,” she told herself, “It is time to reclaim the sun.”
