SOCIAL ETIQUETTE MEANS I JUMP OFF A BRIDGE

Do you ever feel like you don’t belong? Your gut clenches and you feel like a ghost. Like no one would miss you if you weren’t there. You’re invisible anyway. I feel like that all the time. It’s lonely. That’s why I jumped into the Grand Canyon. I’m aware now that I didn’t think it through. There wasn’t a whole lot of thinking going on. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.

I was on a school trip. Ms Jacobsen, our geology teacher, kept telling us that pictures wouldn’t do it justice. You had to see it to believe it. So our class crammed onto a bus headed for the skywalk tour. I was huddled down the back in the very corner. There was no one beside me. That wasn’t unusual. I always sit alone. It’s like the space I occupy becomes invisible with me. The rest of the bus was filled with noise and chatter, none of which I was a part of. Five rows ahead of me I could see Gracie sitting with a group of my classmates. She’d been to the Grand Canyon before and was telling them all about it.

I watched the conversation enviously. Gracie was the girl everyone liked. Not in the way you might think with a bunch of 15-16 year olds. Gracie didn’t command anyone’s attention, but she was sweet. She was so genuinely nice that everyone liked her. I liked her. I tried to make friends with her. We’d talked five times. I had discovered that it was easier to get her to talk to me when I was a girl, so I’d been doing that more and more often recently in an attempt to make friends.

Today it wasn’t working. Today it felt like no one could see me. I clenched my fist in frustration and misery and willed myself back. My clothes loosened around my chest and my hips as I turned back into a boy. Yes, I’ve always been able to do this. Think it’s a cool super power? Not in this country. Not in this world. Like I needed anything else to make me unapproachable. In a way I was fortunate, because no one had ever paid me enough attention to notice I could do it. I used to test it. Wander into class one gender and wander out another. No one ever noticed. Not consciously. People are weird like that.

I figure they must notice something, but watching how people react to me is like a bizarre social experiment – which explains why I don’t have any friends. Gracie’s reaction to me, even just in her body language, is far more positive when I’m a girl. Mostly at school I live as a boy. When I was a kid I found out people were more likely to listen to me if I was a boy. At the shop people prefer when I’m a girl. My mom runs a bakery called Sweet Treats and people behave more comfortably when there’s a girl behind the counter. At home it’s just me and Mom, and she doesn’t care as long as I do my chores. What do I prefer? I don’t care. The only reason everyone else does is because they’re not like me. I’d give it up in a heartbeat and let someone else pick if it meant people would see me. If it meant I could have friends.

I was still thinking about this, chewing my bottom lip in thought, as the bus pulled up. Ms Jacobsen was ushering everyone off and I jumped up and scampered after my class. I didn’t want to get forgotten and left on the bus in my magical wave of invisibility. It wouldn’t be the first time. Everyone was gathered in little cliques outside the bus, and my sneakers crunched the dirt next to Gracie’s gang as I awkwardly stumbled out.

“Hey, Gracie!” I called as Ms Jacobsen got everyone moving. The entire class started walking without any show that anyone had heard me. I closed my eyes and sighed bitterly. At least no one was bullying me. My stomach rolled and my chest hurt. It was not a good day. Please someone punch me in the face just so I don’t feel so alone. I opened my eyes again and clenched and unclenched my fists in despair and misery. Then I took off after everyone else.

No one noticed me catch up. The same way no one noticed me fall behind. So you can see how I was in the state of mind that led me to believe no one would notice me jumping over the edge of the skywalk. However, I feel I need to make something clear: I was not suicidal. Yes, I was lonely and unhappy, but the thought of ending my life had not crossed my mind. That wasn’t why I jumped. Like I said, there wasn’t a whole lot of thinking going on.

It started with thinking. I was still thinking about Gracie. I watched her laugh with her friends, wishing that I could be part of it. Her long blonde hair was clipped out of her face and her clear blue eyes shone so sweetly. She was cute, in a ‘still wears hairclips with flowers on them’ kinda way. It’s safe to say I’m a bit more grunge. In fact, I’m nothing like Gracie. I wear baggy clothes with lots of denim and flannel over my shifting androgyny. My skin is dark and my dreads come to my hips now. The two behind my right ear are colored. One bright turquoise and the other hot pink.

The sky was overcast but the air was hot, and everything smelled dusty. I could hear the rushing of water, like rapids. It boomed in a static, echoic way. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The Colorado River was way too far away for me to see or hear it. I wondered if maybe it was the wind. Perhaps what sounded like water was actually gusts of wind howling through the canyon. It really didn’t seem that windy.

We were stopped outside a large red-clay colored building. Ms Jacobsen marched us inside, lecturing passionately about erosion. The sound of water was dulled by the walls around us, but I could still hear it like a thousand voices whispering outside. It was terrifying and exhilarating, like a zombie apocalypse. Something was waiting for us through those glass doors across the room. I didn’t know what, but I could feel it drawing me out. I wasn’t listening to my teacher. I wasn’t even thinking about Gracie and her friends.

Ms Jacobsen brought out a stack of worksheets and stood by the door, still talking about the millions of years it took the Colorado River to carve out the canyon, and what an incredible testament to time this was. She made it sound like we were in for a real treat, and I suppose we were, but I barely registered any of this as I took a sheet and followed everyone else out onto the walkway. As soon as I stepped out the door the sound became deafening. It was nearly impossible to hear Ms Jacobsen over the rushing sound that I couldn’t place, but at least it was distracting me from my loneliness. I looked around for a waterfall. It sounded like we should be standing right over one, but we were in a desert and the closest water I could see was Jeff’s drink bottle.

Beneath us, the glass floor was like walking on air. Really solid sturdy air. I stared down and my gaze stopped before it reached the ground. There was something else there. I couldn’t see it, but my eyes could sense it. Something about the depth of perception was wrong. All around me the class was a mix of reactions. Some of the kids raced to the edge and looked over; some were staring through the floor; others were edging their way along cautiously, trying not to freak out. Heights don’t scare me. Ms Jacobsen was trying to wrangle us and make sure we didn’t disturb any tourists sharing the skywalk, although it wasn’t too busy today. Our class definitely made up most of the bridge population.

I wandered to the side and looked over the edge. It wasn’t the glass distorting perception. The Grand Canyon, this great big testament to the power of erosion over a mile deep, was full. I haven’t got a clue what it was full of, because I couldn’t see it, but was definitely full of something invisible. I was so entranced by it I hadn’t even noticed how insane that sounded. Maybe it was a good thing no one listened to me, otherwise I might have just ended up in a nuthouse.

Ms Jacobsen was still lecturing the class. I could see her mouth moving, and sometimes catch snippets of words, but the roaring in my ears was drowning her out. I looked around me. No one else seemed to be having this problem. They were all staring down into the Canyon. Some of them were scribbling on their worksheets. They were talking and laughing normally like they could hear each other. I realized I was standing by Gracie, who was listening intently to Ms Jacobsen.

“Gracie?” I hissed. “Gracie, can you hear that?” She didn’t seem to hear me. “Gracie!” Still nothing. I turned my attention to Ms Jacobsen. I still couldn’t hear her, but she was excited about whatever she was talking about. I raised my hand. I knew it was dumb, but sometimes in class, if I waited like this long enough, a teacher would notice. Not today. I think already I knew that.

“Ms Jacobsen? Excuse me, Ms Jacobsen!” I called. I was yelling loud enough that I could hear myself, and no one even blinked in my direction. I turned back to Gracie. She was smiling at one of the teacher’s jokes. Yeah, she was that kind of nice. Such a sweetie. I wanted to grab her and shake her until she noticed me and then ask what the sound was, but I couldn’t. Mom had raised me too well for that. I was too polite to make demands on anyone, and I was also starting to get this nagging feeling in my gut.

No one else could hear the noise. The same way no one else could see me. The sound beneath me from the invisible something was calling to me. We were one and the same. I wasn’t going to get any answers from these people, even if I could get their attention. I folded up my worksheet and tucked it into the pocket of my shirt as I turned and looked over the railing. The roaring in my ears filled my mind. It called to me. I stopped and looked back at Gracie once more. Yelling in her face hadn’t gotten her attention, and that was rude enough. I wasn’t going to try anything else.

Safely wreathed in my magical invisibility, I grabbed the handrail and put my foot up, hauling myself into a standing position on the side of the skywalk. I took a deep breath as I stared down into a 4,000-foot drop to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I stared into the invisible noise that was now the only thing echoing in my brain.

I jumped.

“CHRIS!” I heard my name being screamed by Gracie, and Ms Jacobsen, and a few others, as well as just some general yelling and screaming. It was at that point, plummeting to the ground with the wind in my dreads, that I actually realized what I had done. Also, it turned out I was not as invisible as I had thought. I mean, I had been fairly sure that if I had slapped someone or thrown a paper dart made out of worksheet in someone’s face I would have achieved the attention I so desperately craved. As it was, jumping to my death was enough of an event to warrant attention.

My thoughts were trying to make up for their absence on the bridge by coming thicker and faster than ever before. I regretted the decision. I felt bad for my class who were going to be traumatized by this event. I felt impossible guilt and grief for my Mom. Those feelings were so powerful they should have shot me back up onto the bridge like hitting a giant trampoline. They didn’t. I thought of Mom at the bakery right now, pulling fresh, hot, dark chocolate and peanut butter brownies from the oven. She always put a square in my lunch every day. She knew it was my favorite.

We lived in a tiny apartment above Sweet Treats. It was cramped but it always smelled amazing and it was warm. There were just the two of us. We baked and laughed and belted out Elton John ballads together – Mom was super into him. My dad was never in the picture, and Mom never talked about him, and that was fine. Except right now I was falling faster than I could register as the walls of the Grand Canyon blurred red around me, and all I could think about were the police showing up at Mom’s door. She would open the door, still wiping the flour from her hands on her apron. She has dark skin like me, but her hair is all wild curls streaked with gold. Her dark eyes sparkle and she has the widest, most welcoming smile in the world. That smile would greet the officers, and then it would slip away as she realized why they were there. It was all my fault. I was her world. She always told me that. The thoughts were like knives in my chest. A choked sob escaped me as I was massacred by my feelings. Then I hit water.

Still thousands of feet above the floor of the canyon, I crashed into liquid with an almighty smash that ripped the air from my lungs. I went under, sinking down like a stone at the shock of being alive. But alive I was, and I had never felt as alive as I did right then. Everything hurt. The water must have been freezing because it was like millions of needles all over my skin. I pushed myself up and broke the surface, gasping for air. A wave crashed over me and the current pulled me down again. I struggled with all my might.

Once again I broke for air, but I could do little more than gasp before being pulled back under. My relief at being alive was short lived. At this rate I wouldn’t stay that way for long. The water burned all over my skin, stinging my eyes and blinding me. It was wild like rapids. Like I was part of a horizontal waterfall. The current was stronger than I was. It sought to drag me down and drown me. Only desperation kept me fighting for air.

“Help!” I yelled as I surfaced again, throwing my arms out blindly to try and grab something. All I got were handfuls of burning water. “Help!” I cried again, choking on a stinging mouthful. I tried to peek at the world, but my eyes felt like they were on fire and all I could see was blinding white.

Suddenly, something snagged the back of my shirt. It began to pull me up. I grabbed my arms to keep the current from pulling me out of my sleeves, as some miracle hoisted me onto dry land. Gasping and choking, I crashed on my hands and knees onto the bank of what appeared to be a river. I shivered and wheezed on the softest greenest grass I had ever seen in my life. As I caught my breath I also tried to get my bearings.

I was in a valley. A lush green valley full of plants I’d never seen before. Behind me gurgled and crashed the River of Death – as I was so dubbing it. I had never seen a river so wild. It did indeed look like rapids. Even worse than rapids. It steamed and smoked like dry ice and it boiled and churned fiercely. There was nothing inviting about it, and I was glad my dip in there had only been brief. Briefer than I could explain. I wasn’t wet anymore. Anyone who’s had dreads knows they take forever to dry, and I probably don’t have to tell you the same thing about jeans. Yet, I was completely dry as I sat shivering on the grassy bank, probably more from shock than anything else. I turned around, hoping to thank someone for pulling me out.

My breath vanished again as I came face-to-face with the tip of a very sharp sword. It was leveled at my chin, and I did not like how close it was to me. The silver blade gleamed and morning light glinted off the runes etched down its center. If I had been into swords I would have been in an excellent position to examine it. As it was, I was far more interested in the sword’s relation to me than the weapon itself. Weapons aren’t really my thing. Lover not a fighter and all that. What I actually wanted was a small dog to make witty remarks to, because this wasn’t Kansas, and it sure as anything wasn’t Arizona anymore.

The sword wielder wasn’t alone. Two people stood before me. One held the sword on me, and the other clutched a staff with a crooked top that made me wonder if that had been what hooked my shirt. The strangers were pale and identical, with platinum blonde hair, dressed in armor and furs. They looked like something out of Game of Thrones. The sword wielder spoke, but I could tell they were addressing their companion even though they never took their eyes off me for a second.

“Well, what have we here…?”