Lola straightens up and closes her eyes after one last glance at the choppy grey green cascading waves of the Northern Atlantic Ocean 100 feet beneath her.  She knows the wind has changed direction  as it’s blowing her hair sideways,  sweeping her face and she see her ponytail flapping next to her like a wind-vane.

“Beware of the wind.” Jorge’s voice whispers in her ear. Sweet Jorge who had taught her everything she knows even though his caution did not save him. He taught her the principle of survival in that zone of exhilaration where danger and subsistence is mixed into a perfect concoction to con that deadly beast to reach up from the waves and open its mouth in anticipation; a concoction which will dissipate in the speedy air just in time and summon the monstrosity back to the depths from which it came.  Every time when she makes that judgment whether the moody gusts of oceanic flurry warrants her to step onto a different fold at a different elevation of the yellow grey stone outcrop she says a little prayer in her head. Raising her hand high in the auburn sky she feels the chilly caresses between her long fingers and hears Jorge’s voice consoling her that it will be alright. Opening her eyes again, she forces everything out of her mind and focuses on that line where the furious waves meet the evening sky.  She traces every movement she is going to make in the next second or so, the exact moment she has to flip her torso to make sure her feet hit the water first.  She steps over the edge, the same edge Jorge had stepped over that last time,  and  embraces the warm wind with her arms stretched like the wings of a gull and glides through the sky. She cants forward and stretches her arms below her as she falls. She marvels how time seems to stretch and this second seems like an eternity. How wondrous it seems. Was sweet Jorge marveling about this too when he forgot he was playing a game of hide and seek with death?