The Edge
Flash fiction from my world, Zyrthany.
A soft breeze blew across the hilltop, whispering through the swaying grasses and stirring the leaves of the trees. A large flutterby sailed along with the wind, like a scrap of color escaped from a painter’s canvas. Its rust-red wings were edged with black, and it beat them in a furious, spasmodic rhythm as it swirled with the breeze. It dropped suddenly as a gust died away, and floated gently down, drifting above the long, bending grass and the brown heads of two children.
“Lil, wait up!” one said. “It’s not fair! Your legs are longer than mine!”
The older child stopped and tossed her long brown hair. “Momma said that if you couldn’t keep up, I didn’t have to wait for you.”
“She did not!” the younger boy puffed, his face red as he hurried to catch up.
“Did too!” Lil said as she turned and began gliding away again.
“Did not!”
“Did!”
“Did not! She told you to take care of me.” The boy sat down on a rock and sighed, resting his chin in his chubby hands. “You never wait for me,” he mumbled through his fingers.
“Oh, Joel…” Lil stopped and turned, arms akimbo. Her face was dotted with large, pale freckles almost the same color as her skin. The bridge of her narrow nose was dusted with them. “Don’t be such a baby.”
“I’m not,” Joel argued, pouting.
Lil’s eyes left her brother to follow the flutterby, which dipped down almost to head height before orbiting the children once, and then kiting off toward the thicker woods lining the hilltop. Her eyes followed its erratic path until Joel pulled her attention away.
“LILY!!! I’m coming with you.”
She sighed. “Ugh, fine.”
The two children continued on through the forest of grass stems, most of which came up to little Joel’s shoulders. Lily began skipping again, singing a nonsense song in her lilting voice, rolling her Rs and trilling her la-la-las. Joel followed along behind, pushing grass out of his face and stumbling a little over the uneven ground.
“Where are we going, anyway?” he asked.
“To the Edge, of course.”
Joel stopped abruptly, shaking his head. “No, we can’t go there. No, no, no…”
Lily looked back at him, scrunching her nose. “Why ever not, you silly little boy? It’s not dangerous.”
“I’m afeared of heights,” he confessed, clasping his hands behind his back and staring at the ground.
“Look.” Lily walked back to him, picked him up under the armpits, and walked slowly back through the grass. “See?”
Joel opened his eyes, which he had scrunched shut. Lily carefully held him up. He looked around curiously.
The grassy hilltop stretched away behind them and out to either side, dotted with trees and the occasional rock. But ahead, there was… nothing. Except for a flutterby drifting overhead, sailing on the deep blue sky.
“A cliff? I’m going to fall!” Joel squealed, squirming in Lily’s hands. She set him down with a thud, then prodded him forward.
“Silly boy.”
Joel cautiously inched forward until he could see more of the Edge. It looked like the lip of any normal hill – grassy slopes running up and then down in a large wavelike formation – except that after curving up and over, the hill didn’t flatten out as expected. Instead, it continued curving over, farther and farther, until the ground was at a right angle to the grassy meadow Lily and Joel were currently standing on. On the other face of the planet, Joel saw what looked like the same hilltop they were standing on… except it was upside down. Or was it he who was upside down? He tilted his head, then suddenly grew dizzy. Lily’s strong arms pulled him back.
“See, it’s not dangerous,” she said. “Watch!”
Joel, suddenly scared, stood trembling on the edge as Lily pulled her hands out of his and stepped forward. First her legs disappeared over the hill, then her waist, and finally, it reached up to her shoulders. She was now standing on the rounded part, still perfectly erect, but at an angle to Joel as he stood in the meadow. She gave him a small wave and a smile, and then stepped forward, out of sight, where the dome of the sky seemed to come down to meet the earth.
Joel shrieked and rushed forward to look over. Lily was there, laughing and waving her arms, dancing on the ground that to him looked like the side of a very steep cliff.
He gulped, and followed.
As he walked slowly forward through the grass and down the curve of the Edge, Joel’s world tilted. His pulse rushed in his ears. He put out his arms to steady himself. The trees, grass, and sky swirled and blurred in a wrenching, sickening movement.
Then he was there, standing on the Edge. Except this time, he was facing the meadow, with his back to the void. Overhead, clouds drifted across the same blue sky–where the orange flutterby wafted back and forth–and Lily was there, humming and twisting a piece of grass in her fingers.
Joel cautiously turned around and looked back over the Edge. The meadow they had come from stretched out below his toes, trees and grass waving in the wind. He swallowed, and stepped farther away from the Edge.
Lily leaped forward and took his hand. “See?” she grinned. “Told ya it would be fine.”
Joel shut his mouth with a snap, wiped his nose, and glanced up at his sister. “You knew it would be alright?”
“Of course I did. I wouldn’t let you fall off of the planet and die, would I?” She stared down at him, light dancing in her two blue eyes like the flutterby dancing overhead.
“Sure,” Joel said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I knew that.”
Lily tousled his hair. “Come on, let’s go!”
And Joel followed his laughing sister out into the meadow that was so similar to the familiar land he was used to and yet so vastly, subtly different.
I hope you guys enjoyed today’s story! Feel free to comment below and please consider subscribing if you’ve enjoyed the World Through Wondering Eyes today.