Story: Falling Skies

I am fated to die.

I know this and I accept it. I had a dream about it once. I closed my eyes and I saw it all – the sky, black and heavy, fell upon me and swallowed me up, and I waited in darkness for my last breath to leave me.

            My friend, Arthur, says I am being dramatic. He says that if I can see my death coming, then why am I so calm about it? Why don’t I try to avoid it? But the truth is that things like this cannot be outrun. If the sky chooses to swallow me whole, then I will let it and be content. One cannot fight the sky after all.

            I thought my end was coming today as I left my house. I stood at the crosswalk and felt my time was near. The cross-light turned green and as I began to set foot in the road I saw a truck, bright and red and angry, speeding down the street.

           

“So this is how it ends,” I thought. “A squeal of black tires and a flash of red and it’s over. If this is how it ends, then I march boldly forward to meet it.” I spoke these words aloud to myself as I crossed slowly, slowly, waiting for the end.

WHEEERRRRRR!!!

            I stood in the road, staring up at the bright red fire engine, now halted in front of me.

WHEEEEERRRRRRRR!!!

            It blasted its horn again at me. As I stood there, contemplating my new turn of fortune, the driver of the truck hung his head out of the window.

            “Hey! Move it won’tcha! We’ve got a fire to put out and you’re standing in the middle of the bloody road!”

            He was clearly put out. I stood there a few seconds longer contemplating this twist of fate as his face grew redder and redder. I thought he might pass out before he threw the engine in reverse and pulled out around me.

            I was alive, for now, and for how much longer I didn’t know. Any second could be my last. I drifted the rest of the way across the street in a daze as I made my way to the park. I looked up at the clouds above me. I was wrong. My end would come from the sky, not the street. I thought about my dream as I wandered into the neighborhood park. The sky. In thought, I looked down at the ground and surprised myself to see the clouds and sun shining at me from below my feet. My legs had carried me to the small dock hanging out over the edge of the pond.

            The sky. The sky. But what if it had not been the sky falling down to meet me? What if I had fallen to meet the sky – the sky reflected at me in this water hole? As I contemplated this, standing on the edge of the deck I felt overwhelmed. Vertigo set in as I wobbled where I stood.

            “Merle? Oi, Merle!” someone called. I think it was Arthur. His voice startled me. I jumped only a bit but it was enough to send me off balance. Ah, my fate at last. I did not fight to stay upright as I tumbled into my abyss. With a hard splash, I hit the water. Drifting there in the cool water I felt myself running low on breath.

            “Not much longer,” I thought to myself as I floated there, face down, waiting for my end. All around me I heard splashing and shouting. Not mine, I believe. I simply floated, calmly, calmly, accepting a fate I could not change.

            Suddenly and with much angry yelling, I was hefted from the water and shook about until my head rattled. As the cacophony sounded in my ears and my vision slid back into focus I saw my friend Arthur standing above me, visibly peeved. He was shouting,

            “What’re you doing, you daft bastard?! Why were you just floating there?!”

            Oh Arthur, he didn’t understand. Fate is not something you can run from, but as I searched for the words to explain this to him he kept shaking me, thoroughly rattling me about.

            “Please, Arthur, let me go,” I asked him calmly. He was stood waist deep in the pond still holding me by the arm and covered in pond scum. As I tugged free and pulled my feet underneath me I realized the pond was easily shallow enough to stand in.

            “You’re not still on again about the fate shite are ya? I told you it was a bunch of rubbish and now I’m covered in pond scum because you want to splash about in the fish pond. I’m tired of it ya know!”

            “Yeah, I know,” I said as I walked away from him. I needed to return to my house and think about what had happened. Every time I thought fate had finally caught up with me, something impeded it. Perhaps, perhaps it had not been so inevitable as I thought. Every pitfall today I had avoided. Perhaps Arthur was right. Maybe I am not doomed.

            I hurried home as the fluffy white clouds above me grew grey and heavy with rain. I pulled open the door to my flat as the sky opened up and the wind began to howl. In deep contemplation I trudged up the stairs to my room and laid down in my bed.

Drip. . . Drip. . . Drip. . .

The rain leaked through the ceiling and onto my pillow. Years of water damage had weakened the roof and the leak grew steadily larger. As I lay in bed and contemplated the ceiling, I heard it creak and shudder. Slowly, I watched the ceiling above me buckle and groan.

“Ah,” I thought, “not so inevitable then. As I suspected,” and I lay there and waited as the roof strained, and broke, and caved in above me, and the sky fell, and darkened my world.

(A collapsed roof)

Author’s Note: This story is based specifically on the death of Merlin in the larger myth of King Arthur. In the story, Merlin has a premonition that he's going to die by being buried. King Arthur tries to encourage him to avoid this fate since he knows it's coming but Merlin sees it all as inevitable. When the evil Vivien asks him to climb under a boulder to look for something, he knows he going to die but does it anyways. Then she traps him and leaves him for dead. I chose to retell the story like this out of frustration with the original. I didn’t understand why Merlin told Arthur that he was doomed to die by being buried alive and clearly knew a trap was being set for him when Morgan encouraged him to squeeze in under that big rock but he still went and did it anyways. So I thought I’d play up my frustrations to a bit of an absurd level with this little story.  I really wanted to keep the ending something close to being buried alive so even though his house collapsing is a bit dramatic I think it worked fairly well with the story. I hope it wasn’t too awfully morbid!

King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang