Free What Becomes by A. L Kennedy

interlace the fingers. And this is like resting, if not relaxing. There’s a flutter of instability as I reposition, the surface takes a while to settle, but I don’t seem – for example – to be falling or anything like that, there’s no unease, only a liquid shift against my spine that might be air, or time, intention, happiness.
    The idea of falling, it’s the only one I really wouldn’t want to summon up.
    The drop.
    My theory about the drop.
    We’re born into it, slithering over its edges and into life and at the start it’s exhilarating, it’s a rush. We’re flying. Almost. We’re flying
down
. But we assume that if we were built to fly, if that’s what we’re for, then that’s what we’ll do. Forever. We imagine we’ll plummet endlessly, perhaps in a broad, unnoticeable loop, a corkscrewing motion through infinity. We are not sure, we give it less than our full attention, because other bodies divert us, the ones who are falling at our pace. Our course screams onwards, downwards, and there they are, at our sides, near our faces, with us until the currents change, or else there’s a torsion of breezes, or other processes we cannot quite explain, and they are gone and we are left to our descent.
    It takes a while to realise every one of us will land and not survive it. We are a tragedy waiting to happen, or a design flaw, at the very least. And that murmur in our ears before we sleep – we imagined it was blood flow, heartbeats, tinnitus – but it’s not, it’s the drop. It’s whatever’s left lashing past you, piece by piece, soaring up out of reach: minutes pulled to rags, ripped out of hours, days, weeks – it’s falling.
    But let’s not get dragged off into that.
    Not here.
    Not now.
    Floating is what we’re here for now – not falling – today we are being sustained.
    All’s well.
    I couldn’t have a theory about puppies, rainbows, laughter. It has to be a meditation on the meaningless brevity of existence.
    No days off with me.
    Myself and I.
    And then there’s the other theory – the one about laughter.
    No. Leave that one be.
    But I do have a theory about laughter.
    Which isn’t what I want to think of here.
    Shouldn’t let it seep out and colour the water, taint it, change its grip.
    And, then again, I can’t avoid it now.
    So.
    Laughter. That unmistakable sign of happiness. The first time you hear it for real, kicking out of your head, that punch of sound – then you know everything at once. You’ve got the truth of it right there, wet against your tongue.
    The warm noise curled against your tongue.
    Like here.
    Like now.
    Adrift in the truth of something – the taint of that.
    No, my mouth is empty as my mind.
    No, not so.
    I was older than the kid at the party when I found out about laughter. Saturday teatime in the family house, that tall and narrow house, and I’m nine. I seem to remember myself being nine, and with my friend – acquaintance, anyway. I make my pals one at a time and without enthusiasm, pick vaguely sadistic loners with an intensity about them. This isn’t a pattern I wish to repeat, but occasionally I can’t help it.
    And I’m watching television, sitting on the floor and too close to the screen – one or other of my parents would have views about that, would express them, but they’re busy. My pal is behind me and she is uncomfortable and I don’t care. As of this afternoon, I hate her. By next week we will never speak again.
    And I am laughing.
    I am laughing more loudly than I ever have. I believe I am laughing more loudly than I ever will.
    My acquaintance is not laughing.
    This makes sense because we are not watching a funny programme, we are watching
Doctor Who
,
which is science fiction, children’s science fiction – running about and monsters and saving the day – and the Doctor has