Free Jumping by Jane Peranteau

philosophical conversations with Miles, and gradually his talk shifted to the Void as their adventure. The Void scared her more than he knew, and she made strong arguments against jumping:
    “It's crazy! We could be killing ourselves!”
    Or, “It's not something black people do,” she said one afternoon. “The Void is white people's stuff.”
    Or, “I don't see escaping into another world as the way to go. I think we're meant to deal with what's here.”
    And then one day, “It could be evil!”
    That stopped them and made them both laugh. They stood there, near the edge of the Void, and laughed, knowing that their end was written in the laughing, because it meant they had nowhere else to argue to. There was a divide between them now because in her discovery that she couldn't jump, it was clear she would never understand how he could. She had been his biggest test. Once the question of her jumping no longer stood in his way, he was ready.
    After the jump, they still stayed in touch from time to time, he said. If he still loves her, he didn't say, but I think he does. And always will. Maybe that's the romantic in me.
    He paused at this point. I looked at him, and he looked at me and then at Miles. We knew he had to talk about the jump now, if he was going to. We could tell he'd been changed by it. He's not the person he was, as Miles would say. Miles later used words like matured and steadier , and more at home in his own skin . Duncan Robert's restlessness was gone. Everything I know about the Void and jumping is dancing around in my head, and now I'm trying to imagine Duncan Robert—his courage, his determination—facing down the Void. I'm literally perched on the edge of my seat, ready for his story to begin.
    I write as the words fly out of him, describing the fall, the landing, and the return. I write fast and furious, without looking up, in a note-taker's trance, which veteran note-takers will recognize. Here are his words without further comment from me. I'd hardly know what to say anyway.

    Duncan Robert:

    Miles dropped me off that morning at the Void. Everything seemed the same as always. The light in the eastern sky was just beginning. The clearing was quiet. I walked through the damp, knee-high grass to the edge of the Void. I was nervous, hardly breathing. I was counting on the gravity at the edge of the Void for the final pull if I hesitated.
    I stood at the edge, feeling the presence of the Void, and took a deep, shaky breath, breathing it in. The blood stirred in every corner of my body, and I felt something here bigger than my fear. It was an overwhelming eagerness for more, the same eagerness that had brought me to the edge. I knew this was the way.
    I bent forward, arms outstretched, leaning into the Void, until I tipped, face forward into the fall, eyes open. It would have been a belly flop if there'd been a pool. In the first few minutes, I cried out for Reggie, because I wanted her to see this, too.
    As I fell, fearing the ground was rushing up to meet me, certain I was making a jump I couldn't possibly return from, the exhilaration I felt still made me laugh out loud. I still feel it.
    The fall, well, the fall is what you might think, if you've ever fallen. I think if falls are shorter, people remember less—about the fall, about what they were thinking or feeling. In a longer fall, though, you have time. You begin to notice things. Not right at first, though, because I didn't know how long this fall was going to be. At first, right after my feet left the ground, I could feel myself start to panic. I don't think I've ever done anything as final as that jump. It's one thing to talk about and another to actually do . There was no taking it back, and I felt it in that moment. Einstein or some other physicist said the gravity force is strongest at the edge of a black hole. I can believe that. The force of it at the edge of the Void just took me.
    I was in no way prepared for or expecting the