What Side Didn’t Know – A1,C3. Tasting some dirt

I am in awe, terrified, and also in a state of wonder.  And nauseous. Walking through that door, I’m not sure what I expected, but I did not expect a small railed set of steps (if you could call a twig the size of my thumb, held up every arm length with a slightly thicker post, a railing); that cascaded around a giant tree.  You know those giant “World Tree’”’s in video games that reach higher than mountains, and are wider than small cities? I was in one of those.  Literally, the room was grown into the tree.  High enough up that, upon looking down (Which I regret, by the way), the people on the ground (which are actually roots, as far as I can tell) look like ants.

Maybe 2000 feet?  Aye, I used to be American, cursed standard measurements and all.  Did I mention I get vertigo when looking over balconies and other high places?  I can feel my heartbeat in my ears.

I’ve taken to sitting down against the tree trunk-san-outer-room-wall, and dumbly place my right hand over my mouth.  Less about the nausea, and more about the amazement. I crawl to the edge of the steps, and lay on my belly, looking down while laying down.  For some reason, this feels much safer. Indeed people below are more than a thousand feet below. This isn’t the only tree either. Albeit, it is quite some distance away, enough that the pedestrians are indistinct blobs, but there are other trees as far as I can see, their trunks layered with stairs, reaching impossibly high, with enormous canopies which intertwine with the next tree.  How bright must the sun be for us to see as if it was daylight, even filtered through this thick foliage?

I gulp, and look down again, and just stay there for a minute.  For some reason, I can’t help but feel like ‘Nope.’

I look up to… Uh… now that I think about it, I never asked her name, nor did she present it.  Or did she? “What was your name again?”

She sighs, or huffs?  I’m not sure which, it was more of a mix between the two.  “It’s Mika. What… are you doing…?” She had a hand on her right hip, looking at me like I was some odd exhausting contraption that she was forced to use.  Her other hand made some sort of flailing motion in my general direction. I notice now outside, that she has brown chest height hair, pushed behind her ears.

“Uh…”  I sat up on the steps, and didn’t realize they were open back steps (or did, but forgot); and placed my hand right through the open back of the step above the one I would be sitting on.  This clumsy act resulted in a very started expression, and face full of the next step up, as I lost my balance and smashed my cheek into it. I reflexively rolled away in pain…

Down the next step.  And then there was some sort of momentum from gravity.  I put my hands out to stop my momentum, only to get an elbow stuck between two steps… And again, pulled my body in to cradle yet another wound.  So the cycle continued where I lost my balance by reflex and down more steps I went.

In my tumble, somehow I heard quite the sigh coming from above me.  Remember, these were steps growing out around a tree, something round?  And there were virtually no guard rail posts?

Yeah.  I rolled right off.

To be honest, the scenery on the way down was nice.  As I fell, i could see people watching. I admired their nice clothes, for some reason.  Mostly tight-ish green vests, and very practical well fitted brown denim like pants, seemed the only attire regardless of gender, with the exception of a few with robes.  I thought about how, albeit, very short, I had enjoyed my time in this life. Then it occurred to me: Does this make me an “M”? I did get awfully injured this time around.  Although, my previous life was much more fulfilling, even though I wasn’t as happy on a per minute basis. Looking at it objectively, however, I guess this life wasn’t much different from my previous life.  I mean, I got beaten up by girls in both lives (Wife in previous, Mika in this one), and in both lives I made rather comical, if not outright stupid mistakes that caused me great pain. Although I could not remember how I died last time, I can’t imagine being aware of dying after impact from falling a thousand feet.

I closed my eyes, and sighed.  I guess I’m happy either way. I spread my arms out as I continued to fall to feel the air rush by, and enjoy what little I could of this life.  It was a short one, but very enjoyable. Thank you Ms. Goddess, I got to see some wonderful sights. Beautiful epic trees taller than skyscrapers, houses themselves grown into the trees.  Or trees grown into the shapes of housing complexes? The architect should work on safety though…

I got to hug a beautiful girl.  That was definitely a masculine daily goal fulfilled.  I saw some wonderful facial expressions. Also those sighs of exasperation were pretty entertaining.

Wow, seems like I was really up there, falling a thousand feet sure takes a lot of time.

I wonder if this world has a different terminal velocity?  Maybe it’s slow enough that I can survive? I should ask the Goddess if I get the chance to try this again.  That said, I wonder how my children are doing in my previous life.

I continued to think about useless things and finally got a bit tired of waiting for the end to come.  I wonder if this is how it works right before you die, and time slows to a crawl?

Feeling perturbed, I rotated in the air by adjusting my arms, and opened my eyes right before hitting some dirt, straight in the face.

Author’s Note:

Thanks for the support!  I am in your care!  I will continue to release on Tuesdays.  I have 15 chapter backlog!  Almost to where I can release 2 chapter a week.  We’ll get there.

Editor: DungeonPalmz