People that were bad had to go on the slide. They’d be walked out to the mossy cliff, and made to slide into the misty clouds below. No one knew what lay at the bottom of the cliff beneath the clouds.
Not many of my ancestors were buried in the graveyard. I came from a long line of sliders. My mother was made to take the slide for asking to work the fields with the men and my sister followed her. My grandfather took the slide for asking the leader questions, and my great grandmother slid because she tried to send her daughters to the learning place.
I was no good. I knew it. So I fit in. I tried to prove myself. Yes leader.
But it wasn’t me. I felt as empty and blank as the mist beyond. So one day. I slid. No one even cared why. They liked to watch a sliding, it was a good show.
I expected the mist to be cold, but it was warm. And when it cleared I wasn’t falling any more.
I had the strange feeling I was upside down. But when I looked around, I was standing on a cliff just like the one I’d just slid from.
“I’m so proud of you, I knew you’d slide,” my mother was saying. “You’re a good boy.”
I looked around to see most of my family.
“We wait here often, just in case,” they explained.
I looked back at the mist.
“I wish we’d known. It’s just like home,” his sister said. “The houses, the fields, its all the same. But we’re all sliders here.”
Inspired by this deadly looking rock slide in the forest walk I did today.
freyawrightbrough 