Jack Elliot Cardno

Fall Guy (2013)

There is a tar like black mucus seeping from between the steel panelling on my way across the vertical plane. It’s unnerving. I try to focus on the red L.E.D digits bitt-fading away on the small screen above the door. My eyes stray and note the black syrup pooled at the sides of the lift, starting its viscous advance towards my heel. My number’s up: the doors slide apart and I step into the clouds immediately starting to plummet.
When you first start falling you accelerate at nine point eight meters per second per second. You do this until you reach terminal velocity – 117 to 125 miles per hour depending on your posture.

I know this because Mr. Stuparyk told me. I watch as the tiny topographies of London morph into what my memory has made of his face. He was my design technology teacher, bald with a bulbous nose. Around about three seconds had passed and I realised how calm I was being given my current situation. He was my favourite teacher though. My eyelids are flapping wildly and it feels like the bones in my ear are inflating. The gauze and surgical tape had come away. I’m getting bored of his boldness; he doesn’t even look like that anyway. I decided to turn around and face the stratosphere.

I’m mid barrel roll and I see my lover in perfect stasis – sitting on a chaise longue made of cloud. She smiles big and squints a little.   Nn n                 nnnnnnnnnn nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nnnnnnnnnnnnnmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  A brown trail of bile extends upwards from my mouth and disintegrates leaving a hue in some clouds like a shitty northern lights. I notice a chord flailing in the air, it leads to my left nipple, I yank hard and a buoyant lung pops out of my chest, catches the wind and tears lots of soft spongy tissue, out of me, way up to towards the sick haze but integrating itself fully with a thermal column. I fall and watch as the organic balloon is passed into the denser cold air. They’ve planned it perfectly! There seems to be just enough oxygen in my blood stream for the cycle to complete without me dying in the air. I can see a party going on and angle my body for an eerily lit pool. The organs round a mass contracted corner and slam right back into my body through my anus – one oxygen filled heart beat later and I slap into the small body of water and die.

They find me the next morning and blame Michael Barrymore for everything.

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