Off the Cliff With You!

She breaks through the forest and meets with the sandy precipice.  Unshaded light cuts across her face.  She fights for breath.  Sweat drips into her eyes.  The hunt is not over, but she has come to a limit.  She looks back over her shoulder.  Her adversaries are quickly approaching.  The sandy earth beneath her feet gives way, sending a few stones off of the treacherous ledge.  She weighs her options - the advancing mob may kill her or perhaps she can seduce herself into sexual slavery.  And there is the jump.  What does she want?  What will she choose? 

She puts a hand to her chest and looks at the crashing water below.  Angry shouts boom from the forest edge.  Human yelling, calling to her to surrender.  "There is no way out," they say.  She waits, trapped. 

Their ugly faces come into view.  Feral, predatory grimaces, mad with the weight of always doing what they are told.  Now is their time to be wild!  They relish the opportunity. "Attack," they hiss, "Yes.  Kill her, take her!"   Would she want to be part of that group, suffer what they have suffered just so that she may live another day?  As they reach their dirty hands in her direction, she looks again at the apathetic sea.  Her mind is screaming, but her heart booms louder. 

The internal battle began along time ago and it rages now.  She has been fighting this all her life.  The glorious moment of forced choice calls her to action!  She runs at her attackers, a final yell! 

They do not know what to do, cannot predict her.  Hushed by her unexpected resolve, they make space.  She turns back toward the water, the unknown.  She has her running start.  A brief slip in the dirt, slow motion as she touches the ground to regain her balance.  Her enemies are dumbfounded.  Every muscle in her delicate, powerful body fires as she commits, commits finally to everything, the great leap!  One, two, three steps and the terminal push.

"No!" they yell, deprived of her murder, of consuming her or making her one of them.  One kicks the ground and whispers, "Coward."  But he knows, as do the rest, that her courage is great.  She has not only escaped their hungry teeth, but shamed and inspired them. 

Take flight young woman!  It is time, stop stinging yourself with promises of what you will someday do.