Good Thing You Can Pull Me Up

(Michael S. Sommermeyer)

Arthur Belevedere clung to a root as he dangled below the ledge. He refused to look at the ground below. Could it be 50 or 100 feet? He screamed again for help as his hand tingled. It was getting numb and he didn't know if he could hold on much longer.

"Just hang in there," shouted his girlfriend Sally. Arthur wondered if she ever listened to herself. "Just hang in there!" No problem, honey. I'll just keep hanging here.

His forehead and forearm hurt from the scraping and bouncing through the rock slide. He managed to grab the tree at the last minute. Another foot and he would be dead at the bottom. Arthur closed his eyes and dared not to look at the canyon floor.

"There's a guy here with a crank, I think, and a rope on his Jeep," shouted Sally. "He says he can pull you up." "Well make it fast," shouted Arthur.

The whole thing started when he was taking selfies with Sally on the canyon edge. They were walking backwards to the edge when he fell off. How Sally managed to stay on solid ground mystified him. She must have been farther from him. In any case, he lost the camera in the tumble. Just as well; Arthur wasn't sure he wanted to remember this anyway.

The guy with the wench pulled him up after tossing him the rope. He scraped his way on the rocks and looked like road rash when he arrived on solid ground. Sally placed gauze on his cuts. They burned like hell.

A week later, Arthur was starting to feel better and the cuts were scabbing over. All in all, the scrapes were just a reminder of his near death experience.

He sat at his computer and logged into his photo account. It was possible his phone uploaded the selfies before his tumble. Sure enough, he found thirteen new photos in his queue. A series of shots of him and Sally smiling with the canyon floor behind them. The last three shots were of the fall. Arthur smiling, Sally with a determined stare, and the last photo of Sally's hand clearly giving him a shove.

Arthur gasped. He clearly had some thinking to do about this relationship.

Day 417: 5 Minute Freewrite: Tuesday - Prompt: crank by @mariannewest

Copyright © 2018 Michael Shawn Sommermeyer

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