By Andrew Winter

Mallery flung the map onto the dashboard, tearing it just at the point where a little dot said San Diego. 

“Why not just drive off the cliff right here and be done with it?” she said. 

Nub kept his eyes fixed forward, though he was not as calm as he seemed. “How many fights did we have growing up, and now that we’re adults you want to have more?” 

Mallery sighed. “It’s not a good use of our time to go all the way to San Fran when we could spend twice the amount of time in San Diego seeing the Pacific Ocean.” 

“It will probably be the last time we see her before she dies,” Nub returned with muted menace. “And besides, there’s a lot of great scenery along the way.” 

Mallery’s black Tahoe lurched a little as it ran over a particularly large rock. It was a bad road. The sea roared to their right: the Pacific Ocean that Mallery loved so much. The road vacillated with the cliffline, keeping a careful 50-foot margin between itself and the drop to the beach proper. It was a good day. 

Mallery was silent. Nub’s silence manifested itself as a tighter grip on the wheel. They were good friends. Mallery picked up the map with another sigh. “We would only have a few hours with her and one overnight before we have to fly out of San Diego back to Nebraska for Mom’s birthday.” 

As usual in such tussles, Nub attempted to get at the metaphysical root of Mallery’s protest, a method which never failed to aggravate Mallery. “But it’s about the person,” he said. “She’s lonely, and dying, and we’re the only ones in the family who’ll have a chance at seeing her before there probably won’t be another chance to see her. Isn’t it important that we give her that gift, the last one she’ll get before the end? You have to see the importance of the community.” 

“You can’t call it a community if she can’t even talk anymore. We’d just end up sitting there looking at her.” 

A short silence, in which Nub strove to flatten the ripples of his temper. Iron ripples are not easily smoothed. 

He looked over at her. “Don’t you understand what friendship and loyalty mean in a situation like this?” He was never good at explaining these things, either to himself or to Mallery. “She deserves a visit from us. She’s given us so much, and now you don’t even want to thank her when it’s your last chance? You’d rather see the ocean instead? Look! There’s the ocean!” He pointed across her body out  the passenger window. “Go jump in it if you’d like!” 

An oncoming pickup popped a tire on the backwater road and swerved onto their side. Nub’s eyes snapped back to his driving just in time for Mallery to gasp as the gold behemoth smashed into their left headlight and sent the Tahoe cleanly off the road, down the embankment. The car rolled. Nub’s door broke open, and somehow he was free, flying solo across the sand. 

He woke up about fifteen seconds later, his fingers tightly gripping handfuls of sand. He was a dozen or more feet from the Tahoe, but he could not see it. His head was below the level of the cliff, and his feet dangling like the apples of Eden over the edge. His shoulders hurt. He was hanging by his arms, eighty feet above the beach. 

He was immediately conscious of his fingers. They didn’t exactly hurt, but he found himself waiting with unredeemed dread for when they would begin to hurt. For now, his adrenaline delivered them from evil. 

Gradually, Nub became conscious of a small mask behind him, standing in midair a few feet from the small of his back. Usually when death comes to admire our succulence in advance, he stares us full on in the face. In Nub’s case, his head hung suspended between his arms, his nose kissing the nose of the cliff. The mask had no room. It stood behind him, where he could not see it, but he sensed it. And every little while it hovered a little closer. Few men face death in such a form. Nub clenched his fingers and elbows tighter, and tighter still. Rarely does a man so lucidly understand that his life depends fully and utterly, like a nursing fawn, on his decision to hang on for the next second, and the next, and the next. 

“Nub? Nub, where are you?” 

“Here, Mallery. Can you see my fingers over the edge?” 

Nub heard her muffled exclamation, muffled further by the intervening rock, and waited for her footsteps across the sand. Mallery was strong, while Nub never had been. Nature had perhaps dealt him a bad hand on that score, but Mallery was a lioness. She could get him out of this. 

“Nub, I’m stuck in the seat. My left arm is buried under the sand, and so’s the seatbelt buckle. Even the dashboard in front of me is partially in the sand.” 

“Um. You have a knife on you, don’t you? Cut it.” 

“The knife’s in my left pocket. So’s my phone.” 

“Under the sand?” 

“Yeah.” 

Nub tried to control his breathing. The iron ripples stuck up prominently in his soul. “Dig it out.” 

He listened for the scraping, but he couldn’t hear any. 

“I can barely get my right arm across my body to dig, and the sand just keeps slipping back.” Nub’s biceps were beginning to burn, the type of burning your whole body feels when you’re mad at your sister for no reason and she’s not backing down. Now, his biceps were angry at him. But Nub was most aware of his fingers. The throbbing in each joint was building up to a deafening chorus of whispers, twenty-eight little voices singing of his fall, urging him to drop. He would drop in the end anyway. 

“Mallery, if you don’t get out of the car in about two minutes, you know I will fall.” 

“What? Have you tried climbing up yourself?” 

Nub had already thought about that, in fact. “I don’t think I can, Mallery. I’ll only fall faster.” 

“Swing your legs like a pendulum. Then use the momentum to pull up at just the right moment.  You can do this, Nub. I’ve seen you do it when we were little.” 

“Not like that, that was—” Different? Nub had a well-formed psychology, and he knew the power self-suggestion had over one’s own mind. He knew you could convince yourself of anything so long as you didn’t tell yourself you were convincing yourself. He was good at knowing that. He just wasn’t good at keeping that internal secret. “Ok, Mallery. I’m going to try it. Ok. This might make me fall, you know.” 

“Well, then, I love you.” 

Nub started the swing. His arms detected the change immediately. 

“Mallery, I will fall.” 

“You’re going to fall one way or another.” 

Nub hoped that wasn’t as easy for her to say as it sounded. He began to swing back and forth, then—his timing was good—he made a leap at the cliff level with his left foot. Almost. His heart repeatedly told him he would fall, and his fingers likewise. It was almost over already. Hope faded within him, and like a receding benefactor abandoned him to repeated pummeling by the interrogators. His fingers would not allow him to hold on another minute. One more swing. The shifting weight almost ended him as he started his legs wavering again. His breath sucked itself in as he tensed for the final sweep, and then the jump, and then the reach… 

He missed it by a full six inches, and fell back down. By some miracle, or perhaps the patronage of some long-forgotten grandfather sprite, Nub held on, though his fingers had slipped half a joint each. The sand ate away at his epidermis in contented silence.

“No good, Mallery. I’m not like you. I’ll hear whatever you want to say to me, and then—and then I’ll let go.” 

He tried to glance under his armpit at the sea and the beach below, trying to gauge if there was any chance of surviving an eighty-footer. 

Mallery spoke. “There’s nothing heroic to say. As much as it seems you’ve hated me, and I’ve seemed to hate you, it is an honor to have been your sister.” 

He sipped that slowly. It tasted bitter to him, at least a little. “Do you still believe in God, Mallery?” 

“I do.” 

Nub looked down towards the sea again. He could feel the power of God in his fingers right now, right down to the very bones and marrows. It was about to kill him. But he supposed that was alright. “It’s been an honor to be your brother too. I wonder if honor counts for any currency up there.” 

He found he was speaking to the unbudging rock before his face. Ironic that he had wanted to go up to San Francisco, when really Mallery was seeing him for the last time. He could feel Mallery moving farther and farther away, and a loneliness like cold pincers clamped in on him. Odd that a man such as Nub, a boy from a big and loud family with lots of friends, should die so fully alone. Even more odd that he should choose the moment of his death. He thought that no man should have to make the choice between unending, ever-growing pain and certain death every moment until the actual choice. Really, it wasn’t a choice. It was just an impersonal pressure gradient with a fantastic release valve. 

“Nub, a car’s comin’.” 

“I, don’t want to, really.” 

“Nub, I can see it. Thirty seconds, and they’ll help you first, and then they’ll help me, and we’ll be able to move again and you’ll be fine. A few sand fossils on your fingers, and you’ll be fine.” Nub was too numb to answer. He didn’t even recognize the possibility that he might not die. Ninety-eight percent of his consciousness was living in the joints of his fingers. A minute passed, and Mallery started bellowing. She had a wondrous bull roar of a voice when she had a mind to use it. A little more, and Nub heard the skirt of the car’s wheels along the dusty road.  Louder and louder it grew, like a waxing meteorite. Still Mallery bellowed. Then the skirt died away, and the breakers far below swallowed up the sound of Nub’s hope without a wink of remorse. Then Nub swallowed. 

“Nub, you never have to let go. You can be Nub for as long as you want.” 

Nub wished like death that he could see her in his last moment, say goodbye with his eyes, at least, as he plunged to his doom. But the sandy rock face stared back at him and refused to step aside. 

The mask floating behind him brushed the small of Nub’s back. He started shaking, and his eyes began to rove wildly. He wasn’t controlling any of his muscles anymore. Even his tongue would not obey him. 

“Mallery, there’s a depression here at about the level of my chin.” Just saying the words was like putting your hand into a combustion engine. “I’m going to try it.” 

The possibility of death gives a man impossibilities. Nub removed one hand from where it hung, and placed the purple fingers into the handhold. By a miracle, he lowered himself down, placing his other hand with lucid care into the handhold beside its mate. 

His feet touched solid rock. An invisible ledge about one-point-two inches wide, just wide enough for the toe of Nub’s tennis shoe. His weight came down on the tips of his feet, and his hands relaxed, re-numbing all over like ice water. The throbbing returned, then died away, and the pain receded to a livable level. Nub could use the hand muscles to hold him in place, but now his legs were holding him up. He was a proper human once again. 

“Nub, are you still there? Brother?”

Nub sighed, trying to imagine her face. “I found a ledge down here.” 

“Ok. What kind of ledge? Is it stable?” 

“I think so. It’s like an inch wide, but I think I might last a while now. Don’t say goodbye too fast.” 

But Nub knew a while could mean three days, in which case he could not last a while. He was already planning out the alternation game of putting weight on his feet, on his hands, on his feet again,  switching from his toes to the sides of his feet and back again. He couldn’t make use of all his leg muscles in this precarious position. He was going to get sore, and… 

“You’ll get cramps in your calves eventually,” Mallery called. “That’ll be the hardest part.” Granted. 

“But then,” she continued, “one car has already come by here, so statistically, another one should come sort of soon, at least.” 

Sounds good. 

“You still there, Nub?” 

Sure. “I’m here.” 

The handhold was small, so that Nub’s thumbs were rather squinched together. That would be uncomfortable considering the state of his fingers. 

“Mallery, any progress on your end?” 

“I’ve been trying to break the belt, or dig my knife out or something. I’m still stuck.” 

“How long till dark?” he said. It wasn’t hell to talk anymore. For now. 

Mallery said, “Maybe half an hour.” 

Darkness would make it harder to ignore the muscle fatigue. If Nub only had a set time at which he knew he would be saved, he could hang on forever. But it could be a week before the next car came by and spotted them. And if it was dark, they didn’t have much chance of being seen when the Tahoe was forty feet off the roadway. 

Unconsciously, making it through the sunset became Nub’s arbitrary goal. He would have liked to watch the sun sinking under the Pacific waves, but he contented himself with the steady darkening of the cliff face an inch from his eyes. 

Hope fades into the world of night… 

Don’t say we have come now to the end. 

White shores are calling… 

Irony. 

Nub waited. He experienced rigor mortis while still very much alive. His legs gradually ignited, while his fingers returned to their old incantations, with almost the same fervor as before. Inside his head, it was a constant struggle to keep his own mind present to himself. In much the same way, an astronaut must clench his entire body to keep the blood from rushing out of his brain during the crush of liftoff. Nub had to keep his slushy soul alert so it wouldn’t flow into his calves and wrists. Mallery’s watch and phone were buried in the sand, so he had no way of telling the time. Ironic how they used to make clocks with sand. 

They spoke periodically. Mallery had a gruff bruise on her collarbone, a half-empty lighter in her right pocket, and a lovely view of the sunset through the shattered windshield. He asked her to describe it to him. 

“You’re the guy with the words. I’m the athlete. You know that.” 

“I can’t see it.” 

She laughed, but he felt her sober up as she remembered the reason why. 

“Ok, then, Mallery. Apollo’s horses have been running at their top speed all day, and now  they’re ready for the stable. He urges them on, and they run faster than ever, not letting the chariot slow for a minute. They gallop so hard the sparks from their hooves come out orange instead of yellow. And  Apollo has a hard time holding onto his reins, they’re so eager to get home. But he smiles at us, doesn’t he? He doesn’t fall out of the chariot, does he? He holds on?”

Then it was fully night, and above Nub’s head the stars processed in pairs to their places in the court of heaven, and stood smiling down on him. There were millions of them out there above the coast, with no lights of man to disturb them, and only the ocean and Mallery there to see them as they burned themselves out. The moon was coming up too, hiding behind Mallery’s head, sending the stars in a laughing retreat from the ample ripples of its silver smile. It was perhaps three hours since the crash. 

“Nub, I’m cold. Are you cold?” 

“Cold, and dizzy.” 

“How are the hands?” 

“Cold. And I suppose dizzy too.” 

His breath began to fog on the rock before him. He would let go soon. But that was alright. He’d given the mask a good run for its money. 

“Well, Mallery, you said you wanted to see the ocean. You haven’t had any choice but to look at it all day now. Are you happy?” 

There was a long silence. Then the sound of Mallery trying to muffle her sobs. 

“Well, I think I’m happy, at least,” he said. 

He could look through the rock, then. He could see for miles and miles, all the way to San Francisco, if he liked, if he turned his head to the left. He could see the Tahoe, and Mallery in it, and she was beautiful. Beautiful like he’d never thought her to be before, more beautiful than a girl half buried in the sand had any right to be. But of course, he could see through the sand too. He opened his eyes wide, and lifted one foot off the ledge. His fingers clenched harder. 

“Mallery.” 

“What?” 

“Take my love to San Francisco? If you live, will you do it?” 

“Yes, Nub. I’ll take your love anywhere you want. Wherever I go.” 

He felt his grip beginning to slip a bit. “Mallery?” 

He was sure he heard her take a breath. “Headlights, Nub! Nub, headlights!” 

“Where? How far?” 

“They’re less than a mile out.” 

Nub checked himself. “They won’t see us. We’re too far off the road.” 

He might as well have let go then, or so the thought crossed his mind. But he held on. He thought, though he felt like he’d formed his last thought hours ago. 

“Mallery? You’ve got that lighter in your pocket? Set the Tahoe on fire and they’ll see you.” 

“Nub, I’ll die.” 

“You’ll die, I’ll die—if there’s one way we both get out of this, you have to set the dashboard and the door padding on fire, and the brush that’s sprouting in the sand next to you. I can’t ask you to do it, but this is my only chance.” 

He was going to kill his own sister in a sickly bid to save himself. 

“Well, I guess you’re right. They’re getting close. I’ll do it, Nub.” 

He almost yelled after her to stop right then and there, but he kept his mouth shut. Whether he would feel guilty for the rest of his short life, he couldn’t know at the time. He didn’t ask her to stop, though his head and heart both told him to. 

“It’s going, Nub. I got the inside of the door burning. They’re coming close.” 

“Are they slowing down?” 

“I can’t tell. How could I tell from here?” 

Stupid, stupid. Even if they did slow down, there was no way they’d get Mallery out before the flames burned her up. Nub would certainly live now. But Mallery…

No, they’d get her. They’d have a knife and cut the seatbelt and haul her out. They would. Nub prayed. He couldn’t tell if the mask was still floating behind him, or if it had moved over towards Mallery. 

“They’re slowing down, I know they are!” 

“And the fire?” 

“Well, I didn’t set the dashboard too. That would have been stupid.” 

She was right. Mallery had that kind of head. Nub imagined he could see exactly the color of the headlights on the car, and the exact speed of it as it jumped the shoulder and rumbled over the sand. “It’s a pickup. That’s a good sign,” said Mallery. “But Nub, the fire’s—” 

He heard a car door slamming. He imagined he heard footsteps, hard black boots on the  crumbly soil, but it was probably just his numb mind playing tricks. Mallery said something, but he couldn’t hear it. Either the fire and the ocean were deafening him, or it was his own ears, the blood and mind and soul all pounding together in a frenzy around the eardrums. 

Then everything was quiet inside, and Nub found himself staring at the blank wall of rock in front of his nose. He raised his chin, and he could see the glow of the fire as it bounced off the sky and over the edge of the cliff towards him. He had killed her, hadn’t he?  

But no. There’d been no scream. But that would be Mallery’s way. She was strong. She’d meet the next life with a straight face, wouldn’t she? Oh, he’d killed her. 

A face appeared over the edge of the cliff above him, filling the entirety of Nub’s vision. It was dark, and rough, and glowering. The mask had come to face him now. It had finished with Mallery. Now it was Nub’s turn. 

He let out a long breath. “Neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature…” The mask opened its mouth. “Now, it’s been scary, sir, I know. Just give me your hand. I’ll have you up out of there.” 

And he saw the face, and it was a kindly man, with a mustache as kind as spring, and eyes as bright and loving as a fire on a night in winter. He was reaching down a long, brawny arm to Nub, and in a twinkling, the three of them were sitting on the level sand together. And Mallery embraced him as Joan of Arc embraced her martyr’s fate, and said, “Nub, look at the ocean. And in the morning we’ll go to San Francisco, and then we’ll go home. How does that sound?” 

Nub smiled. “If you really want to go to San Francisco, I guess I’ll come too.”

Andrew Winter received the Dana & Elinor Kies “Rose Award” for this short story.