He was terrified of heights.

She of small and confined places.

Yet they were thrown together into a flailing freefall and neither one wanted to pull the cord an inch away from their hands. He clutched at her as if she were an anchor that would snag a fleeting cloud and slow their descent, but she clawed her way free of his embrace and only managed to catch her breath once free of him. It was a hopeless and tragic endeavor that could only end in both of their bodies dashed against the cliff face and scattered about the canyon. The buzzards will pick at the viscera and tissue strewn for half a mile across the rocks, gabbing back and forth in their shrill and snappish bird speak about the futility of love. The sun will bake the dried blood caked across the red landscape and the rain will absolve the remnants of the lovers until they soak into the parched earth.

Days, Weeks, Months, maybe years from now, a steady heavy rain will fall across the landscape and draw puddles together. They'll conspire to form a flood to climb over the walls of the canyon and empty into the gorge below. Miniscule bits of bone will clot against the rocks and pebbles of the river bed until only the finer pieces of sinew and diluted blood of the lovers reach the lake.

For days the lovers will be devoured by creatures, inhaled through gills and recycled back into the lake.

A lonely hiker, out to clear his mind, will set up camp by the lake and recline against a log to worship the beauty of the stars. A dampness from the moss at his back will soak through his shirt and linger over the small of his back to flirt with the sweat there. She will love him for what he is: a free spirit who appreciates the simple pleasures and never turns down a chance to star gaze.

Her former lover will watch her go the next morning, carried against this hiker's fevered skin into the woods. While there was still much of her left in the lake, her soul had found its peace and all that was left was the degenerate leftovers.

The particles of his heart grew too heavy and settled against the sediment of the lake floor. The cool clay embraced him.

On nights when the wind was still and not a single ripple disfigured the glassy skein of the lake, he could look and see the stars from where he lay and knew his love was beneath the same sky, gripping to a bead of sweat on the hiker's brow, and gazing up into the night sky, imagining a free fall.