by Greg Kincaid
Angel put her hands on her hips and played her trump card. “Ted, you’re the man; just go first.”
Ted removed his cowboy hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. “We’re short-staffed at Legal Aid. The pay on the reservation is lousy. They can’t afford to lose me. You know that. Remember what Shinn said. How valuable I’ve been.”
“That may be, but you can’t afford to lose your wife, either. It took you thirty years to find a good one. Remember? The dogs love me more than they love you. You go first.”
Ted leaned over and kissed Angel on the forehead. “You win.” He tentatively put one foot in the crate and tested his weight. It seemed solid enough. Two tooth-challenged men pulled him across from the other side of the gorge. The wind blew, causing the wooden container to sway back and forth. Ted closed his eyes and grinned. It was a rush. When he got to the other side, he fell out of the crate, wide-eyed and excited.
He brushed off his pants—waterproof, of course, as recommended in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Trekking in the Himalayas. He had secretly checked out the book and planned the whole wedding trip in advance. So far, so good.
The Sherpas pulled the crate back across the gorge and opened the door so Angel could climb in and cross. She hesitated and then backed away from the crate. Perhaps she should just let him go see the monastery by himself. If you’ve seen one mountain monastery, you’ve seen them all. The sun streamed through the valley and illuminated the rushing river below. The water was pristine and reflected dazzling beams of light that danced on the canyon walls. Angel told herself that the crate had made it across the gorge thousands of times and would make it again. Still, it just didn’t look safe.
The wind pulled the cooler air down from the mountaintop and brushed her long black hair from her face. Ted glanced at Angel. She was as beautiful, as wild, and as enchanting to him as she had been that first day they smashed into each other. He knew she could do it. She just needed to savor the adventure. He yelled across the gorge, “You can do it!”
Angel looked at the crate and yelled back, “Go ahead without me. I’ll wait here.”
“Angel!”
“Yes?”
Ted directed that the crate be pulled back to his side of the gorge. He then took out a small notebook and pencil that he kept stashed in one of his vest pockets and scribbled a note. He put the note in the crate and they pulled it back to Angel’s side of the gorge.
Ted cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled out one word at a time, “Read. The. Note!”
Angel leaned into the crate and picked up the note. After reading it, she could not help laughing. Ted looked so ridiculous standing over there in Aunt Lilly’s orange vest. Still, his energy was good. It was a nice wedding gift from Aunt Lilly, but he should have left it at home. She climbed into the crate as if she were climbing onto her bike for a ride around the block. The Sherpa gave the signal and the crate slowly traveled back across the gorge. She closed her eyes at first and then decided to look around her. How often does one get an opportunity to view life from this perspective? When the crate slowed for a second, she threw Ted’s note over the side and watched it slowly flutter to the bottom of the gorge.
When she closed her eyes, the printed letters from Ted’s note were seared in the black spaces of her mind where she could still easily retrieve them.
IMAGINE.
