Mr. Beast #3

Mr. Beast! He’s caught inside a tree, far down! I was the one to see it happen. On landing, he was flying too low, he tumbled into vast, shimmering redness. He is mangled now. His legs are over his head, tearing from the bottom. His arm, twisted wrong. His hand is broken in his glove! Poor Mr. Beast! His face gets so stuck between his legs and strings hanging down from the device, being bothered by nasty insects. Wet with each other, and their pointy legs stick into him. Mr. Beast’s throwing of his head over and over again becomes shocking, but the disgusting, eerie things want him too much to let go of his warm cheeks. He is helpless and alone now. Even from here, it’s obvious, the place where he entered the tree. It’s where you see a mangled, yellow hang glider caught in the middle of all the red. Everywhere shimmers red. That's where I imagine he is. Helpless. “The wind today is very good. Ideal for hang gliding,” the professional said as each of our necks fell over backwards to watch colorful triangles fly over us. He’ll be dead before long, I think. If, for instance, he were bitten by one of the venomous spiders. For instance, one is waiting there to feel a snag in its web. On the edge of sleep, this spider has the same dream again, that all spiders repeatedly have, a warm body pulls her two long teeth into itself, more, more in, getting warmer, more wet, more, more in. And then Mr. Beast will come crashing in through the red leaves, making a lot of racket, ruining the web and the dream, and then struggle around in his trap that he’s made of himself and scream and howl and be terrible. He’ll be dead before long, I say.

From the edge of the jump off point, looking into the distance where Mr. Beast disappeared to, the depth and openness of the chilly air recalls for me a time when I was brought to the Grand Canyon with my little sister. Dad had taken us, he had given us both train tickets. It was the first time that I had ever been on a train. The car in front of us was a breakfast car, I remember. When it began, I would be coming back and forth carrying a paper plate balancing muffins and grapes and so on. A white woman stood in front of me in line, once. It was because she had cut. She had cut in line in front of me and twisted her neck to sneer at me. That's why I remember her. When we arrived at the station, the Grand Canyon was just up the hill. We crossed a road where cars had stopped to let us pass, and climbed up 10 steps, then left 6 steps, and then right 9 steps. By construction of the land, the top was flat and easy to walk across. When I finally peered over the edge of the world and saw unfathomable space, my spirit flew out of me! far away! straight out in front of me! It went to touch the other side of the world, the far side of the canyon, through the dust, returning with it seconds later. In those moments, a gust of wind could have blown me into the canyon. I had become a bodhisattva all of the sudden and become corrupt again. It was all so quick. We walked a long ways away from the station, on the rim of it. Then rain came. The buses overfilled. The buses where chased by running people. Lightning came. Cold wind came. Wet, we hardened. Beneath pine tree branches, we waited like spiders for lights or motion on the road, but none came. After, it was a long time.

The wind forever tears leaves away from trees at the jumping off point in Nagano. Sitting in the backseat of the professional’s car, I am telling him where Mr. Beast crash-landed. We veer to the left of the road where it widens for a moment. We open and close our doors and are standing on the ground again, much lower, listening together for Mr. Beast.

Of course I hear him. Mr. Beast is not far. Walking toward the direction of the voice, the professional carries a ladder over his shoulder, and I carry a long wooden stick with a metal hook attached to one end. Finally, we arrive at a pile of clothes. Good! I think. Mr. Beast has freed himself! But I cannot celebrate with my body. The forest is meditating. In every direction, bright white light reaches in through the spaces between branches full of violently red leaves to pet our heads. Sitting nude on a branch, high up in the tree, Mr. Beast is silent. Soft wind tosses his hair. He doesn't know that I've come. At the base of the tree, we wait with our ladder and stick, unable to speak.