Assistant Editor Maggie Su: This gut-punch of a story begins with the simple statement: “The thing I remember most about Kim is that she is always falling.” At first, it seems contradictory that the opening is both retrospective (“I remember”) and grounded in the present tense (“she is”). Yet as the story progresses, it becomes clear that this piece is invested in collapsing time, in freeze-framing and rewinding inexplicable violence. As the falls accumulate and build atop one another, it is the narrator who continuously picks Kim back up again and again in an attempt to make meaning of the spectacle.
To hear Koss read their story, click below:
Kim
The thing I remember most about Kim is that she is always falling. Sometimes I am above her, watching her body crash through the glass and bounce on the pavement below. Sometimes I’m with her, she’s laughing, then she trips and screams before she hits the glass. Sometimes I arrive afterward, hunch over a railing, and see her splayed below like a bloody Hans Bellmer doll. Sometimes I fall with her and we smile at each other all the way down. Usually, though, she falls alone. Sometimes someone, drunk, bumps into her and she falls. Sometimes I try to grab her while other times I watch helplessly from across the room. Sometimes she falls at my feet. Other times she falls at the feet of strangers. Sometimes she falls into an abyss and we are unable to retrieve her broken body. Sometimes a fight breaks out and an angry woman with blonde hair pushes her. Sometimes her boyfriend does it. Sometimes the police arrive, grab her and her boyfriend, and in the struggle, Kim falls through the skylight. Sometimes she’s leaning against the railing, laughing, holding a beer in her left hand, and the railing snaps. Sometimes she and her boyfriend argue over the drugs he says she stole. He grabs her arm, and the torque of her body as she attempts to free herself carries her over the edge of the railing. Sometimes the party is on the roof and she falls through the skylight into the crowd in the building below. Sometimes she’s in a movie on TV falling in slow motion. Sometimes she falls in the newspaper when we read about it the next day. Sometimes her ex-boyfriend shoots her in the head and then she falls. Sometimes she deliberately jumps and then changes her mind halfway down. Sometimes she doesn’t change her mind. Sometimes she falls thirty feet, sometimes a hundred. Sometimes she lands on her face, limbs spread. Sometimes her brains scatter over the shiny wood floor. Sometimes she falls a short distance, lands on her head, and her neck snaps. Sometimes she dangles by one arm on the railing for a long moment before it gives way and she falls. Sometimes most of the people don’t notice and the music continues playing until the ambulance arrives. Sometimes it’s a small party, the music stops, and everyone peers over the railing in silent horror. Sometimes she falls through the skylight in my bathroom into the tub while I’m bathing. Sometimes I run downstairs and listen to incomprehensible words garbled through a mouth full of blood. Sometimes she is in a light-green body bag with a shiny silver zipper. Sometimes she falls up through the skylight and disappears, then reappears and falls up again. Sometimes she does this in reverse. Sometimes she is wrapped in gray felt saturated with blood. Sometimes she falls through the railing and screams all the way down and the echo is heard through the building. Sometimes she is so fucked up she doesn’t notice she’s falling. Other times, she is stone sober.
Koss is a queer midwestern writer, artist, web designer, and illustrator. They have been illustrating for Vestal Review. Recent publications include Diode Poetry and Spillway.
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