tokyo leapt

Tokyo took a long look over the industrial skyline. A boy who shared his name with the city. Maybe that was the reason behind the strange synergy he felt with the architectural jungle that sprawled before him. 

“You good?” Anders called from the opposite rooftop. 

Tokyo nodded, inhaling sharply through his nostrils. His eyes hovered no lower than the horizon. You don’t look down, not ever do you look down, unless grabbing a quick promo shot with a drone of the Go Pro. It was too easy to tempt fear. 

Though it had been thirteen years all together, tackling countless landscapes in numerous cities, each jump still felt like the first. But somehow as a tribe, as a team, it made each leap of faith easier. As a collective they had mastered, to whatever extent possible, that hyper focused mind space. Tokyo latched into that same meditative mind-focus with every sense of his knowing. It took a different kind of a man to stare instinct in the face like that and still know you’re going to jump. 

“Tok!” his friend called from the opposite roof. It wasn’t like him to hesitate this much and he knew they were curious if his mind was getting the better of him. It never did - not any of them, except one experience years back which resulted in a few cracked ribs on a forty story leap. 

Tokyo closed his eyes, listening to the hum of the traffic below. His mind keyed into the vibrations of the wind that curled past him. Somewhere in the middle he and his city became one. His eyes flung open, now fully rooted in his connection. 

The sun warmed the backs of his ears in a coaxing calmness, beckoning him to stay where he was, as the whirling of a siren below mimicked his now quieted anxieties. Bending his knees into a deep plié, Tokyo’s arms floated back as he sprung forward and leapt. 

-b

October 12, 2020

Photo Credit: Beazy D