Learning to Fall from Flying

Jaime | Ben Pallansch | photography

 Learning to Fall from Flying by Bruno Chung

Mr. Jack Lorenz hasn’t been in his mind lately; He’s been absent for a little while. Not to say that he’s dead or mad: Jack Lorenz has simply been frolicking in a grassy pasture. Mr. Lorenz is (well, was) a worker in a large insurance agency. It doesn’t particularly matter how he came to this because he arrived to the grassy pasture much like we do --much like everyone else does. Lorenz specializes in construction. He conducts damage evaluations for construction equipment involved in insurance claims. Lorenz is particularly good at evaluating cranes. Large, towering steel behemoths which were meant to raise coal and brimstone closer to Heaven, only to bring them back down. Lorenz knew everything there was to know about cranes.  

Every day, Lorenz came to work and sat at a computer and stared at blurry and pixelated images and entered numbers on a spreadsheet. Of course, Lorenz had no idea what his job actually did. Lorenz was so hopelessly oblivious to what using a crane actually meant that every time he worked, the metabolic rift doubled. He just did as he was told. For all he knew, the decades he had spent working--pushing pencils and shuffling papers--for the mega-conglomerate might only amount to powering the ridiculously small and frequently faulty minifridge in the cramped space of the break room. But whether he was burning the Amazon or running the copier didn’t matter to Lorenz as long as he was being paid. In fact, being paid seemed to be the only thing that mattered. Lorenz stepped over heads for this job. He backstabbed coworkers and neglected family for this job. Lorenz spent hours inside, surrounded by the stale, dead air of the office. If he had given himself enough time to notice between his random periods of consuming and working, Lorenz would have realized he was profoundly lonely. 

But he did notice it.  

When Lorenz heard that the water had run off with his parents and they had drowned while sailing--parents he had not spoken to for twelve years--he searched for an explanation in the impermeable concrete and asphalt of the city. When Lorenz realized that the white folds of the hospital bed and the smell of isopropyl alcohol would not be able to clutch him against the water that would eventually run off with him, he was assaulted by a foreign sensation of helplessness. A sensation which was coupled with the devastating realization that Lorenz was irreparably alone. 

He went home, sat down, and turned on his television, where he went on a long trip, away from detergents, away from dirt, away from spreadsheets, away from stars. From a distance, you would think he was sleeping: He lay inert and glassy-eyed, staring at the screen, phone in one hand, food in the other, completely immobile. However, it would have been impossible to wake him -- he wanted to sleep. 

Very little happens in this pasture. In fact, absolutely nothing happens. Nothing should happen because Lorenz hates change. The grass, short synthetic fibers that are coarse like copper wire, its fingers grasping out for some variation, extends for miles and miles. Perfectly flat, infinite space surrounded Lorenz. The only thing that broke the vast expanse of plastic green was a single, freestanding oak door welded shut. Nothing in front; nothing behind. 

Crouching, Lorenz pressed his eye to the door’s keyhole. Through it, his past stretched out side by side like an infinite reflection. In the threshold, Lorenz saw himself an infinite number of times: An infinite number of Lorenzes sit at their desks; An infinite number of Lorenzes reach for another beer; an infinite number of Lorenzes stare dead-eyed into a vibrant television screen, for an infinite amount of time. The Lorenz at the keyhole, too, gripped by the commotion and color on the screen, was sucked in and quickly lost track of time, kneeling at the keyhole. 

A soft, low wail broke Lorenz’s trance. He hadn’t noticed at first, but it had gradually gotten louder. Lorenz stood up and gazed about to locate its source. His eyes locked onto a sprout, less than an inch taller than the plastic around it, which had wormed its way through the coarse fibers and was gasping for air, crying and fussing like a baby. Lorenz’s eyes narrowed.  

He stomped on the sprout and went back to the keyhole. 

After a few days, Lorenz was again tormented by the same low wailing sound. Surprised, but not at all deterred, Lorenz turned to the sprout and used his foot to make a green pulp from the thing. He scraped off the disgusting slime from his shoe on the green fibers and went back to observing the television. He would do this twice more. 

The third time, Lorenz gave up on it and tried to focus on the keyhole, despite the noise. But after a few minutes, the wailing had transformed itself into a piercing shriek, intolerably loud. Lorenz turned to the sprout, just as he had done before, and raised his foot in preparation. But he paused, foot mid-air; He had suddenly noticed that with his negligence, the sprout had grown twice its size. Its thin stem was crowded and accompanied by dozens of leaves. And at the center glimmered a bud no bigger than an acorn. Tinges of crimson ventured out against the green that Lorenz had become so accustomed to seeing. As Lorenz knelt to examine the precious gemstone, the tips of his fingers gently encircling the delicate orb, the sprout stopped crying. Its leaves rose upwards, reaching out for him, embracing the tips of his hands. Lorenz hadn’t touched any living thing in years. 

Lorenz abandoned the keyhole. 

The sprout was Lorenz’s obsession. One doesn’t need to water it: One just has to let it grow. Lorenz sat for long hours, staring at the plant intently. When he realized that it may need more space, he broke his fingernail tearing out the plastic fibers to make room for more soil. The feeling of dirt under the fingernails was one that Lorenz had never experienced, and he learned to savor the texture and small rocks embedded in the soil. The process was strangely meditative, and kept him absorbed in his work. Soon, a large patch of soil radiating from the reached the door. The bud grew and grew, until it was as big as Lorenz himself. 

Lorenz kissed the bud, and it unfurled like a butterfly. Beautiful colors of warmth: intense reds merged with bright yellows and specks of gold to create an earthen copper; vermillion bobbed in and out of the melange of fire, sometimes dancing with a tangerine orange; other times, harmonizing with a persimmon yellow. And at the center of it all: Lorenz himself. 

He reaches into his pocket and takes out a brass key. He fits it into the door and unlocks it. The two walk through it holding hands. One becomes his shadow, but they both get up from the couch and turn off the television. They both go upstairs and head towards the bathroom. 

Lorenz takes a shower. The water is ice cold: Today, he is reborn.