Ascension

I can hear someone weeping. It’s me.

Shut up, says the man below me. I’m standing on his shoulders.

The tears, he says, wobbling. They’re destabilizing you.

I love you, I tell him. His shoulders tense.

I can’t talk about this right now.

His grasp on my ankles tightens.

Ronan? I ask him the next day. I’m on his shoulders again. Nasty habit, we’ve got to break it.

Yes.

Am I heavy? I dig my toes into his clavicle.

Very.

I love you, I say.

I know.

The audience boos. We have an audience today, encircling us in the town square. They think we’re performance art, and maybe we are.

Ronan takes in the frowns around him. He likes to be liked and here he is not.

I love you a little, he acquiesces.

You love me a lot. I smile with teeth like my lips are stapled open, like the pageant girls. People clap. They adore me.

I want to stand on your shoulders today, Ronan says.

Impossible, I tell him.

You’ve always been selfish, he says as I climb onto his knees, then shoulders.

The people arrive promptly. There are more of them. I think about stability. I don’t let myself wobble. My body is sharp, Ronan but a boulder beneath me.

You smell like a social climber, Ronan whispers, his voice sliding up my leg.

He’s right. I think about all the people, all over the world, that I can climb. I am boundless. The audience throws flowers. Daisy, daffodils, dandelions. They pile up at Ronan’s feet, the pile growing like a mountain. Soon, Ronan is buried and there is only me.