…slide down metal, brushing snow. Above: roaring jet engines. Below: darkness.
Inside: a chime. “Turbulence.” Outside: an earthquake. Bounce. Bounce. Fall.
Ant 1: there must be a bottom. The dark only seems infinite because our sight is finite. Beyond the clouds, beyond the snow: solidity. Reality.
Ant 2: there is not, cannot be, a bottom. Only endless falling, endless dark.
The optimist is right, objectively. But reality isn’t always survivable. Terminal velocity is an approximation, not a guarantee.
But the bottom is not here–not yet.
They fall: thorax to thorax, legs wrapped in desperation, mandibles flapping against the protecting wind.