The Falls

Date: 5/24/2017

It started out fun. I saw a group of strangers jumping from a really high waterfall. There was this adult male (typical beach guy, a tanned Westerner who is wearing beach shorts) who encouraged everyone to jump, he was so convincing and optimistic that we all did. Some woman even did it with a back flip. It turned out that at the bottom, it was a whole different place. It was the swimming pool area in my old condominium. It was all there. The clubhouse, the exact buildings beside the area... yet my dream self didn't recognize any of that. I looked in front of me and saw the waterfall. It was still there. In my old condominium. And I didn't think it was weird- in fact, I was just amazed at how high it was. It was really, really, really high. The people I was with wanted to jump the second time around, so we started getting off the swimming pool. I got distracted by this old couple (as in sagging skin and skinny bodies) that seemed to be arguing. I never noticed they were there before. The old guy kept telling his wife "You wanna live? Join those guys over there! They're the real jumpers! They know how to live!" He pointed to a group of large men, not necessarily muscular, some were chubby. I saw my Chinese high school classmate with them, let's call him Lance Lin. Again, I didn't think of it as odd. I just smiled because he looked like he was having fun. The old couple was arguing still, but now they were fighting by singing alternate verses of "Something Just Like This" by the Chainsmokers and Coldplay. The group of people I was with started jumping, and I just watched them. One woman, whom I admired for her posture, went first. She landed in her back, on the concrete in front of the swimming pool area. There was no blood. Her back was still straight. She showed no signs of pain whatsoever, only of shame. She hid at the side. Everyone who jumped kept landing at the concrete, one landed at the side of the swimming pool, his body on half water half land. It was really scary. There was no blood. While this was happening, I wondered how we did it in the first place, how we managed to land at the swimming pool. I was thankful I didn't join them.