The Chair by James L. Rubart Read Free Book Online

this wasn’t most Saturdays.
    He was already awake—thinking about the jump—and the sunlight peppering his eyelids convinced him to get up. A hint of blue spruce filled his nostrils and the deep cold of the morning almost felt like splashing water on his face.
    He glanced at the others. Still sleeping but he’d need to wake them as soon as he made coffee. Instant java yes, but it was still coffee. The forecast said no wind, but he didn’t want to take chances. This would be the lowest jump he’d done in two years, and he didn’t want any uninvited breezes to crash the party.
    The lower the jump, the higher the adrenaline factor. He smiled and rubbed his hands together.
    By the time the water boiled like a minicauldron, Tori had crawled out of her sleeping bag and sat on a boulder next to the Soto OD-1R Micro cooking stove.
    “Morning,” Corin said.
    “Barely.” Tori frowned at him. “Ugh.”
    “I love you too.”
    “Remind me.” Tori pulled off her stocking cap and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. “Why did we hike for three hours yesterday to get up here?”
    “Are you kidding? Look at this view.” Corin motioned to the stunning display of the Rockies in the distance. “Plus no one has ever BASE jumped from this spot.”
    “I’m feeling better already.” Tori extended her coffee cup and Corin filled it halfway.
    “No, I paid for a full cup. I need it to the brim.”
    He laughed and complied.
    “This coffee looks thin.” She stared into her cup.
    “Jittery and jumping only should get close to each other in the dictionary.”
    “Coffee doesn’t make me jittery. Jumping does.” She took a sip and grimaced. “Should I get the others up?”
    Corin rubbed his head and squinted at her through the sun filling their small campsite. “The other night, when we were talking about that chair I got the other day, you said your parents would say it was made by Jesus.”
    “So?”
    “Do you think it’s possible?”
    “That He made the chair the lady brought you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I don’t know; why does it matter?”
    “I took a good look at the thing yesterday. She was right. Whoever made it had considerable skill. It’s a fascinating piece. The quality is a little mind-blowing.”
    Tori stood, drained the last of her coffee, and dropped her cup at Corin’s feet. “You’re making my head hurt. Too early for comic-book talk, okay?”
    “Agreed.” Corin laughed and picked up her cup. “But not too early for jumping off a cliff. Let’s get the others up.”
    Twenty minutes later Corin, Tori, and six others stood in a circle, arms and hands locked onto each other’s shoulders.
    Corin glanced around at their bright eyes staring back at him. “Ready?”
    In unison they chanted, “Some people snort for it, some people eat mushrooms for it, some people mainline java. All we gotta do to get that wonderful wired feeling is jump, baby, jump!”
    The group broke up to put on their parachutes, and the only sound for the next five minutes was the cinching of harnesses and the deep breathing of people scared enough to feel like they had to pee, even if they’d gone two minutes earlier.
    “All good?” Corin asked.
    After hearing agreement from the other seven, he led them to the edge of the cliff, then put his arm around Tori. “You want to go first?”
    “Be my guest.” Tori motioned to the edge and Corin laughed.
    Tori looked over the drop-off. “This never fails to get my heart beating five hundred times faster than it should be.”
    “Heart rate up without exerting yourself. It’s the noncardio, cardio workout,” offered another of the jumpers.
    Corin looked over the edge and his heart pounded like an Olympic sprinter after running the hundred meters. No matter how many times he’d flung himself over the edge of a cliff, his hands still went damp the moment he looked down.
    And every time an image of himself lying broken on the rocks below seared itself into his mind. And every time