Hello Dave, Fritz:

This is Riley here. Morgan lost a finger during an escrimba lesson and asked me to send this to you. We managed to find this short story written in the back of one of Jack Warren's books, but it looks like we may have found all of the bequeathed books at the main library. We're going to look at some other branches this week, and try to find out more about Jack and Devon.

Riley

IV.

"So this is how it started. The wind jumpers, that is, this is how they started.

"I'm telling you this because I saw you look up just now. And I saw your jaw do that slackening thing that says: 'if I wasn't so intent on not appearing to be a yokel or a rube or an okie or a tourist my jaw would have just dropped to my chest and I would have drooled a slight river of drool while staring skyward, but since I'm concerned about not being perceived as unsophisticated I will instead pretend a bemused curiosity.'

"Don't worry, kid. When I first saw them, so many days ago, I stood and I gaped and all of my worries and concerns just blew away.

-Q:

"No. I don't know how they do it. No one does.

"What they do is, they jump from a tall building and the wind gusts catch them and dance them through the sky. They never fall, and only the two of them can do it. Others have tried and failed—there was some pain involved. Others pretend they have done it—you hear it at parties sometimes—and tell stories of their wind jumping, but you shouldn't believe stories. You shouldn't, of course, even believe me.

"I saw one of them once on the cable cars, the Powell-line I think. It was the girl, the woman. And I asked her a bunch of questions.

"I think she was surprised to be recognized. It's not like their pictures are in the paper or on the web or anything, I just kind of saw this weird glow about her. This "I'm blessed and can dance upon the wind" type glow. You'd have to be there. So I was there and asking her questions and bugging her and just being a general pain in the ass, but does she mind? Does she roll her eyes or stonewall me or tell me to fuck off? No. She answers all of my dumb-ass questions and is polite and warm and funny and totally humble. The way she talked was like the whole wind-jumping thing was pay-your-bills regular, y'know? Like everyone was always in the sky laughing and leaping in the clouds.

-Q:

"She was on the cable-car because he was at work. Try not to ask so many dumb questions, okay boy? I put gas in my car before I drive, so try and think a bit before you speak.

-Q:

"Because they can only wind jump together. That's why. Maybe you are a yokel, y'ever think of that?

"Anyway. Where was...so I ask her about how it started. And she blushes a bit, and her brown hair slips from behind her ear and falls against her face and she tucks it back behind her ear again and she is just so lovely that my heart stops beating in my chest cause it's afraid to change anything at all about that moment and the utter whole of my being wants to just stop time and sit next to her forever.

"But then my heart beats again and time rolls on.

"She tells me that she can't really remember how it happened. She and her guy were just kind of dating, seeing each other—whatever you call it—and one night they're outside on a hill somewhere and there's conversation and laughing and innuendo and sly little jokes and she's having a great time just, y'know, being there with him. And the guy, too, is just having this great time being there with her and he's consumed with this feeling of just that he's the luckiest guy in San Francisco right now. While at the same time she's full of this feeling of being the luckiest girl in San Francisco. And they look into each other's eyes and have this great spontaneous hug, and they're squeezing and hugging and emphatically not-letting-go and both of them sigh.

"Which is when she looks down and sees that they're a couple hundred feet above the city, just kind of lightly bouncing on the wind.

"And that was it. The luckiest guy in San Francisco met the luckiest girl in San Francisco and they started dancing in the clouds.

Jack