The Way Down

The rungs of the ladder were splitting one by one, he was on his way down. Hands picking up splinters and friction boiling through his palms, right through to his elbows the pain was excruciating. As each rung split beneath his right foot he could feel the soul had sliced apart and each broken rung now flashed red before his gibbous eyes. The left foot that flailed in the velocity behind him kept trying to join it's brother but he was going down so fast. The rungs would only spit his foot back out causing him to wobble away and that would not be good. He would not be flung from this great ladder from so high, he must make it to the bottom. The cold air ripped at his bare back and the stick that was strapped there was becoming hot, burns began to bubble through.
Finding a warped sense of balance, the pain began to mould and melt away from his mind until he became so connected to the agony, he was able to separate away from it. As he allowed himself to fall into the calm he was brought back to what he had been so close to. He had almost touched it. He had almost licked that cream. He saw the perforated edge as it's side slips away from the sun and sweeps the light from the nearby stars. He had been that close. If he had just made the ladder that bit taller, just that little bit, he could've climbed into one of those inviting pocks and snoozed awhile before the return.
But he had failed. This revelation brought him back to the searing pain in his hands and feet and face and back and whole body aching, just stay attached. Maybe she would forgive him. Maybe she would read his marks as efforts and she would understand. Love him all the same.
The earth was nearing and he knew he needed to slow himself some how otherwise his knees would be taking root in his chest. He slammed the left foot to join the right and the barb of pain shot so fast from his foot to his head it cracked his left wisdom tooth. But it was enough. He slowed at least and just in time to finally stop the splitting rungs just three above where the earth sat waiting for his failure.
He wobbled and fell back, the dammed stick jabbing into base of his spine as if to add one last twist of mockery.
She had watched the whole event from her window.
He got his breath back and managed to sit, his right foot a peeled blood orange. His left swollen and nails so split they stuck out at angles like razorblades. His hands were pumped to twice their size and the blisters twice again. He turned round and saw her there. He couldn't read her expression, just see her outline next to the candle in the window.
She wasn't coming out.
He began to crawl then, unable to walk and leaving streaks behind him he made it to the wet grass. He stopped for a moment, cooling his palms and trying not to pant like a dog. Finally he made it to her door, on all fours. He swung the stick round to land in his lap and at the same time it smashed against the door, saving him the job of knocking.
She opened the door, and looked over him at where the ladder had now become two strange stilts stood in the ground and were wobbling uneasily on the breeze. Calm, cold and woven with disgust she confirmed his failure,
'You said you'd bring me the moon on a stick.'