I've heard that a human leg can snap like a twig, but this kid's snapped like a rubber band. That's how it sounded too, wet and heavy against the surface of the Schuylkill. We watched from the water, stunned silent, and the birds went quiet, and the traffic on the 61 overpass ceased. The wild graffiti on the face of Peace Rock may even have dulled a little.

With my camera-hand out of the water, I swam like a tri-pod dog toward this kid, his impact still rippling, his screams just now finding their strength. Clouds shut out the sun like, No one look. I could see this moment already from above me, this moment in sepia or greyscale, this moment, his mistake, looped forever on Youtube, a group of girls gasping in Bangladesh, or New York. My mother mouthing, Jesus Christ.
   
I was filming. It was my first summer missing church camp, and I was filming everything with a waterproof handheld, watching my life replay on the library computer, cutting footage in Movie-maker, tweaking the color, cueing up ballads. This movie would one day be a proof-of-concept for my life, evidence I had lived my youth fully, a tool to achieve the green light. Before, it had been God—my giant audience—who saw it all. He watched me not stealing those brownies from the mess hall, smiled as I touched Kait's hand (not breast) during praise songs. He clapped. He tuned-in nightly to hear my mumbled prayers, but that was another summer. This summer, only I watched me. And I wanted, at least, a record. Something to laugh at later, maybe to study, making notes, solving for X. Where X was the reason anyone ever watched me in the first place.
   
The trick is called a gainer. The jump is Peace Rock. The drug: attention. Sorry this is all in pieces. A gainer is a forward-facing backflip. It sounds unnatural, I know, but to watch one happen is divine—like a hawk descending in a spiral, a squirrel's clean leap to a powerline, rain racing toward you from the far shore. You flip backward as you fly forward, your body feeling like some kind of—I can't really say. I never learned to do a gainer. Just how to watch one from the water. Whenever I went off Peace Rock, I sort of squatted into the air, yelping as my curled toes broke the river. It didn't make for good tape. My friends called it doing a loser. The river is called the Schuylkill, which comes from the word skulking, which is one way to describe how it moves, low and hidden, like it's done something wrong, broke curfew, and the current's now trying to sneak past Dad, back to its bedroom.
   
We were a congregation, the eight of us who swam to him. The red LED of my camera flashed—recording, recording—reflecting off the river. I filmed faces—acne flaring up in dirty water, breath shallow and loud. How many of us even knew this kid's name? Earlier, up on the rock, I'd met him for a minute and offered a joint. He nodded yes, but then I asked if I could film him smoking it, and he said, "You a cop or some shit, bruh?" So I shuffled off the rock alone, ashamed but still filming, nailing another perfect loser.

The kid was floating on his back. He seemed to be doing nothing to keep himself from sinking, just hovering, one leg pulling awkwardly away from his body. "Don't come near me!" he shouted. We made a wide circle around him. Up on the rock, the real cops were arriving. I'm lying, but that was our fear—fines, trespassing, possession. Not drowning. My friends argued loudly about how to call an ambulance without calling the police. I filmed them up there, peering over the edge, yelling too quietly, Who should we call?
   
You, the kid said, pointing at me. The river was dark as a heart, but you could see how his blood colored it copper. I waded closer. You! he shouted. We were all of us shifting downriver. My friends, up on the rock, they were the size of candles. If I'm your star, I want my motherfuckin' monologue, the kid said, grabbing for the camera but finding my arm. He pulled me in and held me up, and I kept the camera on the tips of my fingers, framing up his face. His tension lapsed. He took a deep breath:

Only reason we're here is to see what he made. All he needed was someone to see him. We're made in his image, so we got the same dream. Look at me! We're his fucking audience! But you know what? He's long since left the stage.

But no, that's not it. I'm sorry. I can't recall everything correctly. And there is no record, because I dropped the camera. Into the river. It slipped the surface without even a splash. 

I've been trying to convince myself I like it better this way. Now he can say whatever I want him to have said. But I don't even know where to start. I know the volume of the world turned up as he spoke. The sun bore a hole through the clouds. I think his first word was, Listen. Or—Shhh. He began with greetings, a nod to his parents, the name of his mixtape, a shout-out to Jesus. He wanted to be famous. He rattled off sins, a confessional—he invoked the Old Testament. It was a Sunday, if I remember anything. Someone interrupted him: Nobody's dying, here, bro. He laughed. He clapped. He let my arm go. The truth is I heard not a word over the sound of my own panic, my hands flailing into the river, reaching for that red light, still blinking, somewhere below us.

Tyler Barton's collection of flash fictions, THE QUIET PART LOUD, is available fro pre-order from Split Lip Press.

Read his postcard.

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