Alexa Daskalakis

The Edge

​Where holding on meets what no longer exists.

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There was a man who lived near a cliff.
Not beside it—just near enough to know it was there.
He never looked straight at it, but he could feel the drop when the wind changed.
It was always in the corner of things.
Past the last fence.
Beyond the tree line.
Unspoken, but present.

He carried a key in his coat pocket.
It belonged to a door he hadn’t touched in years.
Sometimes he’d turn it in his fingers,
press his thumb along the edge—
not to use it,
just to remember that he could.

He thought cliffs held.
That people stayed.
That time didn’t move if he didn’t.

Then one morning the ground was different.
Lighter somehow.
The birds were louder.
The air had shifted.

He walked the path like always—
same boots, same coat, same slow steps—
but where it used to bend toward the trees,
it ended.

Just ended.

The cliff had broken in the night.
Clean.
No warning.
No sound.

And when he reached into his pocket for the key,
it was still there—
only now
there was nowhere left
to turn it.