- Marilyn - Bullet.

"Come on, Karen!" I called into the wind.
    A breathless voice behind me said, "I'm coming!"
    I tore down the pavement on my bike, drinking in the summer air.  Karen trailed along after me.  The day was bright and bursting with ambition.  Weaving my tires across the asphalt, I grinned.  Adrenaline pulsed in my veins.  Soon I'd reached the spot, and I waited for my friend to catch up.  She was pumping her skinny legs, barely dragging her bicycle along.
    "Give me a second," she said.
    I swung myself off the seat and leaned against a tree.  Before us lay a gaping concrete crater.  This was the levee, the dry pit behind the town's water supply.
    "Ain't it beautiful?"  I watched Karen's expression as she approached me.
    She got one look at the dam, and the color vanished from her face.
    "Marilyn, you can't be serious."  Her voice quivered.  "My mother will kill me.  Actually kill me."
    "Sheesh, Karen, don't be chicken.  Jerry and the boys all did it!"  I pulled my wheels to the edge.
    "Well, Jerry's arm is currently in a sling. . . ."  Karen sighed.  "Don't you think it's a little bit dangerous?"
    I climbed onto the bike.  "'Course it is," I told her.  "What fun would it be otherwise?  Come on."  I slid my wrist beside hers, pressing our matching love bead bracelets together.  "Best friends forever."
    Karen swallowed, but I didn't wait for her answer.  There was only one way to get her to follow me.  I turned away to face the chasm and, closing my eyes, let my front wheel tip down.
    Feet on the pedals.  I began to fly.
    My eyes shot open, and I felt a smile exploding on my face.  My heart was about to pump itself inside out.  Earth and sky streamed past me in a whirl of color, and I realized that I wasn't breathing.  The wind was breathing for me, blasting through my skin and hair.  I screamed, partly out of pure terror, but mostly out of exhilaration.  For I had become a bullet.
    Behind me, Karen's bike was rattling down the slope.  She echoed my scream, and we raised our voices together, shouting into the clouds.
    We were victims of the blind boldness of youth.