Heights

A story narrated from a great height. For more of my writing, go to andrewhenleywriting.wordpress.com

At this great height I am alone in the world. I inhale my surroundings. Inside my wet nose there is a chill of nostril ice. It’s goosebump cold. All over my body, my hairs stand up on end, as if they’re all trying to escape to lower ground. Below me, life goes on. The same old traffic. No one has noticed me.

 

My toes curl around the ledge like an eagle’s talons. I’m not sure I can do it. But I just want this to be over. And jumping is a much quicker way down than climbing. Not to mention less embarrassing. Plus I know I’ll be just climbing back up here next weekend if I don’t jump now. Get it over with, once and for all. I can’t bring myself to look directly down. Not at the hard, flat surface beneath that I’ll soon be absorbed into. So I look further out across the void. A calm, dull stretch disturbed by passersby, oblivious to my perilous perch above them. All I hear is the vague ripple of sound. An incessant white noise of life continuing. Life, conversation and activity. Inhaling again, my shoulders stretch apart and expand involuntarily, like my skeleton has joined my hair in giving up the ghost and now it just wants to climb out and go home. A voice from the ground drags me forward to the point of no return.

“Hey, look up there!”

 

Everything stops. For one brief moment, everything in my known world stops and looks at me. Sometimes I think that’s the main reason people climb up here. It’s not so they can jump off. It’s so they can have one moment to hold onto for eternity where they are the centre of not just their own existence, but the existence of everyone present for this single, shining moment. The ripples of sound dissipate into silence. So quiet you could hear a pin drop. Quiet so they can hear me drop. As if it’s not enough that my hair and my skeleton don’t want to be here, my heart starts pounding on the door of my ribcage and my stomach bungees up my throat, both fighting to escape.

 

The only part of me that seems to want to be here are my legs. They want to be here so much, they’ve decided to stay. Forever. They’re not moving. I try to lift my foot to step forward, just an inch, but my knee crushes the rebellion. Stage fright. I inhale again, consuming not only my surroundings this time, but the watching crowds, their irises and pupils.

 

Among the crowds of starers, faceless apart from their drillbit eyes, some familiar faces. My mother, the fretful type in her cateyed glasses and sweatshirt from my older sister’s swim team, shouts “Get down from there!”

Next to her, an old friend of the family readies his rough palms in a makeshift megaphone around his coarse lips. He started going bald in his 20s, and the hairs that remained were so shocked by this they turned an illuminating shade of white. His hands amplifying his words, he shouts “Take a deep breath! Remember everything you know, and jump!”

My fretful mother is in disbelief. I see them argue but cannot hear. My mother wins, according to the wisdom of crowds, as a faceless drillbitter shouts up “Hang on, I’ll come and get you!”

 

I don’t want anyone to get me.

“Kid, sooner or later you’re gonna have to do it. Just jump!” Uncle Whitehair shouts through his surprisingly effective palm megaphone.

“He’ll be killed!”

 

My feet rise up against the oppressive knees and step to the very edge. I stretch out my arms in a Crucifixion pose. Bend and extend. I jump. Somersault into a tucked pike and I hit the water. A painful but effective entry from the 10m board. I over correct and my back lands too flatly on the pool, resulting in heavy splashback. But I did it. The escaping water lands on the watching crowd. All they wanted was to see the impact. A little slice of schadenfreuder. I survived, unhurt. They’re disappointed.