Fear of Heights

A Story by Bkraky

Why the carnival? Why in the world the carnival?
He realized now what a terrible mistake he'd made in his selection for his first date with the girl he'd met at the grocery store. There he'd been cool, calm, and collected; with only the choice of which sugar-filled cereal to spend a meaningless four dollars on. Now, staring down at the world beneath him, it was a different situation entirely. On the way up the ride, cool, calm, and collected had been quickly replaced with hot, panicked, and terrified.
He willed away the almost irresistible urge to vomit as he watched the people below, only dots to him now, walk safely on solid ground to more friendly rides like the tea-cups and the small train. He realized his disobedience with the Mantra "don't look down", yet doing so gave him the reassurance that he was, for the time being, not plummeting closer to the concrete below. A thought which proved to have in its company the slightest bit of ease, needed by his troubled and fearful mind. Why must everything that goes up come down? He'd just as quickly stay up here now, thank you. As it was never really the height that had made the hair on his neck stand up, but the prospect of rapidly losing that height in an uncontrollable descent to earth.
Nevertheless he was up here now. And like the apple that fell onto Newton's head, he too would be compelled to come down sooner or later. He'd have chosen much later, but the look on grocery girl's face in the seat next to him showed she was enjoying herself too much for his wish to come true. He was going down. And he was going to go down fast.
The rating of intensity on this ride had been given a 9 on the carnival's self-made rating system designed to help parents choose which rides they would allow their children to go on. He had had no parent to tell him no. And now here he was: putting his life in danger for her, a girl, and a girl with seemingly despicable taste in cereal as she'd decided upon raisin bran over lucky charms: an action he'd always felt should be deemed unconstitutional. But he'd overlooked that folly and asked her on this date, and now his only prayer was to survive this ordeal and have the option to eat a bowl of raisin bran.
As he thought, it occurred to him that they'd been suspended for quite a while now. Perhaps the ride had broken down. If that were the case, he'd start to go to church again; maybe the whole praying thing works after all.
Just then, a short buzzing notice sounded, once, twice. He knew this was the sequence counting down the moments before his fate was decided. But what was the count on? Three? Five? No, three had just passed. Now Four, five, six�"
And down he went. Or was it up? He couldn't tell through closed eyes, and though he knew the ride was designed to crash dangerously towards its base, he had the strangest feeling of being pulled upward into the restraints over his shoulders. Desperately he searched for a happy place, but nowhere he fled in his mind could offer him refuge from the horror his body was experiencing. He only hoped grocery girl was too busy looking elsewhere so she wouldn't discover the terror he could feel etched across his scrunched face. Finally, with a violent buck and then a slower descent, he felt the ride come to a stop and opened his eyes. He looked over and grocery girl was undoing her belt and shoulder restraints.
"Did you enjoy it?" She interrogated after she released herself.
"Oh.. Yeah it was.. Great." He lied.
"They're selling pictures over there! We should get one!" She said excitedly.
Oh no. The height was gone but the nausea was back again with a vengeance. He knew what pictures would reveal. A scrunched faced coward. He couldn't get photos. But then again, he also couldn't deny her request when she was so obviously glowing from the discovery.
"Alright then." He conceded. "Pictures it is..."
As they approached the booth, he subconsciously held his breath, and she gave their seat numbers to the attendant who smiled brightly and typed his demise into a keyboard. A second later, behind her, a printer lit up and began shifting from side to side, laughing at his misfortune.
The attendant spun around, pulled the photo from the machine and handed it to grocery girl in exchange for a couple dollars. She looked at it and beamed, smiling wildly showing perfect white teeth.
"Look!" She giggled.
He cocked his head to one side, not knowing why she was so proud of a photo that clearly illustrated his childishness. Taking the photo slowly he looked at the eight by ten image of a scrunch faced man, eyes closed, and white knuckled hands clenching his shoulder restraints, and to his left, a horrified girl, open mouthed, and eyes shielded by her hands.
He looked up and smiled at grocery girl. She smiled back and scrunched her face up in mock imitation of the man in the picture, only to break character as she began to giggle uncontrollably, and he too, mirrored her laughter, covering his eyes and gaping his mouth in his best impression of her.