One Foot in Front of the Other

A Story by brian_navarro

Dany must face her fear of heights while under threat from a band of Guerrillas.

Stooped over with her hands pressed into her bloodied knees while her lungs burned for air, Dany helplessly stared into the rocky chasm below looking for some courage. Only then, a young shrill voice shouted from across the way, “Come on Dany!”

Dany’s head, heavily weighted from exhaustion, slowly craned upward. On the other side of the old ragged bridge stood her little sister Kara, safe and sound, which put her mind at ease.

Just go, she then wanted to shout back knowing that Kara might be safer if she did. But instead she swallowed those words through the deep wheezing set of breaths she took in, and grabbed the crooked pole that staked her side and stood upright. Who knows what else is out here.

But then before she got her tennis shoes planted, a series of loud and rapid whooshes crudely spun Dany around like a puppet. “S**t! You fuckers scared me,” she sharply muttered on seeing a pair of vultures taking flight from one of the few trees that dotted the hill behind her. Dany’s eyes remained affixed to the high slant of uneven and pitted terrain, certain to see the Guerrillas standing there on top. But to her relief, it was empty.

“Ok, just one foot in front of the other,” Dany next assured herself, hoping to calm her nerves about how far down the drop really was. A moment later, she bravely took that step only to have the boards sway left under her hundred and twenty pounds of weight, nearly tossing her over as her hand slid from pole to rope.

Under those gritty, rough threads her hesitation continued despite knowing better, that she had to press on with them certainly not far behind. Does splenda in the fuel tank even work? she anxiously wondered, hoping the makeshift molotov she tossed afterwards was enough to slow them down.

“HURRY UP,” her sister insisted, sweat gleaning across her visage of worry, highlighted in every crease she made watching her big sister remain still. When Dany finally began to move, she sighed, only then to gasp on seeing the bridge sway to the right as Dany grasped the other side in taking her next step.

Dany wanted to shout back, but she knew the anger in her voice would only shake the bridge more. Come on damn it, move! she told herself, insisting she move despite the rocky motion of the bridge in each step she took towards the other side, forcing herself to concentrate on her sister’s face to keep from looking down.

By the time she reached the middle, the bridge was severely slumped, her snail’s pace drawing more shouts from her little sister, which she dutifully ignored. You’re only half my weight, so bugger off Kara, was all she kept thinking, wanting to smack her sister upside the head. But then she heard, “They’re behind you!” and Dany whipped around to see the silhouettes of a dozen men at the top of the hill. S**t!

Her right hand dropped from the rope to the knife holstered on her hip, the short, silver blade pressed into the flesh of her thighs with the cold of steel given way to the hot sweat, as she contemplated cutting the rope there and then. She can at least make it, she thought before turning back around to Kara’s encouragement and remembering they were in this together.

Dany took hold of the rope again, the knife tucked between her fingers, before quickening her pace across the bridge where she saw the sway of the bridge go from gentle ripples to large waves, her footing nearly being lost by the tenth step.

“Come on! You’re almost there!” Dany heard, a few feet from solid ground.

Then the crackle of gunfire began, cutting into the bridge from afar to motivate Dany to take those next steps. Only then, she got hit in the back of the thigh and face planted into the boards after her knee gave way.

But Dany was a fighter, and with a solid roar of anger, fear, and determination, the young woman pulled herself the last foot where she leapt onto solid ground, while shouting to her sister, “CUT THE ROPE,” after having tossed her the knife.

With a few hacks from the sharp blade, the ropes began to split. The added commotion of the soldiers trying to cross the bridge caused it to snap, the bridge collapsing toward the abyss below with only the screams of desperate men left in its wake.

With the help of her sister, Dany guided them up and over the minor hump toward an unforgiving desert. Should be a piece of cake from now on, she jested in silence, her knife back in hand.