~Main
~Cast
~Me
Part 4~
I needed to get out. To escape from the confusion, from the barrage of emotions that I didn’t understand. And didn’t want to begin to understand. It had been a long time since I had needed this kind of outlet. But I didn’t know of any other way to get rid of my incessant thoughts, at least for a little while.
It was a long way off, especially for someone temporarily without a car –it was sitting peacefully in some garage in town-. Two hours, three busses, and another hour of walking later brought me to the bottom of a cliff. Actually, it was more of a huge pillar with a flat top, standing in the middle of a more or less flat valley.
Standing alone. Like me. Surrounded by mountains, all far away and together.
You came here to forget, you idiot. Thinking about your problems is not helping here because it’s not the point.
I heaved a sigh, stretched, put my hands to the rock, feeling its structure under my finger pads, and started climbing. I love climbing, feeling my body dangling in emptiness by the tip of my fingers, my muscle straining to keep me alive. I love the control I have on my life in those instants. The adrenaline rush is incredible, and it rises exponentially as I climb higher and higher. The wind, at least, cools my sweat-covered body and I shiver slightly. Bad move. My hands grow moist and I start to slip. Oh oh…
Now I definitely wasn’t thinking about anything else. Well at least my “therapy” is working, although nothing else seems to. Neither my car, nor my arms. I scan the rock face for any good hand holds, and my eyes lock onto a deep crack, a dozen centimeters above my head. Just…out…of…reach. Fuck. Definitely time for swearing. My arm and back muscles are starting to tense so bad they tremble, throwing me further off balance. Oh no. Is it hard to believe that it had never happened to me before? –While I’ve been rock-climbing on and off for three years- And that I’m dumb enough to be doing this without any kind of security. Yes, hence the swearing and sweating and developing panic. Oh yeah, I’m hanging in the air, a hundred or two feet above the ground. With nothing holding me up but my slipping fingers. Oh no no no… And no amount of swearing seems to change anything, except leaving me even more breathless. It doesn’t help that my hair decides to flop into my eyes and stick there aided by the sweat that beads on my forehead.
Okay. Relax. –Yeah, easy to say, eh?- I’m trying to calm down, gritting my teeth against the pain in my back. Now, swing your feet. Smooth. Okay, got it. Let your weight switch to your feeeeettt!!! Ahhh!! Shit! Wow. Fucking hell. I’m never doing this again if I survive. I swear. Oh God. My heart is racing and I can feel the blood throbbing in my temples. All I want to do now is curl into a ball and cry. Really hard. As I try to fight off the tears, a sharp twitch somewhere near my shoulder blades wakes me up to the present situation. But…perhaps I’ll loose consciousness before I hit the ground? It won’t be so bad then. I’ll get to fly for a little while, then plunge into warm oblivion. No more pain, no more…of anything. I hope, but I’m not really sure. And I don’t really enjoy the idea of feeling my body splattering and or shattering into a goo. For a moment, I get morbidly fascinated by what my …remains… would look like, until I reminded myself that the longer I hang there, the mote tired I became; and by this time, I was more than exhausted.
Come on, you idiot! I tried again, this time catching firm footholds, and taking my weight off my abused fingers. I was pressed against the rock, hugging it tightly, and staring into space in a dazed state. My hands trembled as if they were having seizures, and I had to wait a considerable time before I could even think of completing the trip up. Yea, up. Although it was that much more of a fight against gravity than coming down, it was also a lot closer. The next twenty five minutes were a nightmarish daze, where I tried to focus my mind enough to grab the next outcropping with fingers that wouldn’t uncurl and grasp my lifeline. It was one fucking nightmare all right, a nightmare that left me lying flat on my stomach at the top of the cliff, gasping for air, and clutching fitfully at clumps of grass in fear of loosing my grip on life and reality, no matter that my hands couldn’t actually hold anything, not even talking about grass. It took me a very long time for my breathing to slow down to a relatively normal rate –meaning that I wasn’t seeing black sports dancing in front of my eyes, and my lungs weren’t trying to drown themselves in air- and permit me to get onto my hands and knees. My muscles protested most vehemently as I crawled away from the edge without a backward glance.
I couldn’t think. I didn’t want to think. I hurt too much to think about anything else but the terrible pain in my back and arms, so I just kept on crawling…until I ran out of space to move and stared into the void, at the other end of the plateau. Yeah, I had forgotten that I wasn’t at my regular climbing place, but rather in the middle of nowhere, on a god forsaken pillar, of all places, with no way out but down! A very steep “down.”
I wasn’t ready to brave the rock face a second time. Not now. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. I imagined myself living on the pillar and wondered how many days would pass before I either died of exposure or ran off the edge in madness. Oh yeah. I had survived the cliff, only to get stranded on its top. Holy fuck. I sat on my butt and cried. It wasn’t any hysterical sobbing or anything like that. But only because I was simply too tired to do anything but tremble and let the tears flow. Have you ever experienced a mental breakdown? The utter mindedness of the sorrow or despair, that physically squeezes your throat and guts until all you can feel is pain, mental and physical? Well, that’s where I was. Not for the first time, but still as grippingly strong. And if there’s no one around to help you, only time will make it stop, if anything. Yeah, time, which I had plenty off, until my stomach started to twist and grumble vehemently. Damn it. It never shuts up, even in the face of terror and desperation.
It had began already. The fight for survival. Stay up here and keep my sanity –and body parts- intact, or get down and keep my stomach from throttling my spine to death? I sat back down on my ass and hugged my belly, trying to let it quit its grumbling.
It didn’t work. But then, what does in my life, these days?
I sighed and got up. Stupid survival feelings. *grumble grumble* Why wouldn’t my body just accept its fate and let me spend my last days or hours in a quiet, relaxed state? But no. Of course not. The annoyance and anger somewhat overshadowed the fear. You wanna eat? Fine. You wanna go down? Fine!! I snarled, and started the loooooong trip down, fueled by irrational anger at myself. And at the world. Yeah, it’s always good to blame someone, eh?
~*~*~
“Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s gonna be $6.24.” A jingle of coins.
“Thank you.”
I sat on the curve of the sidewalk and tore into my sandwich. Well, that's what I had in mind anyway. But my arms were trembling so much that I couldn’t get the plastic paper wrap off. I picked at it, scratched, tore, tugged with my teeth…to no avail. Calm down, or you’ll have to deal with a split artery as well, you bozo. Try the water. Aha, yeah right. Nope, didn’t work either. Fuck. I didn’t even have the strength to open a bottle of water. How pathetic is that? Well, I should have figured it out. I mean, my arms from the elbow to the tip of my fingers were pretty much numb. I couldn’t even feel the scraps on my knuckles and the cuts that left red trails down my arms. Should have stayed up there. My stomach didn’t agree. It still hadn’t had its lunch, which was lying quite dejectedly by my side, still unopened. Grrrr…
I closed my eyes, and went through my options. Yeah, it may sound very professional and collected, but I was at the end of my rope if you know what I mean. I wanted to get back to my old, boring routine, with no cliffs, and no gaping holes bigger than a foot. No, no, I wasn’t scared of heights. I loved them. But I had no intention of repeating my mistake of a few hours ago. At least not for a very very long time.
I sighed for the umpteenth time, then went back inside the store to ask that lady behind the counter to open my food and drink. Oh, shut up. I don’t need any wise cracks from you, you hear me? Grrr.
~*~*~