Ten Second Fall
In Africa, I could dodge poachers’ bullets. Avoid the mob’s enforcer’s fist in Moscow. Or save indentured farmers from the cartels in Central America. My gift is to avoid death and make each place a little better, ten seconds at a time. That’s what I was given. Ten seconds.
Ten seconds to correct my mistake. It does not sound like much, but it has saved me from bullets, bombs, and beasts. How could I have known that vacationing in Nevada, USA, would lead me to be stuck in a loop?
I was not scared as I heard the safety pitons give way as the rope ‘tinged’ under my weight. I would fall, die, and come back to find a better handhold. As I began to fall, I pulled my limbs in and dropped to the unforgiving earth. My bones broke, and my organs smashed as I impacted the ground. The sound reverberated in my ears, and yet no fear came to me.
But I felt fear when my eyes opened to see the cliff face moving away from me and the ‘ting’ of my anchor rope. I looked, and the rope pulled the anchor piton out of the rock face again, and again I fell. Fear filled me from head to toe. Coldness ran through my veins as the adrenaline tried to give me a chance to survive. But it was in vain as I hit the ground with a sicking thud once again.
I opened my eyes again to the cliff face, moving away from me. I took a deep breath and tried to think. But ten seconds go by in a blink when you are scared. The ground impacted my back again, and this time, I heard my spine crack and ribs shatter. I would discern a new sound and a fresh injury with each passing cycle.
Fear is a strange thing. It can paralyze you or give you strength. Fear alerts you to danger even when you cannot see it. However, fear can trick you, too. It is the double-edged sword that all creatures have to deal with. I rarely fear for myself since I have a redo button. I do feel fear for others that don’t. For others, I have to protect.
Fifty-seven times I fell. Fifty-seven times I died and had to hear my body be destroyed by physics. It took me that long to steady and anchor my mind against my body’s physical response to fear. I looked around to see if I could slow my fall and increase my survival.
Fifty-eight. I spread my limbs out to see if I could feel anything. A split second before I hit, I felt a branch graze my hand.
Fifty-nine. I turned my head and torso as fast as I could. My body twisted to face the ground. I saw the protruding rock that breaks my back each time and the short tree off to the left. The impact, this time, broke my nose and jaw first, and then the rest of my skull.
Sixty, ten minutes I have been falling. I turned as fast as I could after opening my eyes. I watched the ground rush to meet me and took in as much as I could. The tree and rock were the only notable features around my impact area. So useless in saving myself.
Sixty-one. A fresh fear filled my body and mind, one of desperation. For seventeen more cycles, I could not bring myself to watch. All I could think about was the cycle of fear and pain. I stopped counting the deaths.
It took countless cycles, countless deaths before I could re-anchor my mind to what needed to be done. To see through the fog of the depression that had filled me. I had to accept that the fall was my new normal. The current state of my life, before I could even move on. I had to grieve the loss of my previous life.
Then the idea came up; I could use my shirt to slow my descent. I did my best to pull off my shirt on the next cycle. I only got it half off before I hit the ground. It took multiple cycles to get the pattern down. Left waist buckle, right waist buckle, left arm loop, right arm loop, lift shirt over my head with my right hand, and grab the edges with my left and let it inflate.
It took thirteen more cycles to get it right. I pulled off my harness and my shirt in one second. It filled with the rushing air. But I still hit the ground. My eyes opened to my harness being partly off. Excitement filled my body. Fear turned into Fight. My movements got quicker as the adrenaline ignited a fire in my muscles. The harness got a centimeter closer to being off with each passing cycle.
Hope, sweet hope kept me going. Kept me progressing. Finally, I held the shirt just right. I slowed just enough not to die. I still felt my bones break and my organs smash. But when I woke up, I was in a hospital. The joy that rushed into me was pure. I scared the poor doctor that was explaining that I was paralyzed from the waist down because of the spinal injury. I didn’t care. The only thing I cared about was not seeing that fucking rock face again.