High. Flat on my belly on the edge. Looking down. Spit rolls off my tongue, forms a ball as it falls, swaying in the updraft, out of sight long before it hits the ground. Miles away. So far down it makes my muscles ache, my head throb. What evolutionary use can there be for this instinctive turning to jelly? This weakness in the knees? This swimming brain? Surely it would be better to have more control over myself, not less.
I force myself up, hands and knees, blood metronomic behind my eyes. I want to cower, to cling, to shrink away, but instead I push up and kneel. It's almost completely silent here, no wind, other than a soft rising from the sun-baked valley below. No birds, no planes. A grasshopper now and then, and this droning throb, the thump and sloshing whine of blood inside.
Up. Up and onto my feet. Steady. Straight.
-Now open your eyes. Hadn't noticed they were closed. Relax. If this was just a curb, six inches high… Don’t think, don’t enter the battle to justify this. Just be…
And this is all there is and ever will be: Me and life and death. Here, or anywhere, always the same: A struggle against fear, an endless need to let go and accept that it’s all the same, curbs and cliffs, woods and trees, mountains and molehills. Almost impossible, almost always out of reach, that clarity, until I take one last deep breath, stretch my hands so that warm air dries the sweat upon my palms, between my fingers… and jump, face first, swan dive, arms outstretched, wind suddenly loud and getting louder, a smile on my face.
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Words written on a mouldy paper bag left to rot in the brambles, or huddled like cold children around a dying candle. Words of hope and of bleak optimism. Words written for the Kind Generation, who help old people with their shopping bags, and know that strength comes not from stern rigidity, but from smiling softly in the face of fear and saying to the world: "For goodness sake be Kind".
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