Whole Lotta Love

From the moment their alarm went off, a deepening dread had hung over Rick’s head.  At first, it was vague and shapeless and only nibbled at the corners of his consciousness as he shook Sarah awake and pulled on what she called his travelling outfit number two, which was stiff and discolored from months of cheap laundry detergent. 

He groggily walked down the hostel’s narrow stairway to the shared kitchen, which smelt faintly of mothballs and sweet secreted alcohol.  The German couple they’d met yesterday were already sitting at the end of one of the tables.  The man looked at least a dozen years older than the woman but they shared the same silent intensity.  Rick sat down and they exchanged the kind of meaningless morning pleasantries that echo around the world every day on packed commuter trains and in bland, boxy cubicles.

The man asked what they had planned for the day and the dread that had settled deep in the pit of his stomach suddenly intensified.

They were going to do it.

Today.

And then Sarah sat down beside him and the Germans went back to intimidating their cereal and he offered to make her some toast, even though the thought of food made his throat clench and his mouth fill with metallic tasting saliva.

It had rained overnight.  The chill in the air seemed to invigorate Sarah and she skipped ahead, pointing out glimpses of misty mountains between the buildings and exclaiming over the delicate patterns of dew on the flowers.  He walked behind her, dazed by how strong his cowardice was, even in the face of her vibrancy. She was the most alive person he knew.  That’s why he loved her.  And that’s why - deep down in the shadowy recesses of his mind, in the place he only visited in his darkest moments – he was afraid she would realize one day that he couldn’t keep up with her and that he couldn’t even begin to match her beauty and vitality.  That’s why he was doing this stupid thing.  He needed to show her that he was as every bit as brave as she was, that he was the stand-up, grab-life-by-the-lapels, heroic kind of guy Hollywood had drip fed them both since they were kids.

He hoped they’d miss their bus.  Then, as they were slicing through the mist on narrow bumpy roads, he silently willed the engine to overheat or for a tire to fall off or even for the sudden screech of tires and the smell of burning rubber from a car accident that didn’t hurt anyone or anything apart from the buses ability to navigate its way through the unforgiving mountains.

But no such luck, not for him.  Sarah had her nose pressed up against the window; he watched the condensation around her mouth spread and then retreat in a hypnotic rhythm as the drover spoke into a crackling microphone about the local flora and fauna.  Rick listened to him ramble with half an ear while the landscape flashed by in a blur of swirling grey and greens. 

And then, much sooner than he’d expected, they arrived.  As soon as he stepped off the bus, his panic intensified, but he set his face into a smiling grimace and hoped Sarah wouldn’t look at him too closely as they walked out on to the bridge.  He tried to assure himself with every step – there must be safety checks, and government inspections, and carefully laid out safety standards, it couldn’t be dangerous when it was so popular, they even had this kind of thing at theme parks for crying out loud – but the thoughts ran together and became a tangled mash of meaningless words. 

They sat down and listened to a safety talk from a cheerful boy who called himself their instructor and then, before he really knew what was happening, he was being strapped into a harness.  He realized that up until this point he’d deluded himself with the vague notion that he could still back out.  His breathing became even shallower and his heart was hammering and everything was in sharp relief, from the pores on Sarah’s nose to the yellow rope at his feet.

“Scared?” the boy asked with a grin, and Rick tried to shrug as he turned to face the water crashing through the chasm below.

“Okay, so on the count of three you jump, right?  One, two-“ and then he felt hands push him and a quick burst of laughter that was snatched away by the howling wind.  He soared down, at first paralyzed with terror but then as the seconds passed and he realized that this was probably as bad as it was going to get, he allowed himself to relax ever so slightly. 

That’s when he heard the rope snap.



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