The Fall

by John Nyman

It’s amazing what happens between peaks of adrenaline, and that point had never been better illustrated to me than at the moment I found myself in. My memory was expectedly broken, but I figured it wasn’t important. All I could see were brief flashes of events, sharp images of my short-term history, but however questionable my fleeting visions were, they seemed to provide my present state with a goal so precise that my entire human force was devoted to its completion. All of the energy had flowed to it since the rush began, and I had since forgotten my purpose, but as I descended from my state above consciousness back to a reasonable outlook, I put the situation into a moderately clear perspective.

Of course, I was still completely focused, still in that mind frame of a singular goal that I had been in longer than I could spare the energy to remember. Yet, my vision returned slowly, some of my brain functions reactivated, and I noticed my situation in partiality. It was night, and a half moon lit the sky all around me, providing my eyes with a view of a concrete wall. I felt the gravity pull around me, and attached stiffly to the rope that held me parallel to the vertical surface, my feet dangling against the thin air. In one hand I gripped a briefcase with excessive tightness rivalling that which I used against the line that supported my own life. I had no idea what the case contained, except that it was important. I also did not know why I was hanging in the night air against a skyscraper, high above the ground below, and carrying a briefcase anda multitude ofcomplex equipment, I only knew that I had to get to the bottom.

If, at any point, I had taken the time to ask the question of why I was there, it may have been answered by the swarm of police officers that rimmed the bottom of the building. They were waiting for me, of course, as I was a lawbreaker, a burglar, probably in the middle of a crime, although I wasn’t paying attention. The building had been locked down and I was all but cornered, so I found myself rappelling down it in a vain attempt to escape. I had no plan, or at least not one I could recall, but I continued to descend with extreme precision and quickness.

Every moment I pushed off into the darkness and fell back towards the building, I’d look down, fearless, and prepare to continue the drop. There was no such thing as hope or fear, only action. There was one thing I had to do, and its completion would result in my total success. I wouldn’t fall, I knew, and the height wouldn’t hurt me. My conscious mind compiled the situation clearly, that the worst that could happen was for me to be arrested, the police would never kill me for theft,I would live toescape another day. There was no reason to fear, despite how dangerous the situation seemed, and so my mind pushed that emotion out of my imagination. My thought was perfectly efficient, ignoring all things that were of no immediate value, and filling me with the mental ability to finish only the task at hand. It had already drawn from my wealth of knowledge and determined my plan, to descend and escape. It would work perfectly.

I persisted effortlessly in my task, engulfed in the pure confidence that characterized my prowess, working off of my engraved knowledge every moment, certain I’d get it right. All of my actions were centred on that knowledge, the confidence of knowing the outcomes, until I looked up the side of the building after one of my jumps. It loomed high above me now, as I had descended a long way, and out of one of the windows I saw a police officer. He was silhouetted against the moon, but I could tell what he was, and I wondered simply why he was there. I put little thought into it though, still focused, until I saw a knife appear in his hand, and approach the midair point where my rope was stretched taught. The horribly relevant conclusion barely crossed my mind, until I saw the edge move perilously close to the rope,causing the grim realization of its intention set into my previously collected mind. Horrified, I began to flail and yelp for my life, as all my knowledge of the world had collapsed; the officer was about to let me fall to my death for my crimes, a complete violation of everything I thought they would do, everything I thought I knew. I looked down, and below me lay a ring of police, not holding out any blanket or device to catch me, but leaving clear a circle of concrete for my corpse. I looked back up again, frantic, sweat dripping from me in huge quantities, and watched helplessly as my rope suddenlysnapped under the blade of the officer’s viciousknife. I fell rapidly, staring downward into the group of police awaiting my death, betrayed by all of my knowledge and by my world, until I passed out and dreamed my fate, moments before it splattered against the base of the skyscraper.