Jump

Go on, jump.

I look down at him standing in the dew damp grass in the dark, slightly scared and slightly worried. The fence that I have climbed is more than ten feet high and less than half an inch wide and I am perched atop it in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans, terrified of falling.

When I was a child I loved jumping from what seemed then like high places. I took risks as a five year old I would never take now. Fifty feet high zip wires, helped up there by a French boy who spoke no English and could have only been ten or so himself. My brother wouldn’t do it, he was seven and scared.

Maybe it comes from the broken arm, my love of high places lead to me not being able to write or draw for almost eight weeks, an eternity when you’re ten years old and writing is what you love the most.

So I sit on the fence and look down at this familiar stranger through the rain haze, light enough to go almost unnoticed, but enough to soak through my clothes. I dangle my feet over the edge. I don’t want to jump to the grass twelve feet below, but there is no way I’m gonna back down the other side and walk around. What would he think of me then?

Come on!

OK.

And I jump, it’s not graceful or special or anything. I land crouched, scared shitless that I’ll fall on my hands and snap my arm again, and fall onto my side. I pull myself up and go off after him. I limp a little, all the shock absorbed by my ankles. I catch him up, breathing hoarsely, like I’ve run a mile or something.

I jumped. I gasp, breathless and happy and excited.

I know.

A small silence, then;

Can we do it again?

If I could have my way, we would have jumped off fences all night.