When they told me I would be jumping off of a 40 foot cliff, I thought they were joking. But yet, there it was, the jagged cliffs before me. Death itself looming over my head, the boat falling in its shadow. I stood on the deck, looking at the cliffs as we passed them by to find a place to dock. I saw the people clambering about. It looked like chaos. And, yet, then, every now and then, a body would fling itself into the perilous free-fall, board straight, eyes shut tightly, and then, they would hit. Hit the water with a whoosh of water rising up as they came down, vanishing into the dark blue. I wondered how far it was, all the way down there. The motor turned off as we neared a collection of boats and people. It was going to be go time soon. I wasn't sure if I was mentally prepared for this. I'd never gone cliff-diving. No, I had never really been to any sort of large drop like this. Or, perhaps I had, but I never lingered by the edge. That didn't settle well with my phobia of heights.
I looked at Justin and Jamie and took in a deep breath before plunging in after them. Compared to the hot day, the water was a nice refresher. We lingered by the shore a few minutes before deciding to make our way up the slope. They took me up to the smallest one, only ten feet. I guess they wanted to get a bit of training in before I actually tackled the tallest of the three cliffs. Jamie told me to jump, and I watched her vanish over the stone side. I looked down, looked after her, watching the little bubbles as they rose around where she had fallen in. A few seconds later and she surfaced, long hair slicked back and her eyes looking up at me. Waiting.
And I don't think I thought much after I jumped the first time. There wasn't terribly a lot of airtime either. My feet hit the surface just as hers had. And before I knew it? I had surfaced, with the vague image of the water glaring up at me from so far below etched into my retinas.
We skipped the second tallest one because the other two were so eager. I climbed up the same slope after them, except we took a different route, past the ten footer, and up towards the higher reaches. It took a few minutes, but we got there, on the giant stone overhang, looking down at the water. And the other two told me I was first to go. I don't know what was going through my head- I can't remember. I could only look out at the sunny, clear blue sky, at the horizon where it met the shining waters. And I could look down the cliff, down at the waters that seemed a lifetime away. Peer pressure, though. That was what flung me over the side, hurtling down.
My feet left the stone and I know I heard my heart travel up somewhere next to my eardrums. Lub dub, lub dub... My eyes, shut at first, snapped open in the free-fall, and while my ears listened to the symphony of my frantic heartbeats and the whistling of wind in my ears, my eyes saw the horizon as it lay even to me, parallel and the same. I felt like I could reach out and grab the skies. But with each second, the water was rushing towards me, like an open maw waiting for food to fall in.
Why did you choose to do this?
It's all their fault, it's all their fault, it's all their fault...!
No, you're the one that jumped.
Screw it. This is too much time to think.
More like too much time to regret.
And there were moments, or perhaps something longer than just moments, that were flooded with regret. Regret for jumping, regret for climbing up the cliff in the first place, regret for everything that had led up to the eternal falling...
When I hit the water, it hurt. But the cold was paralyzing, drowning my senses and I sank- like I always do. And sometime after my eyes had shut due from impact and fear, they snapped open. Open in the murky world that surrounded me, gazing into darkness around me. It was cold, and I could feel the chilling tendrils crawl across my body, still recovering from the shock of the landing. My arms flailed in the waters, and I gazed down- down into what seemed like a never-ending abyss, an open mouth into a place I dared not to venture. And the darkness did not end, was not penetrated by the light. It seemed eerie, uncanny, how the depths of the lake could be so foreign. I didn't know what could be lurking beneath me. I didn't know what could be resting at the bottom. It was uncomfortable.
And so, I looked up.
Up at the world I knew, seemingly so far away with my weight dragging me deeper into the abyssal maw. I kicked a few times, reached upwards at the shimmering, waving image of a sun that was lifetimes away. I reached for the cliff I had plummeted off of, the heavenly light guiding me upwards and away from the shadows below. I kicked. Clawed. Scratched at the sky that grew larger, closer with each stroke. The light was a welcome sight, much nicer than the unknown below me. My lungs didn't scream for air like you see in movies. My mind didn't race as fast as you'd have expected. My heart, though, it still hammered from the fall. I need the light... I thought, my lungs beginning to twinge with the need to breathe. And I neared the surface, heart suddenly beginning to beat with something different, something new. Longing for air. Longing for sunlight. Something to brighten up the darkness around me.
And with a rush of air and water droplets bursting forth, I broke the surface.
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