Some times you can feel yourself on that edge. You tell yourself to keep staring straight ahead at the murky horizon in the
crystal blue sky because looking down will only petrify you. Your shoes hang slightly over the fragile concrete but your balance is surprisingly intact. The harness is a vice against your crotch; you fear that with every move, it will cause uncalculated pain. The wind forces your shirt to blow tightly over your chest... it forces your heart into your throat.
Yes, heart. Your heart. The reason for this entire damned event. You wouldn't be up on this crumbling concrete ledge about to jump if it weren't for the melodrama it's caused. Sometimes you wish you could take your heart out of the equation and think logically. But in spite of, or perhaps because of, this
impossible desire, you've taught yourself to slowly succumb to your hearts will, rather than entirely give in to the impulses that you yielded to in your youth. You still don’t know whether or not that means you have matured.
You've been standing on this ledge for an eternity prolonging the eventual. Thin wisps of cotton white swirl in the perfect sky, providing no protection from the extremes of the sun. You know you will make the jump but something continues to hold you back. At this point, it cannot be the safety. Maybe it is just how far you will fall. Fear creeps into your body with every realization of the inevitable.
“Just jump,” you
finally say to no one in particular."The rope is strong enough." You continue to mutter words of encouragement loud inside your head. You close your eyes, suck in your breath. And you finally take the impossible leap.
The rope is strong... but you were right. You still won't stop falling.