Fear of Falling
By Christopher Mathews
The
alarm was set for 4:00 in the morning, but he awoke well before dawn, stirred by
some inner clock. The birds had not yet risen to lay claim to their patch of the
clear, summer sky.
For
a fleeting moment his dream lingered on, tethering him to that other world,
beyond the reach of his restless mind. Until inevitably wakefulness came
flooding back through the touch and sight and sounds of his own remorseful day.
The
nightly truce between body and mind had passed. It is said that the unquiet mind
rules the waking hours like a tyrant but, in the fortunate few is deposed at
night by sleep.
He
had packed his gear in the car the night before. Over coffee he scrawled a note
to his wife which read,
“Don’t keep dinner, don’t wait up”.
He
sat in the car with the engine running, setting the destination on the satnav.
It read back to him in a bright cheerful woman’s voice:
“Beachy Head, popular tourist spot, high on the
white chalk cliffs of the South Downs, overlooking the English Channel, on a
clear day visitors can see all the way to
But
it also has a darker reputation, not mentioned in the tourist guidebooks. These
visitors only tell their story in brief scrawled notes.
He
pushed such thoughts to the back of his mind and turned off the satnav. This
journey should not be interrupted by the ceaseless chatter of this trivial world.
The
roads were empty as the moonlight, low in the sky flickered through the trees
lining the narrow lanes, rendering everything in its harsh, silver, ribbons. Like blades cutting “snicker-snack”, chasing
him through the landscape. He thought how different this was from his daily
commutes battling with traffic. It was as if the roads had cleared themselves
to make way for this one journey.
After
an hour or so the hedgerows thinned and became open fields for the last two
miles. The moonlight was now soft and gentle like snow on the rolling fields.
“Almost there, he thought, not long left”.
Past
the last slumbering village and approaching the Seven Sisters, he now turned
east toward his destination, the highest point of the cliff looking down on the
Beachey Head lighthouse, caught between night and day, moonlight and the soft
glow of the pre-dawn morning. He thought absurdly how the lonely lighthouse
looked like a toy sitting forgotten on the beach, left behind by some giantish
child who had been making sandcastles the day before.
Not
bothering to lock the car he swung his pack on his back, tightened the straps,
and walked, his mind fixed on the highest point of the cliff where the earth
stopped, and the heavens began.
He
stood right on the edge, swaying slightly as the gentle sea breeze brought the
taste of brine to his lips. He fought against waves of vertigo which tingled
through his limbs like electricity. Strange, how the line between the fear of
falling and exhilaration is so thin. So very different but both sharing the
same visceral sensation, which hijacks the mind and overpowers the senses. And
still he swayed on the spot, teetering on the edge of decision.
A
thin white pre-dawn mist lay over the calm dark water, diffusing the horizon
between sea and sky, one vast seamless canvass. the great expanse of heaven was
all about him. As if he himself was witnessing the creation of the formless world
on the very first day. “Formless,” he pondered the word, a memory of a dusty
bright sunlit Sunday School swam into his mind when he was eight, of opening a
heavy bible which said:
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the
earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let
there be light: and there was light.”
The
cliffs below him were suddenly caught in the blaze of the rising sun as it
broke the eastern horizon. like burnished gold leaf overlaying the chalk cliffs.
“And
God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the
darkness. And
God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.”
“This is the perfect day”, he thought to himself.
As
on the very first day of the world, not a soul looked on, he was quite alone.
The vast sky was above him and soft dewy grass at his feet. To his right his
shadow was that of a giant, but he himself felt small and insignificant.
Trembling,
he said to himself,
“I don’t have the nerve to jump, the fear of
falling is too strong.”
Turning,
he walked deliberately back, counting out 20 paces, the prescribed distance. Gazing
wistfully over the rolling
green patchwork of the Sussex Downs he turned his back on
Then
came a sudden jolt as his billowing white chute opened above him.
Base
Jumping is a reckless sport, but in that brief moment he felt alive.
The
strong updraft of the salty sea breeze carried him high above the cliffs. The
harness of his paraglider creaked and strained to bear his weight aloft until
he was well above the downs. Blacked-backed gulls joined him, taking advantage
of the same thermals rising from the land. Soon he was joined by other
paragliders each riding the crest of an invisible wave, which forms high above
the cliff tops.
The
sun was fully up now, the twilight having been banished like a bad dream.
Sightseers like ants looked up at the spectacle of that strange flock which soared
back and forth along the cliff. Like a
colony of latter-day pterosaurs they wheeled rising, falling and rising again. Until
having reached the top of the wave they turned to make their slow descent inland.
The
fear of falling, like the bleak night was swallowed up as he soared up into the
clear, bright and lovely, delightful day.
© Christopher Mathews
Feb. 2024
