The Leap

My head feels heavy, padded, like somebody took a fifty kilo weight and wrapped it in cotton before cramming it in my skull. Some part of me realizes I’m asleep, as though it’s a matter of life. The other part ignores that fact. Not so much avoiding it as simply being indifferent to it. Thinking about it about as hard as one would contemplate what shade of blue the sky is. Dimly, slowly, I look around. I’m on a cliff, the sun toasting my cheeks and warming my skin. I’m high up, though you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking down. There’s a sea of fog, reaching to the horizon. There’s a rush of feeling, my mind sensing the height rather than seeing it. There’s no specific feeling to describe it. It’s the slight rush you get when you’re high up, as though you’re balancing on a razor blade, afraid to move and yet unable to stay. And yet, I feel a tugging, towards the fog. Not physically, not a physical pulling into the depths, but rather a spiritual pull. An unbreakable, invisible, thread wrapped around my heart, threaded to some anchor within the sea of fog. Some part of me yearns to follow it, to see what’s within that impenetrable sea, and find what’s pulling at my heart. Yet the other part scoffs, amused at the stupidity of the idea. Jumping off a cliff, on a feeling? Absurd. Yet the other persists, the tugging becoming stronger, felt throughout my entire body, as though my soul itself wishes to plunge into the uncharted expanse before me. And again, the other part responds, stronger than before. They continue, back and forth, louder and stronger, until it feels as though these were not parts of me, but somethings else. As though I was but a vessel within which these two voices play an unending game of tug of war, the twine around my heart the rope they’re competing over. And the tugging on my heart becomes stronger, and stronger, until the string breaks, and suddenly I’m an observer. My body suddenly split into two, forming vessels for the two voices to inhabit, independently. They seem confused, stunned, as though this was unexpected and they were unsure what to do now. The impulsive one regains composure first, as though the string were still connected to that point in the fog, as though it felt the pull rather than remembered. And then it’s running, the timid voice watching wide eyed, terrified, desperate to intervene, yet too cowardly to act. And suddenly, as the runner nears the edge, I’m no longer an observer, instead I’m sitting on the ground, my knees up against my chest and my fingernails in my teeth. I realize I’m the timid voice, the logical part who overthinks everything. Who plays it safe. Preferring to watch others act as instead of acting for himself. I look at my hands, and shake my head. It’s time to cast off the fear. To stop playing it safe. To take risks and get heart and learn and come back to try again. I stand up, slowly, arduously, falling down several times, only to try to come back up again. I lurch up, and take heavy, weighted steps, each step forward bringing screams of primal fear to my mind. First the left, then the right. Then left. Then right. The weighted lurch slowly evolves into a jog. That jog, slowly becoming a run. That run, slowly beginning a sprint. I run, harder than I’ve ever run before. I gain on the other voice, the fearless one. The logical part screaming in the back of my head, telling me this is insane, foolish, suicide, the primal need for survival shredding my nerves. And yet I push on. In the face of these fears, in the face of logic, I soldier on, pushing myself to go even harder. I overtake the other voice, right on the edge, we join, once again becoming one being, but now with one voice instead of two. I don’t find this confusing, I don’t stop to contemplate what happened. I don’t have time. I reach the edge, my legs and the ground a blur beneath me. And I leap, the solid ground becoming vapor beneath me, the sun glinting through my eyes, casting the sky and fog in gold, before I plunge into the fog, falling, afraid, and free. I wake up in my bed with a start, my eyes wild, my breath haggard, heavy, my hands balled up with the sheets. I look around, smile, and fall back to my bed. Though nothing had happened, I am still proud. I still managed to do it. To take the leap.