Scaffold
Belief can be a powerful thing. I often think about it when I am flying 30,000 feet above the earth. What is really keeping this 250 ton plus a chunk of metal up? I guess the 200 plus passengers desperately want it to stay up. Willing it collectively, it stays up. It must be belief. It's obvious if your belief is strong enough anything can happen, no doubt.
It was an ordinary day, Wednesday 19th. I woke up, slightly worse of the wear, a bottle of white and YouTube binging being the offending parties. A party for one. Stale taste on my tongue and the fog in my brain, telltale signs, I was longing for a strong coffee.
Recently my coffee tastes have changed, I discovered ‘boutique’ coffee. Raised on traditional coffee, the kind Mom makes, I was yet to discover my inner gourmet, the ability to discern the location of the bean, its growing conditions, species and method of roasting. All essential facets leading to the ultimate taste experience. And then there’s the special equipment, manual grinder with stainless steel milling wheels (better than plastic), a special kettle with a swan neck and that was just the beginning, I was getting lost in the complexity and the nuance of the craft.
Back to YouTube. More bottles of white (I know red is better) and milk chocolate (I know 80% cocoa is better).
Stale tongue taste melting away with the sublime taste and flavor of a cup I’ve milled and brewed myself. Oh, the self-congratulation opportunities, me the gourmet, well at least where coffee is concerned. Breakfast done with. Shave, dress fast, I’m running late, out the door (wallet, glasses, phone, keys, borrow $20 from little brother’s piggy bank) and onto the street running past my house. A busy street, normally.
I walk the short distance to the bus stop. Not more than half a mile, down the street, around the corner where Betty lives (waves when I stroll by) with her mother. No Betty this morning, no wave, no one else at the bus stop. Checking my watch, the bus should be rounding the corner, about now, there’s no bus.
A chill wind blows around my naked ankles. I’m in short pants again. Mary the greengrocer's daughter steals my lunch money, I go hungry for the rest of the day. I’m too scared to tell my Dad, Mary said her Dad would put poison in the produce delivery to our house. I believed her, she was seven and I was only six and a half.
Snapping out of this unhealthy reminiscence, I check my watch once more. Fighting the impulse I slip into a waking dream, this time not of my childhood experiences filled with angst, but one of a different quality entirely.
Flying low over the landscape, not in an aircraft now, but by my own will. Swooping and gliding, like a bird, navigating my way across the land below. Feeling the wind flowing over my arms, spread out like wings, somehow keeping me aloft. Riding the thermals, catapulting me to the heights, unimaginable. Thrilling to my newfound freedom, no longer earthbound, I have a third dimension to explore, the vertical sky. Testing the limits of my abilities, I attempt a full loop, like I’d seen in movies, stunt planes leaving colored smoke trails in their wake. Using all of my imagination and energy, forcing my body to obey, I make it.
Then my waking dream plunges me into a darker space. I’m walking down the street, a familiar street, shops I know well, now all shuttered closed. It's still daylight, they should be open, what’s going on? A little further on I hear voices raised, turning into a square, a crowd is assembled gathered around a raised platform. A makeshift scaffold stands with a twisted rope noose dangling freely in the light evening breeze.
Suddenly to my right the crowd separates into two columns, making way for a party of soldiers escorting a young woman dressed in a blood-stained shift. Her hands are bound in front of her body with stout ropes. The woman places her foot on the first of a series of steps leading to the scaffold, falters, the crowd gasp. A soldier steps forward and takes the woman by the arms, a small act of kindness, assisting her journey to the top and onto the scaffold.
A hooded man appears and offers a blindfold to the woman, she refuses. He put the noose carefully over her head and in an almost caring way, he gathers up her long hair and lays it out over her shoulders, concealing the noose.
I felt immense admiration for the woman there, considering her final moments, how bravely she was facing her death on the scaffold. My instinct is for survival, willing myself to escape, to break free. Looking at her face, at once broken yet radiant, I sensed her belief was not one of escape but one of sacrifice.
And now, 30,000 feet above the earth, I look around at my fellow passengers, each lost in their own worlds, hoping and praying that the engineers, pilots, and all the other people connected with this flight, really know their jobs.
