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Tightrope

  by

  Mark Z. Kammell

  *****

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Tightrope

  © Copyright 2014 by Mark Z. Kammell.

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  * * * * *

  (There is nothing good about any of this)

  There’s fifty feet that I need to cover. Break down fifty feet, at say two and a half feet per step, the average person, like me, and that’s twenty steps. That’s all, twenty steps to take.

  I can see the other side clearly, though I can’t make out what’s on the platform, the small, wooden stand set there in the rock. It seems to be a bit hazy, I guess it’s the sun reflecting off it, or off the rock face, that is turning it into some kind of mirage. Or it could be anything else, who knows, the rules don’t exist here, they’ve been pulled together and pulled apart and thrown away and burnt, and the only rules left are here and now, and those in front of me. Two wires, from this platform that I’m standing on, two wires, thin and metal and taut, two wires for me to put my bare feet on and walk fifty feet, twenty steps, to the other side, to the unknown.

  The sun is bright and clear in the sky, the day is perfect, completely still. There is no sound, nothing whatsoever, no birds, no insects, no breeze, the only things around apart from me are the dying plants clinging to the rocks, and the rays of light from the sun. Just one step, just one start, and my journey will begin, and then of course, there is no turning back. There’s never any turning back. A line crossed, a pact entered, a new life.

  And the other side. All I have to do is walk across the line to the other side, and it’s there for me. Open up to me and I can walk into it. I close my eyes and tentatively step onto the wires, left foot first, onto the warm, sharp metal, then my right foot, and now I’m on, now I’m there, step one. Step one is made, and I can feel the wire under the soles of my feet, it hurts a bit but it’s okay, it’s manageable, and I take step two. The other side looks slightly clearer now, I still can’t make out the platform but it’s a bit less fuzzy, a bit less faint. I stand there, balanced on the two wires, the sun on my body, I can feel the sweat trickle down my back, under my t-shirt, I can feel the wires, very gently, hurting me, cutting me. What can I wish for, a new liver to replace mine, doused and bitten by alcohol, a new set of lungs to replace mine, ravaged by too many cigarettes, new cartilage in my nose to replace mine, worn away by too much cocaine, new skin on my arms to remove the cuts and the bruises of self harm. What can I wish for, not having to get up every morning and take the hottest shower I can, washing away, sweating out the previous night’s loss of control. Eighteen more steps and it’s all there for me.

  “It’s very simple” she’d said. “All you have to do is walk to the other side. That’s it.” She had red eyes.

  Step three and as I lift my left foot it stings, I have to be careful as I put it back down, on the wire. No loss of balance, not yet. I close my eyes for a second and try let my mind become blank. Suspended in the air, in some unknown place, completely on my own, close my eyes, think of nothing, think of my heart’s desire, my heart, beating so slow in my chest. What is is that I should be thinking. Maybe it should be world peace, maybe I should find some level of altruism buried deep within myself, lost and ravaged over the years. World peace, how strange, how funny, how banal. I don’t even really understand what it means. Does it mean an end to wars, everyone putting down their arms and hugging each other instead, or at least agreeing to reconcile their differences amicably over a glass of wine, or better still water. No, not water, hot, black tea, in cafés in dusty streets across the world. Street fighters instead sitting and contemplating the world, their enemies across from them, looking in their eyes, smiling as they drink tea and smoke cigarettes made from black tobacco. Arms laid down in piles, monuments to the fallacy of war, one outside each city, town or village, left to remind people of their horrific past. How they can laugh now about it and instead talk amicably about the demonic excesses of western culture, or the dangers of Islamic extremism, shaking hands and walking away to their families at the end of the night. And no violence there either, that must be part of peace, instead happy, harmonious families, discussing philosophy, or love, or more likely the weather and the price of petrol. And where does it end, does it end in the office, or the shop, or the field, where people no longer berate each other but instead forgive, does it end at the playground gates where kids no longer fight or shout or scream but instead play happily, girls and boys together, taking turns on the skipping rope. Does it end in the halls of government, where opposing parties no longer try to outdo each other on helping the poor, or helping the rich, or does it end on the roads where drivers give way and no longer get angry with their rival motorists, no more screaming, no more road rage. And does it end, does it finish passion and intensity and the quest for truth, does it end the need to drink towards oblivion because there’s nothing any more, that burns deeply, that burns brightly, that it’s worth killing for or dying for, or hurting for, or screaming for. It ends with us, with me, being able to look at her (her, not her), in the eye, in the heart, and smile, and forgive, and be forgiven, and love her, love him, for all his crassness, for all his failings, for all his desire and selfishness and belligerence, to love him, to love me.

  “Peace is not what you’re searching for” she had whispered to me in a dream, a dream that I remember now and fills my mind, with her dark, intense face and her red eyes.

  By step six I can feel the glistening blood making my feet slippery, I imagine it making sticky pools on the wires and dripping down to the chasm below, every step makes me want to scream with pain, but it’s OK, I can control it, look forward at the platform and its aura, its hazy shadow and unglimpsed magic, it’s OK.

  Step nine and I close my eyes again, remove myself from the physical, don’t think about slipping, don’t think about the wetness of my blood on the wires, about the pain that shoots up every time I move, it’s just a state of mind, a physical reaction that I can overcome, like mornings in the shower, like the sweat on my body. Close my eyes and think, what else, what else, think out of my mind, if not world peace then what, an end to disease, or an end to hunger, always the second wish. And end to disease is not the answer, I am sure she said, too, she must have said that too, somewhere in the dream, the dream I think I had last night, but of course I can’t be sure. What would happen if you knew you weren’t going to die, until you were old, well over a hundred years old, that something unexpected wouldn’t just pick you up and throw you back down, that the random twist of fate no longer existed, that you could look in your lover’s eyes and know that she was safe, what would happen to the fear and the loss and the devastation, what would happen to the joy and the celebration and the redemption, how could we live like that, how could we look at each other and not wonder, no, she said, an end to suffering is not the answer, it’s not your desire, it’s no one’s desire, we can’t just take one part of life away without taking it all.

  And if not that, what. To be able to look her in the eye, to cling on to something, to touch something that can’t be touched, to feel and to understand, and to reach it and hold on to it, to understand. Like knowing that one thing you’ve done, out of everything, out of all the pain and all the hurt that you’ve caused, out of all the misery and suffering that you turn your back on, there is something there that shines, like the ho
meless man, like the suicidal girl, there is something, like touching a beggar, like holding out your arm, your wrist, holding on and being able to see, being able to look, being able to touch.

  Step ten, half way there and the sun is high in the sky, hot on my skin, but I look at my hands and they are shaking. An end. That’s what I want. An end to the futile searching, to the hollowness, the emptiness that I can’t overcome, but what is it. Is it something that I need to fill or is it nothing that I need to take away, what will make it end.

  Her eyes burned brightly in my dream, like they were on fire. In the reality that I remember she had put her hand on mine, held it there, as she studied me. “It’s easy” she whispered, “it’s so easy. You won’t find it here” she had said, “no matter how hard you look, no matter how many times you come back and how many nights you reach for it, you won’t find it, it doesn’t exist, not here,” she had said. “You’ll reach for it, you’ll