Acrophobia
The princess river, following the princess river out to the ocean, a cliff juts out against the flat ocean. Rocks stand out and litter the touch of the ocean to the exposed rock of the cliffs. The ocean looks to be a clear dark blue, not the clear blue in scenic vacation photographs, but the dark blue above shipwrecks in aerial photographs. The cliffs look old, not a fresh cut of rock above the ocean, but jagged edges and branches creeping out and in. The grass almost looks green, a dull green, but the photograph of the cliff is old. The cliff stands, so many feet high, the number doesn't mean much. The looks of it, how high up it feels, even through a photograph is more important. More important, more menacing that a number printed beneath an old photograph. The water crashing beneath, the sharp windows between and the crumbling ledge between peering over and becoming red meaty foam. Hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The sounds of the waves start to come in through the floorboards. Beads of sweat down my back. The chilling winds, ripping through the grass off down the ledge. Down the ledge. Down the number of feet. Heart starts to beat faster. The dark blue of the ocean, so many numbers of feet away. They don't mean anything. People survive falls all the time. The sounds of ocean waves crashing, jagged rocks, below a crumbling ledge. The photograph is on the table. So many feet away. Like the ledge from the ocean. It gets closer. The ledge gets smaller. Turn the paper over! Blank page. No cliffs. No crumbling ledges. No oceans waves crashing. No red meaty foamy. No falling. No heights. Tomorrow, tomorrow we'll try again. Look at the photo again, longer tomorrow. Tomorrow it won't be so high, there's won't be any falling tomorrow. Just a photograph, of a cliff high above the ocean, no terrible fall.