The Sun beamed down on me claiming the last moisture out of my being. My dry tongue shrivelled in envy at the sweat that slowly pit pat pattered on the stone around me. I stood on a sandstone ledge before a sinkhole. Below me, far below me, laid the cool water pool lazily reflecting the Sunlight and all of my dreams back to me. The sky was a blue void far above, the world a beige wasteland all around, and my destiny was a sunken pool before me.

I knew it was where I needed to go. The most primal parts of myself were yearning for the embrace of that water. I wanted to drink it; I wanted to bathe in it. I needed it.

“Jump, jump … jump, jump… jump, jump…. ” my heart told me, all day, all night, everyday.

I heard this, yet here I was, too afraid to jump.

I sometimes fancied that I could wander the wild; maybe I would find another, easier Source? Maybe I could find an excuse to not do what I had always known I needed to do? Alas, in my depths I knew that there was nothing out there for me but death. In all my wanderings this was the only Source I had found.

I… I knew I needed to do it. As I’d done a million times before I shimmied my sunburnt sandals as close to the ledge as I dared. The wind blew dangerously around me. I didn’t want to fall. I felt my breath catch in my throat as I looked down. I closed my eyes and backed up. I always felt worse when I looked. Then as I’d done many times before I found a little pebble and threw it over the edge. I listened to the fateful seconds that would define my life tick by. In the silence I knew it was a long, hard fall before the:

“….…..…… Ploukch! ”

I’d thrown countless pebbles in before me to do in my stead what it was that I needed to do. Now they all lied quietly submersed in the water, their harrowing adventure over, and I was still up here, burning. I envied them, the pebbles. They had no choice, no time to think about it. I, as an agent of Fate, had thrown them before they could protest. I needed someone to throw me.

Jump, jump…

Since the dawn of my life I had managed to survive up here, but now the midday Sun was rising. I had grown older, and there was no sustenance to be found on the surface anymore. For me to live, to truly live and not just scrape together an existence I needed to tap into the Source.

What was the point of staying in this world, struggling just to survive? It is all or nothing. Either die of thirst or swim in life’s abundance. I could understand that.

I feared not jumping as much as I feared the jump, but the consequences of not jumping would be long and drawn out, and though awful, they therefore felt easier to deal with. What foe could I blame for my woes?

My finger fell on Fear. Fear kept me here.

I needed to deal with Fear, but Fear is a bully. Every time I came to Fear’s door to reason it would lash out like rabid dog and seize my mind. All my thoughts became convoluted, and I would writhe on the ground as Fear’s snakes coiled around my soul and choked the life out of me. Fear would only recede from my mind once it was assured that my silly plans and I had been broken, and it would leave me for dead on the hard stone with tears streaming down my face.

I was getting dangerously close to thinking about the problem now, and I didn’t want Fear to lash out at me again, so I sat down and closed my eyes. I listened. I listened to the wind, and to the sizzling heat rising from the rocks. I listened to the silence, this silence that filled my stagnant days; it was the same silence that shrieked when the pebbles fell. What difference was there? Inevitably I also heard my heart.

Jump, jump… jump, jump….

That’s what my heart always said. Luckily for me my mind fell asleep sometimes. My heart never sleeps.

I liked listening. I didn’t have to think about anything at all, so I sat there in the dark behind my eyelids, breathing, and the world seemed to fade. Maybe I would die peacefully here and it would all be over. I became woozy. My breathing sounded distant like I was far removed from it. I felt my head start to spin up towards the sky as though it was being screwed off. My heart became faster, and louder. Its rate increased as though gathering speed to bound out of my chest. It suddenly seemed much bigger than me, like I was but a pebble in its hand, and its voice filled my mind.

jump, jump…jump, jump… JUMP!

I gasped and my eyes shot open. I jumped up to my feet. I took off my sandals and tossed them to the side. Wait, what was I doing?

“No, don’t think!” I thought.

The Sun was searing and my mind was boiling. I took off my shirt, my pants. You can’t take anything with you in life or in death. Mechanically I stepped up the ledge like my legs had a will of their own and pointed my toes over the edge. The adrenaline was pumping in my heart, amplifying its voice. I felt like it would knock me forward.

Jump, jump!… jump, jump!…

 

“I have to jump; I have to jump.” I said aloud, listening, repeating. All of my being was trembling in panic, my mind shrieking in panic.

“Could this finally be it?” I thought “here? Now? Like this?”

I was on the edge and my ears were ringing. The rocks were wavering in the heat, and my head was spinning. Fear squirmed in my throat like a critter trying to escape. I’d caught it by surprise. It was panicking. I knew what I had to do, and I couldn’t think about it. Thinking would be my defeat. There was no rational to this, but I knew it to be what I must do. Like those pebbles I was clueless. I just need to trust that my heart, as an agent of Fate, knew what it was doing. Throw me.

My vision blackened and I was close to fainting. I knew I could just let myself fall forward and it would be done.

No!

No, I knew I had to jump. This couldn’t be some half-assed semi accident. I had to clear the cliff face on the way down.

It is all or nothing.

I stepped back, once, twice, thrice.

JUMP JUMP.. JUMP JUMP…JUMP JUMP!

 

My ragged breaths tore at my throat; my heart cheered as loud and quickly as it could! The last of my sweat was being purged in this surge of adrenaline. I was going to leave it all behind.

“Ther….” No! I have to do it.

Don’t think.

Do.

With tears in my eyes I kicked my legs forward,