Interlude

I’m standing on a precipice near Halifax. It’s getting colder, the air smells rainy, and I’m incapable of moving. Bravery and confidence have turned to panic, which has solidified, the same way the muscles in my body have. I have three solid contact points. One is a deep, hand-shaped, finger-depth hole in the side of the ironstone I’m trapped on. Both feet are firmly planted on a space three-quarters as wide as my shoes.

My thoughts have all but halted. I’ve thought of everything.

Jumping: if it were deep water, I’d consider it. If it were cushions, I’d bethere.

The way I came is downhill and my body won’t let me turn around; I can’t go forward. The hand- and footholds are millimeters farther than I’ll let myself stretch. After an instant of shuffling , I stay still.

Help offers have been rebuked. At this stage in my adrenaline rush, I’m incapable of trust. My panic is too deep. “I’ve got three contact points,” says Nick, sitting above on a ledge I could scramble to if I was a foot up or east from my prison. “Seriously, I’m not going to let you go.”

I shuffle vainly. I can’t take his help. It’s beyond distrust. He doesn’t want to kill me, but he will. If I take his hand, I will die.

A shudder moves through my legs, which I spent earlier by walking for two hours. They’ll shake more soon, further rattling my shattered confidence.

I turn my head. The hand is there, waiting. The contact points are still firm, all six of them: mine and his. I turn my body, take the hand, take the step from my outcrop, and work slowly down the tiny path until my feet are at sea level, flat, and secure. It rains.

(*I wrote this in 2003, about two weeks after I moved to Halifax. This was my first real panic attack. Now I get them when swimming, but that's a different story that I didn't use as a writing assignment topic in Journalism school.*)