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Jonathan ChamberlainTHE HIGH DIVEWhy I had climbed up on to the rock I can't remember. Up here I was a good fifteen feet up. The afternoon sun came glancing off the smooth mirror of the sea's surface. I remembered a game we had played at school. There had been an outdoor swimming pool, six foot deep at the deep end. At the side there was a roofed changing area. The kick was to dive in off the roof into the deep end of the pool. From eight or nine feet high you got to palm yourself off the bottom of the pool. There was no real danger to it. The only way you'd get hurt was not having your arms out in front of you - or maybe if you slipped your footing and hit the side of the pool. That was what gave the game an edge. ...How could I ever have thought the pool was six foot deep?... The rock was too high. Even I could see that. Just a bit too high. It would need guts to do it. I was a coward. I was running away. Just running aimlessly, going nowhere, not having the courage to reach out and choose, to just do something - something for myself that might define myself. Do something to prove to myself I was...what? Something to respect myself for afterwards, not the things that I had been doing that gnawed away at my self-respect. I looked down again. I could get hurt. If I was younger, perhaps? Coward, I told myself.I was beginning to feel a bit silly now standing up there on the rock squinting down at the water, measuring, always measuring. Assessing the depth, assessing my courage. Was life going to go on as it had done, steadily eating away at the soul? I stood on the rock and stared down at the clear pool of water below me. I knew I could do it. It was a matter of curving the back as soon as you hit the water and padding yourself off the bottom with the palms of the hands. It was just a matter of taking a deep breath and doing it. Too much thought made you scared. Just do it. I wanted to do it. I wanted to prove myself. Confirm myself. I was scared of being scared. Scared at how my being scared of life had stumped me. I was at a dead end. But don't think about that, I told myself, just the water. It beckoned me and I felt its pull. I readied myself on the rock's edge and stared down the fear that was rising. Before it could reach my brain and make me back down, make me fail again, I thrust myself away into the air, away from the land. It wasn't a high jack‑knifing dive but a headlong plunge towards the water and the sand bottom...  If there is a beginning to my life, this is it. I see myself caught in mid air. Behind me there is a long sandy beach. Nearby are rocks and coconut palms. The sky is a shocking dark blue. The sea stretches out, going from sandy green to ruffled dark. Caught in mid air I suddenly understood something very clearly. I saw I was going to die. The water in the pool wasn't six foot deep. How silly of me. I could see that now as I plunged down. It was two, maybe three feet deep at most. I braced myself against death. I hit the water with my arms slightly bent to break the fall.My hands ripped through the silvery sheen of the water's surface. The surface ruptured at the head's plummeting passage. I could see all this quite clearly. I was both inside and outside the experience. The forearms took the main brunt of the impact as I slammed against the sand. The body continued its descent. Another foot of water and I would have been alright. My forehead slammed against the sand bottom. My body jarred and fell around me. And then I rose to the surface and breathed in clean air. Yes. Imagine it. I rose to the surface. I was conscious of the wonder of this fact. Conscious too that I was conscious. I breathed in the air. Clean, salty, sun filtered air. I was aware that a miracle had happened. I had broken my neck for sure. It was bent forward, I couldn't straighten up. But I was alive. I moved my arms and legs. I hadn't been crippled but I had busted my neck and I had to be very very careful. I had been immeasurably close to death and now I was alive, still among the living. I AM alive. Jesus Christ, I swore in amazement. Jesus. When I was sure I wasn't dead ‑ I was clutching my head half in amazement and half in pain ‑ when I was absolutely, incredulously sure, I waded through the rocks surrounding the pool to the shore. Shock got to me quickly. I started to shiver. There was someone nearby. I called for help. Hands took hold of me and walked me to the thatched hut I had rented. Voices expressed concern. "I'm alright," I assured them, "I just need to lie down." I seemed to know what I was doing. I was helped to lie down. I found a position that did not induce muscular spasms. I was made comfortable. Then they left me. The babble of concern receded. After a while the shivering stopped. It was late in the afternoon. At first there was nothing. No thoughts. Just awareness. I felt the breeze. I heard the residual muttering from the restaurant not far away. I remembered what I had done. I had done something of incomparable stupidity. I looked down again from the rock in my mind's eye. I wondered how I could ever have thought the pool was six foot deep. I could see how the curve of a rock had misled me into imagining I was looking at a diffracted image. How very silly. I smiled. It didn't matter now. I forgave myself. The best thing to do now was to lie still ‑ as still as I could. Tomorrow I would go to the hospital. My neck was busted for sure. What a really dumb thing to do. I wiggled my toes and fingers from time to time to reassure myself. I couldn't stop the grin spreading right across my face.  The illustration is IKB 79 by Yves Klein, one of his blue monochrome paintings in International Klein Blue. Klein was also the man behind the famous photograph on the left which, appropriately for Jonathan's story, is called Saut Dans La Vide - or Leap In The Void.The story is by Jonathan Chamberlain and is part of a larger work called Wordjazz For Stevie, a memoir of eight years living with his profoundly handicapped daughter. He is the author of Cancer: The Complete Recovery Guide. A weird rush of traffic last night. Five hundred visitors in a few hours, and then it calmed down, back to the more familiar sedate trickle of discerning readers. What was all that about? More stories on the way... 8:15 AM - 13/1/2007 - post comment
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