Please note: this piece contains strong language
Her thighs ached as she pedalled to work. Not unbearably, just enough to remind her they were tired and wanted to stay in bed. The unpleasant winter rain was still reluctantly trickling down from the black sky.
She was looking at the handlebars because everything else scared her.
Every shadow, every corner, every doorstep scared her. She was afraid of the dark, of falling off her bike, of hobos sleeping outside, of rats, of whatever could be lurking down the obscure alleyway.
Pussy.
Of course that’s not what her friends would say. But she always had a good excuse to stay well within her comfort zone. These excuses were not necessarily lies, just the usual and uncontradictable “I’m tired” or “I’m broke”.
Louisa was not average height, she was tall. She had an average knowledge of music and films. She travelled averagely. She had average ambitions. She was not quite content with this average ambition and felt she might turn around in thirty years and curse herself.
Her bike saddle was damp and her legs felt like bags of concrete. But she would be late for work in a very near future, so she ignored the poor things once more during the final dash down inconveniently but beautifully cobbled alleyways, squeezing through red lights, until, breathless and windswept, she pressed the malfunctioning brakes. Work.
Her colleague walked up as she was locking up. He was the sort of colleague that she thought about too often, fantasising witty flirtations and secretive glasses of rosé.
"Hey" was in fact their only and customary greeting.
After outstaring a second cup of tea, she managed to focus and get through her horrible, mind-numbing routine, broken only by the unsuspected joy of blueberry muffins.
*
She was just bending down to battle once more with her old, stubborn bike lock, imagining what morsels of food she might scrounge in the depths of her fridge and magically metamorphose into a meal, when a voice broke into her meal-planning-miracle-performing train of thoughts.
'Hey Louisa, you’re pretty sporty right?'
It was James. What on earth makes him think that? she thought, while her mouth opened and answered:
'Sure, why?'
'Some of us are going climbing tomorrow at Eye Rock, fancy joining us? I reckon you’d enjoy it, it’s a nice place.'
'I’ve never climbed before.'
'Doesn’t matter, we can teach you.'
'Okay, why not? When?'
Saturday at ten. That was the date and time he set for her impending doom. She was positive this was as close as she could get to actual torture. She didn’t like heights. She was uncomfortable exerting her muscles in almost any way. Most of all she was terrified of seeming ridiculous.
Why was she putting herself through this? She wondered again later that evening, clutching a cup of tea like the life line she might actually be dangling from in twelve hours or so. Several times she picked up her phone to send a spineless text to cancel – she had even gotten as far as their conventional "Hey" but something stopped her. Alarm signals were flashing in her brain, like the little green lights that blink over emergency exits.
'Fuck it. Fuck you.' She dug in her heels, suddenly rebellious. Her guts were on her side. That must be why she felt sick to her stomach. She decided to switch off her brain, or at least ignore it, and eat some chocolate.
*
She was close to the top, but also incredibly far.
Her arms were getting tired – not creaking like her thighs usually did, but in a loud, screeching way that made it hard to ignore. The tendon in the crook of her arm stood out, trying desperately to make up for the lack of volume and strength on the bicep’s behalf. Her forearm was also slowly becoming stiff and strained, though in a less noticeable way that would hurt more later. The four tendons that ran up her skinny hands formed channels from her wrist to the tips of her fingers. This was perhaps the part of her body she noticed most, for the first time in her existence, as her digits were bearing the weight of her whole, exceptionally tall, body fifty feet above the ground.
Someone below yelled up for her to move one of her feet to the right. Or was it left? In any case, both were out of the question; her feet, the only point of her being that seemed solidly supported, were as good as superglued to the rock. But the strain was creeping slowly up her leg, shaking her calves, trembling in her thighs.
Deep breath. Do what the guy says. Before your arms give out completely.
As soon as she stopped thinking about it, she could do it. Her hands and feet went for it, fumbling for holds and pulling and pushing her up. Her mind had ceased to dictate the terms and conditions of the adventure. Her body somehow picked her up to the top of the cliff. For the first few, numb seconds, she only saw the smooth rock and her own grazed hands.
But then she raised her eyes, still stinging from the sweat, the wind whipped back her hair and the horizon burst out into an amazing panorama. It stretched in all ways; hills forming a river of greenness, rivers becoming veins through the countryside, trees shaping a neat patchwork; going and going until the glass of buildings winking at her from the distance, though she couldn’t hear the city at all. Everything was muted as though the air between it and her was protecting her.
She straightened up and laughed out loud, celebrating her achievement. Knees shaking, chest thumping, adrenaline pulsing, her body was not likely to forget or forgive anytime soon, nor overcome all the fears that had almost deprived her of this horizon. But she realised suddenly, perched on top of the cliff, that what she feared most of all was boredom.