*Flash Fiction*A Leap of Faith
“Do not spend your time sadly thinking about the past. Spend it dreading the future.”
Chah-Lee
The Inscrutable Philospher
From “Cosmic Notes from Beyond the Cosmos”
*
“Holy Smokes! Would at that thing!”
“Why it must be a hundred feet tall!”
Actually the cement diving platform was only thirty two feet in height – but for a ten year old boy it looked like a hundred.
Mom and Matty opted to go paddle around in the shallow end of the Olympic size pool. A Typical choice for girls and babies.
Me? I was gonna dive off that monster into the pool.
There was just one tiny problem.
I was scared of heights.
Ah, let me clarify that statement – I was poop-in-your-pants fantasized, wet-myself-for-sure paralyzed , and I know-I’m-gonna-die terrorized by heights.
Yet on that hot sun shiny day I ascended that stone behemoth. Determined to prove my metal.
With my heart in my throat, my legs trembling with fear I climbed several flights of steps up.
An eternity later I arrived to the summit of what must of been Mount Olympus.
Glancing down I saw tiny pinprick blobs floating in the pool. Those were people.
Oh God, No!
Abruptly a small boy ran past me and cannon balled off the end of the platform – his ecstatic screams followed him down – ending in a titanic splash of water.
More kids followed. Leaping and squealing off the platform into the water.
Splash! Splash!! Splash!!
The big kid found me two hours later chalk white and standing at the end of the precipice.
“Whatsa mattah, Kid? Why dontcha jump?”
“immaaa… ahhhuh.. fraidof… aaaa…heights!”
“Awww…you’ll be fine!”
I received a tremendous wallop on the back – which sent me shrieking over the edge and into the void.
