My hand scrapped at the rock face, reaching for the next crevice in the rock that would take me that much higher along the mesa. A glance about me confirmed how precariously I was perched. Like a gnat clutching to the Universe for safety.
This would be my last trip out here to the great southwest. My last trip out to my great escape from the towers of glass and steel and the herds of fiberglass beasts roaming the urban streets. But this escape was different. This escape was stained with dishonor.
I missed the old days. Back when Mike and I first started the company. Those were the pioneering days. Back when it seemed like anything was possible because we were beating the odds just by surviving another day, ever growing larger and stronger.
I shifted my weight and swung a leg into another crevice and began inching upward, closer to the top and safety above. The company was now going bankrupt, all to the fault of a merger gone bad and several stock deals all made by me. Mike was now an alcoholic and a womanizer. Everything was going to hell. I had already lost face over a year ago. Now I was losing what was left and it was my fault.
I thought of my parents back home in my homelands. How they would feel about their dishonored and worthless son pleading for their help. I would have none of it. In a brief and desperate moment, time seemed to stop, no longer did even the wind fighting against me on this rock face have any meaning any more. I saw everything as it was laid out before me.
And then I closed my eyes and let go. I was dishonored, there was no point in continuing on. I would only dishonor myself further. A disgrace to my family name and a failure as a human being. A failure. At least here the vultures could pick on my carcass.
I felt myself falling and not once dared open my eyes. The wind whistled more violently as I felt myself go sailing past something, probably an out stretch of mesa. And then suddenly I felt my landing. Not upon the ground but on that very outcrop. There was a loud and sickening snapping noise and pain raced up through out my body.
I didn’t dare open my eyes. The pain was so intense, I did not move at all, laying sprawled on the sandy rock I loved so much. My legs were broken, I could feel that much. I knew they were probably shattered, but I was still alive. Fate was cruel. I would lay out here to die slowly.
I lay there for an hour. I knew this because I still had my wristwatch to count the seconds of my agony as I stared at the perfect blue that encompassed the world above. I finally passed out after so long. The pain too great for my body, the nervous system simply shut down.
Some how I awoke in a hospital. A park ranger had noticed when I hadn’t checked in after two hour’s passing and sent a helicopter to investigate. This was routine because tourists were often getting themselves stranded on the mesa. Unable to proceed forward or go back down again.
I would never walk again, but somehow I was happy to be alive. The pain was gone and I could enjoy the simplicity of eating or sleeping. Days were silly things to attempt to understand for me. The drugs they had me on were great. I could fall asleep and awake for it to be at least two days later with out pause in my rest.
This was how I lost my legs. In my attempted suicide. But it gave me new courage to do things. It was as if simple things in life meant a great deal to me once again because I could experience them and never have to feel that pain again. There on the mesa.
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