Earth-In-A-Can Stuff: Tandem (2001)

Tandem

"Again?" asked the woman I met three months ago, Katarina. "Hopefully you'll get used to them, hon." She kissed me on the cheek, and then rolled back over, pulling the bed sheets with her. I didn't think it was something that you could get used to.

Four twenty-seven. Half an hour before I have to get up. I won't be able to fall back to sleep. Fall. I couldn't escape it.

"I'll make breakfast", I told her, letting her sleep a bit more.

Thoughts of my constant dreams repeated in my head. Falling again, the same terrifying nightmare, night after night, with nothing to rein my fears in. Terminal Acrophobia. It was better than back when I couldn't walk up a ramp without my hands clenching on whatever I was carrying, in case I dropped them.

This, though, always left me with a certain... emptiness... in the pit of my stomach. Maybe Freud was right about falling dreams being sexual after all. Tell me again how it's supposed to work, Mister Psychiatrist?

I made some tea for Kat, her usual, and started making a coffee for myself. I didn't feel like the tea she had. Ginger Saffron with a touch of lemongrass. It wasn't tea, so much as seasoning. We didn't have tea, only choices.

"Morning, sweetie."

"Hey. Tea's over there."

She nodded. "You seeing the doctor today?"

"Three o'clock. Should all be fine."

With my eyes closed, I felt it all again. The wind in my hair, butterflies in my stomach. Even had a funny tingle on my face. The feeling of being alive before the absence of feelings. Death. I felt a rush of adrenalin every single time that I saw heights, even on a postcard.

"You going to be alright?", she asked.

"Doctor Kyriades fixed up my cousin -- you should have seen what a nut job Frank was.

"You're not crazy, honey. You just have bad dreams."

I smiled, "Thanks Kat."

She came over and fastened her arms around me. "Good luck", she whispered through velvet lips.

"I'll see you tonight. It'll all be different."

From home to the City by train took a while, though you did get used to it after a year and three months at the same job. Nine months until that two-year mark I'd set myself, though I had no idea what I'd do then. I'd like to be able to afford some place nice, where there weren't any delays for the trains, or even trains at all. I could live away from all that, and grow old with a wife, in the inner west. Maybe even a few kids.

Satisfaction. That's what it's all about. Being happy, not materialism. What do I want with a penthouse apartment? I've had enough heights in my dreams to last all my life. Twenty-two minutes until a crowded four carriage would pull into the station, eight minutes late, for a fifty-minute trip. It was the destiny of every train on the line.

I called the office. "Susan, it's Mike. Can you cover me 'til five past?"

"Sure, but pick me up a long black from Primo's. Don't be too late, either-- Hillary's on the rampage about the canon deal."

"Thanks for the heads-up. See you soon."

"Buon Giorno, Miki. You look tired. Too many late nights and never rest is no good for you."

"I know, Pablo. Can I get two long blacks to go?"

Bloodshot eyes were nothing compared with the rest. Just as well Pablo didn't know the lot or I'd be here all week. Forget falling asleep.. that's where it happens anyway -- in my sleep. It happens the second I close my eyes. I closed my eyes and I was there.

Gravity increased as I saw my surroundings drop around me. I was rising higher, and higher to a greater height than the towering place before. I felt like I would be squashed into a ceiling if it continued. The ding of the elevator. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the doors before they opened, and noticed it had more colour than its earthly counterpart. Three o'clock couldn't come soon enough.

I walked down an office corridor of fortune-cookie walls; the names above each office were nothing more to me than empty wisdom and hollow promises. They could solve nothing.

Three o'clock.

"Hello Michael. If you please take a seat, we can get started." This was the psychiatrist.

"I've read the report from your doctor. You suffer from nightmares, sudden blackouts, and loss of time at some points? Your fear of heights is definitely quite advanced."

"Just thinking about them makes my head dizzy." I told her. I also told her what happened every time I closed my eyes, or blinked, or looked down at my shoes when I tied them up.

She took notes. "Your condition is worse than I had expected it to be, Michael. I'll need to run a small exercise. I will read out a list of words slowly, and I want you to think of each in turn."

I nodded.

"Pizza,"
It could only be Pisa. Leaning Tower, me atop it. Falling or not, I had no control.

"Elastic,"
Was used for bungee jumps, falling for sport.

"Bean,"
The stupid boy sold a cow for them. Climb the stalk above the clouds, chop it down and it falls. It killed a giant, now it wants me.

"Breakfast,"
Pancake, splat. Throw it up and watch it fall. Made with eggs, chickens laying, roosters crowing, crows nest, a lookout high up on a ship.

Every word had its own connotation, but in the end, Heights.

"Trains,"
Trains rhymed with Planes. Then there's peak hour, the gap between the carriage and the platform, the countless bridges, everything going by so quickly into a great big blur."

"Love."
Falling in. Kat.

The Doctor made another appointment for me, but I knew that only I could fix this.

Furious fellows fearing fair fortune, forbidden fates, fire. All falling. A pitter of rocks, a patter of pebbles. The sheer cliff I hung to, plummeting, plummeting, as the world itself fell through space. A headache. Adrenalin and fear. People looked like ants and the cars looked like cockroaches, except for the few bright ones, which were scarab beetles. I felt like a champion diver, ready to take the plunge.

Shutters on the windows stopped those inside from witnessing my struggle. Every word I read and every alliteration I hear and every thought I conjure only suggests great heights, and greater falls. No cubicle would shelter me from a room with a view and no more would that vertical taunt me. The only way to cure my fear, would be to embrace it.

I should have been home hours ago. Too late for that now. I can't do it all again. Up here, I can smell the clean air, unlike below. I taste the cold, and fill the bitter chill of winter air, even in autumn. I see the lights. Colours dazzle my eyes, invitingly.

I should write her a note. Everything you want is here, they tell me, though Katarina lives below. So do the wails and the screams and the crying that were never meant for my ears. Sirens and flashes irritate, and I realise I no longer fear the heights, only falling to the world below. Cockroaches and ants gather about a single ant as though it were treacle. Scarabs surround, but they can do nothing for it.

I go to visit her, and I can see her. She cannot see me, though. Everything stopped.