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Fourteen: Free Fall
I was lying at the foot of a cliff bleeding pretty badly. I couldn't remember when, why or how it had happened. I lay there feeling miserable but with a vision of Kashmere stuck in my brain.
I blacked out. When I woke again I could hear the sea crashing on the rocks. I was lying on a ledge of rock and I slowly began to remember. The ledge was grassed over and when I came to a halt in my free fall off the cliff, the grass had helped soften the blow. It hadn't softened it that much though, my ribs ached and I had the sneaking suspicion that one of my legs could be broken. Fall! I use the word fairly loosely, there were hands involved, rough hands, rowdy voices and angry eyes. The rough hands, rowdy voices and angry eyes had thrown me over the cliff, not the friendliest thing they could have done.
It had given me a terrific vision of the sea two hundred metres below, the crashing sea and the rocks, black, wave swept rocks. They had said: Lift and on three, they lifted me above their heads: One two three and they hurled me over the cliff. I was free falling and the rushing wind, the crashing waves and the sight of the black rocks all hit me at once.
I was fascinated, the fall seemed to take forever, the old saying about time standing still and your life flashing in front of your eyes is all true. It wasn't a whole life, just a few choice snippets. My first day at school, my first date with a girl, I was only fifteen at the time and my friends all wanted to know if I had kissed her and if I had put my arm around her. I was terrified, I didn't particularly like her. The first time I drove a car, I was taking lessons, I drove into a lamp post and it, the car, expired. Funny thing my summation of thirty odd years on this planet.
As I fell I was singing Kumbaya over and over, why Kumbaya I don't know, I'm not religious. I did kiss the girl and I did put my arm around her and Dad was livid as it was his car that had gone cactus. Time went on and on and on but it was probably just a few seconds. I could hear a great pounding, as if heavy artillery were firing at an entrenched enemy position, that was my heart thundering inside my chest. It beat so hard I thought it was going to break out of my rib cage. Hell you are in for it now, I thought, this is going to hurt, your body is not going to be happy.
I had enough sense to try to protect my head with my arms but my leg caught on something and that swung me around and I went smack into the face of the cliff. Blood started pouring out of my nose. This is going to make one hell of a mess of my T-shirt, I thought. I was falling and sliding down the almost vertical rock face now, I caught hold of a bush and held on. The bush was thorny and cut into my hand and arm, don't you just hate prickly bushes, what are they trying to prove? Then I was free falling again and tumbling down the face of the cliff and the sea was getting closer. I rolled onto a ledge and came to a halt with a thump. I was lucky to be alive and at that moment, instead of thanking God for sparing me from oblivion, I started to sing oh I do love to be beside the seaside.