High off the ground

High off the Ground

The sun burned on to the back of her neck. Lisa sat on the passenger seat of the bakkie looking out on to the river. There was not another soul in sight but she knew that up on the mountains there were troops of baboons. Some of them might come lumbering down the escarpment to look for food. It was the humans’ fault for feeding them against regulations. Now when they saw a human it was an invitation to dinner, on bananas or bread or whatever  else there was in their back packs.

Lisa was not going to get out of the bakkie, not of she could help it . The boys were paddling on the river but there was no sign of them yet. They had been gone for two hours and she was beginning to get worried. Her phone rang. “Hello, Lisa here.” “ Lisa we have a small problem.” “ Oh yes?” “Trevor’s boat has broken, you will have to drive down to the Algeria bridge and meet us, we will be walking along the river bank.” “Alright I will head off now.” Lisa thought , “ this is going to take a while and I need to empty my bladder!” Getting out of the bakkie, she squatted next to it and relieved herself, keeping an eye out behind her, for marauding baboons.

Lisa started up the engine and drove along the river banks until she got to the Algeria bridge. There was no sign of the boys, they must be further up river.

Steering the vehicle she drove on but much to her dismay the road veered up the mountain in a steep incline. She drove on hoping to see some sign of life and hoping that there would be an end to the mountain pass. A bus racketed past her and after that the road kept climbing, up and up. Since ever she could remember she had an irrational fear of heights. She gripped  the steering wheel, sweating  in the afternoon sun. Saying a few Hail Marys she drove on. How could she find the boys when the bakkie was going up the mountain instead of along the river’s edge? She had passed the Algeria bridge. She had passed the place where there was space to turn the bakkie, there seemed to be no end to the road spiralling up the mountain, she had passed the place of no return. How long would it take to get to place of habitation and where she could safely turn and go back. She saw a small space at the left of the road. Getting out and surveying the dirt road which was hardly as wide as her vehicle, she realized that there was only one thing to do, turn the car around, here high up on the mountain. She did not dare to look down into the valley, it made her stomach turn to think of it. Getting in the car she inched forward almost to the edge of the road. She thought of what could happen.” What happened to Lisa?” They would ask themselves. Then they would find the crumpled bakkie with her body twisted inside at the bottom of the valley. Inching forward and backward, Lisa manoeuvred the car slowly around. With a gasp of relief, she could at last see, that she could drive back down the mountain. Down at the bridge she saw the two boys walking wearily along. “What happened to you? You took an age to get here.” “ Don’t talk to me, I will get in the back and you can drive from now on, I feel quite sick.”

Thinking back Lisa remembered so many times when she had felt the same sickness. There was the time when, in new York, she had gone up to the top of  the  World Trade Centre. There she could feel the building swaying ,110 floors up . She could only sit or stand with her face to the inner wall and wait in agony for the lifts to take her down to ground level. She felt frozen and could hardly move back into the lift. “Are you alright?” someone asked.” No!” said in a half whisper.

In 2001 on September 11 she watched on TV when some suicide planes drove in to the buildings which started to collapse. She watched in horror while some people jumped out of the windows, holding hands, plunging out in the air, to their deaths. Would she have jumped? No, she would rather have burned.

She remembered driving over the Gouda bridge at the Berg river, not so long ago, on another river trip, where she was seconding some paddlers and driving their car. The bridge about 170 metres off the ground is a single lane bridge. Here again she had had to keep her eyes full ahead and grip the steering wheel as if her life depended on it.

She could not remember when this fear had taken over her life. She managed it, by never exposing herself to standing near the edge of anything. It could be very embarrassing, for instance when she had visited the building in Pretoria she had gone half across the bridge in the arch near the top of the building  and had fallen to her knees in a trembling fit and not been able to move. Another tourist  had had to help her across .

There was the time when as a swimmer, she had been told to swim across the diving pool at the City swimming baths. She had not been able to get in the water. “I can’t do this Judy!” “Why not ? Get in, I am the coach, you  have to listen to me!” “ I am terrified.” “Of what for goodness sake, have you lost the ability to swim?” “ I am afraid of the height .” “What height?” asked Judy dumbfounded. “ “The height of the edge of the pool.” “ But there is water in the pool, it is not empty. Get in!” Judy shook her head in disbelief. Lisa simply could not. It seemed to her the surface of the water went deep, deep down, fathoms deep.

Now, Lisa had attended a meeting on the 10^th floor of the office building where the branch office of Indigo resided. She had not been here before and it was a shock to have gone up ten floors . The height had however, not been very noticeable. There were no large windows looking out to the view. What windows there were, had blinds, which concealed them and kept the sun out.

The meeting was over and Lisa running to the elevator where the doors were about to close, called out “ Wait for me!”  she just managed to squeak in. There was one other person in the lift and he had pressed the  ‘door open’ button. It was Tyler, the programmer for Indigo Information Technology. He was the company mastermind and didn’t he know it! He had more than once, ticked her off for making some trivial mistake or other and she had grown to dislike him intensely.

One day Lisa had overheard Tyler saying. “That Lisa woman is a real pain. She is always laughing at something and joking. She does not seem to know that we have serious business to attend to.” Yeah I know .” from Jono, “ like sorting out our client problems.” “ We always have a deadline to meet like the job we are on now. I am trying to balance the moon on a stick and she comes along with her feeble one liners.”

Lisa felt her cheeks burn with humiliation. They did not realize that part of her frivolity stemmed from her feelings of  insecurity and lack of self confidence, her constant feeling of inferiority. She always played down her inner anxieties.

The elevator started to move. It was moving down when suddenly the lights went off. They were midway between the 10^th and 9^th floors. The elevator stopped. It was alright being in a moving elevator but standing in a stationary one between the 9^th and 10^th floor was too much. Lisa crumpled into a sitting position on the floor and started to whimper. Tyler stood looking at her in amazement. He had never seen a human being behaving like this and really had no idea how to handle the situation. Lisa had irritated him in the office countless times, with her laugh and her cheeky remarks. She seemed to think everything was a joke and here he was, landed with what  appeared to be an incoherent, bibbering idiot.

“Damn! Stop that noise. The lift has stopped!  What is wrong with you?” Lisa continued to shiver and whimper uncontrollably. She could not speak. All she could think of was the space between the elevator and the ground. If the elevator did not hold, it would go crashing to the ground and she in it and  they would be smashed. It was not however the end result that was the terror, it was  the sense of falling to the ground, that she could not eliminate from her mind. There was no escape from the terror. The falling, the emptiness, the vacuum beneath her took hold of all her senses. She could feel , smell, touch, hear and see her own fear, which increased with every second.

“Shut up!” said a voice in the elevator, “I said stop that noise. Pull yourself together! Do you suffer from claustrophobia?”  Lisa looked up and vaguely recognised Tyler . Her blue eyes were huge in her face,  pale with anxiety. She managed to shake her head. “Well, what is the matter for goodness sake? There is obviously a power failure and we will get out of this.”

Tyler grabbed Lisa’s hand, “You can get through this, whatever it is. It is scary but we are not in any danger. Help will come.”

Lisa made retching noises. “Oh God! Thought Tyler, surely we are not going to vomit in here!” Tyler switched his mobile on. There was hardly any light in the cramped elevator space. He looked more closely at Lisa, noticing how her fair hair fell softly around her shoulders. She was not bad looking. Her legs stuck out from under her skirt and he saw that they were strong and well shaped.  The ankles were, he thought, well-turned. He had read that expression somewhere. He was a leg man himself and shapely ankles were a good finish. Lisa had slender feet that were shown off to good effect with some strappy green sandals .  

He had to do something, or the girl would pass out . He was not sure which would be more unpleasant for him, her vomiting, or her collapsing in a dead faint.  He felt the stirring inside of a feeling of tenderness. He felt sorry to have held up this rather fragile person for ridicule to his colleagues. He could never forgive himself.

Tyler sat down next to Lisa. Taking her hand he said “Hang in there , let’s try and get through this together.  Breathe in slowly with me . Look at me.” Lisa looked into his eyes and nodded. “Okay, now breathe out. Do it again. Breathe in slowly and out. Lisa started to breathe in rythm with Tyler. After a few minutes the shaking stopped. She gripped his hand tight. She concentrated on what he was saying and on the breathing. She began to feel a little better.

“Good,”  said Tyler, “I am proud of you! “ You are doing a good job. Keep it up. I will take a breath with you every time you breathe.” Lisa gave a tremulous smile, “Hey! You know there is a song called ‘Every breath you take’ Have you heard it? It won three Grammy awards.” Tyler kept on talking. He saw that Lisa was getting some colour back in her cheeks. How amazing, he thought to himself, that he had never noticed how pretty she was. How ashamed he felt that he had “dissed” her so, with the other staff.  “Are you feeling a little better Lisa?” She nodded and kept hold of his hand.  “One of the lines in the song is ‘I’ll be watching you’ and I will be watching you Lisa Okay?

I am sorry that I have misjudged you and been so mean. Can we start again?”  Just then the lights came on and the elevator began to move. (timing is everything!)

On the ground floor Tyler helped Lisa to her feet and guiding her through the door gave her a hug. “ I hope we will be good friends!” Lisa smiled , “: I will never forget how kind you have been  in the past two hours.”