It's Only a Nightmare

This has happened before. This is just like the other times. I have no idea how or why I wind up here, but here I am again. Scared shitless. “It’s only a nightmare.” I keep telling myself.

I’ve only been to Zion National Park in Utah once. It was twenty years ago when I was a twelve-year-old boy. I thought I knew everything and could do anything. I was arrogant and intolerant. In short, I was the classic definition of a snot-nosed kid.

My Dad was an avid hiker. He talked Mom into the Zion vacation. She wanted to go to the Caribbean and relax on the beach. Ha! Fat chance. After we arrived and checked in, Dad told me to study the Zion hiking literature and pick a trail for the next day. I chose Devil's Landing because of the stunning pictures. Words like “strenuous” and “not for everyone” also attracted me. Mom wanted no part of the hike. She said she would do something intelligent like stay back at the resort and watch a movie while we risk our lives on a dangerous trail.

I remember the literature stating that there had not been a fatality on the Devil's Landing trail since last season, as if that was supposed to make it more attractive.

We started early AM, and, after a couple of uphill hours, the “trail” became a two-foot wide “ledge” with over a quarter of a mile drop straight down into a slot canyon on one side. Sometimes, there were chains for handholds drilled into the side of the mountain. Sometimes, there were none. When there were no chains, we had to flatten our backs against the mountain and take baby steps along the ledge. It was slow, stressful work, quickly driving the “snot” right out of my nose.

I didn’t actually see it happen. It happened fast. A blur. One second, my Dad was next to me, inching along a chainless stretch of the ledge. A second later, he was gone. I didn't realize he had fallen until I heard his scream, followed by the crunch of bushes from the slot canyon floor fifteen hundred feet below. There was a lot of loose gravel on this part of the ledge, and I imagine that’s what did him in.

So, there I was. A twelve-year-old boy. Frozen. Petrified. Unable to move. I stood there, crying, for what must have been three or four hours. My mother eventually got the park rangers to send a helicopter to search Devil's Landing. They found me and sent down a hoist guided by a ranger in the belly of the copter to pluck me off the ledge and up to safety.

The nightmare is always the same. It starts with me on the ledge, listening to my Dad scream, waiting for the thud when his body hits the floor of the slot canyon fifteen hundred feet down. I stand there with my back against the mountain wall, afraid to move, waiting for the helicopter to come to rescue me. I startle back to consciousness as the helicopter comes into view. When I wake up, I am drenched with sweat.

My wife Linda is a psychologist and worries about my night terrors. She says that they should have run their course after twenty years, but I still get them a couple of times a week. I read that Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize-winning DNA scientist, was fascinated by dreams, especially nightmares. Crick theorized that nightmares were the brain's way of taking out the garbage. In my case, it seems I constantly bring the garbage back in.

But this time, it's different. The nightmare starts out the usual way. My Dad screams, and his body thumps into the brush on the slot canyon floor, but after that, there's no sound. Just when I expect to hear the helicopter rotors, there’s nothing.

Then, for want of a better word, the whole scenario starts to slowly tilt. I can barely feel it at first, but the tilt is inexorable, like a clock drive. It’s as if the mountain has decided I’m expendable and is gradually tilting the ledge so I will eventually slide off into the slot canyon and have an almost certain fatal free fall.

But wait! Here comes the helicopter! Better late than never. The doors to the belly of the copter open, and I see the ranger start to guide the hoist toward me. Through the open door, I can see my mother's face. Her hands cover her mouth in terror.

The hoist is getting closer. Survival instinct kicks in, and I try to dig my nails into the mountainside, but the ledge keeps slowly tilting, making nail-digging a less viable option. The loose gravel on the ledge becomes a bigger and bigger problem until I'm literally backpedaling for my life.

I slip and fall on my back, my legs hanging over the edge of the ledge. As a last resort, I flip over onto my stomach and bite into a rock. That safety is only temporary, however. My body weight soon triumphs over my dental fortitude. I should have taken better care of my teeth.

With the ledge now at a nearly ninety-degree angle, I make one last attempt to grab the side of the hoist. I miss. As I plunge into the canyon, the last thing I see are my bloody teeth sliding off the ledge.

I try to scream as I plummet earthward, but no sound comes out. I can see my Dad on the canyon floor. He smiles and waves. Just before I smash into the ground to a certain death, I bolt into consciousness, sweating and shaking.

Who are all these people looking down at me? I see my mom, Linda, and a bunch of relatives I haven’t seen in years. I hear snippets of their conversation.

“Heart attack …”

“So young …”

“Only thirty-two …”

“In his sleep …”

I try to tell them that I’m not dead, but I can’t move or make a sound. I feel a hand on my face. I turn, and it's my Dad. He smiles.

“Want to go for a hike?”

I shake my head, “How about we watch a movie instead.”