Rope

The rope was not too thick to wrap my hand around easily, yet not so thin that it could not be gripped firmly. It was, perhaps, the ideal thickness for holding on to. I am not sure now when I first became aware of it. But I was standing in a dark place: totally dark. Perhaps I had become blind, but a dim light in the far distance made me doubt this. I recall that I was standing in the dark, facing this distant, dim light - an almost imperceptible lessening of the black, rather than a definite illumination. I think the first real description that popped into my mind was as pale as reflected starlight. But that was not right: it wasn’t pale.

At exactly the same moment as becoming aware of the distant glimmer, I became aware of draughts on both sides of me. All I could do was to stand still and think about this for a moment. I let go of the rope. I had felt like this once before. Then a memory of a foggy day walking in the mountains sprang to mind. This sent a quivering chill through my entire being as I recalled standing on the ridge of a mountain, feeling that draught, the only kind you get when you stand with an immeasurable drop both sides of you. But I was standing here in the pitch dark, with no idea how I had got here, next to a rope at waist height facing a slight glimmer, wondering what lay all sides of me.

I grabbed the rope again, cautiously, with my left hand. It was stretched incredibly tightly, between supports a long way from me. It moved up and down quite freely, but if I tugged it forwards or backwards, there was no give at all. It was stretched like a piano wire. I pulled again, as I stepped forward, only to be scared witless by the pale glimmer suddenly brightening, rushing towards me with a scream, a wild, male, human scream that turned my knees to jelly. It was tearing towards me at a hell of a lick. Bright, piercing light at the centre of a kind of mandala-like star, with reds and yellows at the edge, hurtling towards me threatening to knock me from this precarious perch. Instinctively, I let go of the rope, and the thing instantly disappeared, its fury subsided and the glimmer returning as my eyes adapted to the light. Now I knew I was not blind, but I felt confused and was beginning to feel frightened. I had no idea what to make of any of this. I was on a dead-black ridge, apparently in the open air, facing a monstrous screaming banshee that moved at the speed of a railway train with nothing to guide me but a tightly stretched rope. Try as I might, I could find nothing in my experience that would have prepared me for this situation. I was a complete novice: inexperienced, cold, tired and completely lost.

I stood quietly and cogitated. I brought my shallow breathing under control, breathed more deeply and felt my pulse calm to a more familiar and steady rate. Was I in control of this situation? Or was something attached to the rope in control? All I knew was that the hurtling, frightening thing was gone, but I was still here. Had I prompted it? Was I really the stimulus?

What was it? Where is this ridge? After what could have been several hours, but was probably no more than half an hour, I came to the conclusion that I had only two choices. I might try to regain and follow the rope as it apparently went the same direction as the ridge, or I might strike off away from ridge towards the right (left meant crossing the line of the rope) and downwards at a steep angle. How steep? How far? Total blackness. The choice was easy, as it happened: light or darkness? Which would you have chosen faced with such an impossible situation? I decided that towards the light lay my only hope of a way out of here. I grabbed the rope and gave it sharp tug.

This time, the scream started first, and then the light grew brilliant as it hurtled once more towards me. Before I realised it, I had not only let go of the rope, but also retreated quite a few paces. I was not holding the rope, I was in a cold sweat, trying not to walk any further backwards into total blackness.

I calmed myself and prepared for another onslaught. What else was there to do? I grabbed the rope and was taken by surprise as the mandala did not start from the distance but from a much closer point. In an instant of total despair, I, too, screamed. I screamed from my belly, a hopeless, last chance scream that my body brought forth, with mouth agape before I could think at all. Did I imagine it, or did the screaming light recede slightly and dim a little before I let go of the rope? The rope was still right next to me, so I must have let go of it after I stopped retreating, I think.

Now, perhaps this was a new piece of information. Was I kidding myself or did I really have an effect on this thing? Did I have the ability to influence it by screaming back at it? Could I control any of this at all? Clearly, I could choose when the scream came and when it stopped. I might be able to dictate the distance between us by screaming back at it. It was my choice. I gathered my wits and breathed deeply. I gulped as much as my lungs would hold, then grabbed the rope and tugged it hard, hand over hand, making my way forward into the black, headed directly for the screaming mandala that hurtled at first, then slowed, then seemed to stop until my lungs gave out. It began to lurch towards me as I exhaled the last ounce of my scream, but I let go of the rope again before it made up much ground. I don’t think I made much progress forwards, but I am sure that I did not retreat at all. But I became aware of someone else behind me. That gave me such a start that I immediately gulped in a fresh lungful of air and grabbed the rope as the next scream bellowed from my wide open mouth. The light sprung on, the colours were vivid, the noise was deafening, I was able to make definite progress forwards and the bright thing appeared stuck. Just before I ran out air, I released my grip on the rope.

Whoever had been behind me had gone. Now I felt stupid. Two of us could really apply pressure to this mutual enemy. My fear of the unknown had transferred from the disembodied howl to a person. I know more about the howl than I did about the person behind me. This was silly. I turned my back to the light and shouted hello, but there was no answer. How stupid. What had I done? I must get this person to join me in this quest to get out of the darkness. I knew exactly what to do. I faced the glow once more, and gave the rope an enormous tug. The howling hurtled towards me as I was silent. I felt myself being pressed back at quite a speed and started to loose my balance. I checked myself from falling by holding the rope tighter, and the banshee got closer as I increased my grip. I wanted to collide with the other person before the banshee collided with me, but it was almost on me as I tripped backwards over something and fell in the darkness, releasing the rope and dispelling the monster. I lay still while I got my breath back. I could hear another panting, not my own. I spoke, “Where are you?”

“Not far”, came the response. A man, not a kid, but not old either.

“Are you OK”

“I don’t know. I suppose so. What do you want with me?”

“I need your help. How did you get here?”

“I was hoping you could tell me! What are you trying to do?”

“I am trying to get out.”

“What for? It took me years to get here! You must be mad.”

“Er, I think I am. What did you mean it took you years to get here?”

He proceeded to tell me about how he had found himself one day on the edge of an abyss and had slowly and steadily inched his was around a pitch black place trying to avoid falling down a drop that he could feel but not see. Like me, he had no idea how he had got here, and no recollection of any previous life. After we had exchanged what little we knew, it turned out that I knew a lot more about the screaming light than he did. Also, he knew of several other people that he had stumbled across from time to time, but he was very recalcitrant about them. I tried not to think about what would make him nervous about going into detail about other people he may have found here. His tone of voice gave me the shudders. I think because his attitude was knowingly guilty. Did I imagine it, or was he testing me to see whether I would be with him or against him? He had been aware of me for longer than I had been aware of him and was trying to avoid me without losing the rope. The rope! Where was it? Neither of us had a grip on it or any idea about where it was. We had lost our sense of direction after our collision, and I looked wildly about me trying to perceive any lessening of the blackness. I could feel the cold draught coming from only one direction now, so at my suggestion the two of us made our way gingerly away from the draught. We were, apparently, on a wider bit of the ridge, perhaps a plateau. As we crawled, we grew more confident. Then I realised that we might crawl right under the rope and never find it. One or both of us needed to stand and walk, rather than crawl. I stood, and almost immediately found the rope. This place was not very wide, after all.

I let my new colleague know about my uncertain plan. I was going to grab the rope, and so was he, and we would tug together, moving towards the light, taking it in turns to scream as loud as we could, so that our combined efforts would produce more noise to push back the mandala. There was no way to practice this idiotic task. You could not scream like that unless you really meant it. So, after a suitable pause and a rest, we made ourselves ready. We started. Our combined tug brought the banshee hurtling towards us at an incredible speed. I screamed first and it faltered. My friend joined in and it reversed! I ran out of breath and while I was silently gulping in air, it advanced slowly. I joined in and beat it back some more. Together we advanced and it soon became surprisingly easy. We made rapid progress towards the light, taking it in turns to scream as loud as we could, maintaining constant noise. As we followed the long rope, we made increasingly rapid progress and began to gain on the screaming light. It became unbearably bright and suddenly I smashed straight into it, being unable to register any sense of distance between it and me. It registered as dull, fleshy thud and was immediately silenced. It gave way as it subsided and I think I heard something bounce away down into the dark abyss to the right. I felt immensely strong. My comrade screamed louder, this time for joy, and I knew no response other than to scream too. Then I became aware that I too was shining. My colleague and I stopped, and everything went dark. I noticed that we were glowing slightly. He seemed translucent, and shimmered a little.

We each held on to the rope with one hand. In fact, I felt that I could not let go even if I wanted. Something about this seemed horribly inevitable and impossible to alter. There was a noise from behind him and the rope quivered. This time, there was no light: just the obvious progress of someone or something making their way towards us. We stood back to back. It was clear that something was following the rope. My colleague was agitated and screamed again. Now it was he who shone brilliantly and he shot away from me at great speed, shining like a mandala, radiating coloured light. At about the same time, I realised someone was right in front of me and I screamed too, involuntarily lurching forward at great speed, with tremendous bright colourful light radiating from me. I smashed into a ragged human holding the rope, paralysed with fear. He plummeted into the abyss, and I felt strong, immensely powerful, but totally alone, as my colleague had completely disappeared a long, long way behind me.