Camp Damascus(3)

I know I’ll be fine, that most of the danger here is nothing but an illusion, but my brain understanding this is one thing and my body appropriately reacting is another. My heart is slamming hard within my chest, thundering away as a sizzling hot tingle makes its way across my skin.

This is your fight-or-flight response. Your sympathetic nervous system is releasing catecholamines and making you hyperaware of your surroundings.

The solution, of course, is grounding and prayer.

I spend a moment observing the scene around me, taking in faces on every side of the watering hole. Across the way, on the opposite cliff, even more of my peers watch with excitement and anticipation.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?

Some people come here to jump, others just wanna be a part of something. As the school year comes to an end and we all prepare to leap from our own metaphorical cliffs into adulthood, it’s easy to get restless. We’re all pretending it’s midsummer and we’re finally free, despite the fact that tomorrow we’ll be right back to the Monday grind.

I get the distinct feeling I’m living in what will someday be a fond memory.

With that, I command my foot to take its first step toward the edge.

My body refuses to move.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation,” I repeat. I take a deep breath and center myself once more, focused on compelling my body forward.

Still, nothing.

I remain motionless, staring out at a sea of classmates on the opposite cliffside while they gaze back at this curious standoff between mind and body.

“It’s not so bad once you start running,” Isaiah says from behind. “Once you reach the edge, the hard part is over.”

His words are kind, and I appreciate this vote of confidence, but in a practical sense it does absolutely nothing. I’m displaying textbook freezing behavior, and Isaiah has no more control over my basolateral amygdala than I do.

Suddenly, another familiar voice chimes in, hooting like a baseball coach from the dugout. “Let’s go, Rose!”

I glance over to find Martina has already climbed back up, soaking wet with a towel wrapped tightly around her body. Our eyes meet and she smiles warmly, immediately melting away the anxiety and fear that had paralyzed me with its icy grip. She winks.

I grin back, basking in this feeling for a moment, then return my focus to the cliff.

Feeling renewed, I prepare a third attempt to compel myself forward, but before I get the chance my gaze falls onto something strange across the ravine. The other side of the cliffs is fairly close, some forty feet across with a small waterfall carving its way down the middle in a never-ending cascade. Fellow classmates in their colorful swimwear line the opposite edge, but tucked back into the forest is another figure that watches with stoic intensity.

I squint a bit, struggling to parse whether my eyes are playing tricks on me through the shady wood.

A frighteningly pale woman is standing in the forest, her hair long and black as it hangs limply over her face and around her bony shoulders. It appears she’s staring directly at me, but it’s difficult to tell because her eyes lack irises or pupils. They’re solid white globes.

The woman is smiling, her expression frozen and her teeth unusually stained with dark brown and black smears. The teeth themselves are crooked and long, as though her gums have receded to provide an unnatural length.

Yet despite all of this, the strangest thing about the woman’s appearance is what she’s wearing. She sports a deep red polo shirt with a stark white name tag pinned to the chest. It’s the kind of top you’d expect to see worn by someone arriving to fix your wireless internet or telling you which aisle to check at a department store. She also wears a thick metal band around her neck, pulled tight like a collar, and khaki pants.

“Uh … do you see that?” I question, whispering to Isaiah as my gaze remains fixed on the woman in the woods.

Across the way, nobody seems to notice this peculiar figure, despite the fact that she’s standing less than ten feet behind them in the underbrush.

“See what?” Isaiah asks.

I point to the other side of the swimming hole, but just as Isaiah follows my gesture the eerie woman steps back into the lush Montana forest, disappearing just as quickly as she arrived.

I peer into the shadows, struggling to catch sight of her but coming up empty.

“There was a woman over there,” I continue. “She looked … kinda off.”

“Off how?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply, then shake my head as though this futile gesture might clear out the cobwebs. I certainly don’t intend to make a scene out of some poor old woman who happens to appear, well, frightening.

Maybe she’s sick.

“Could’ve been someone’s mom checking in on them,” I suggest, offering this explanation more to myself than to Isaiah.

“I really don’t see anything,” he says, genuinely apologetic, then lowers his voice a bit. “Hey, if you don’t wanna jump, it’s all good.”

Someone else steps up next to us, a girl I don’t know who’s anxious to get things going again. “Are you gonna jump?” she asks, clearly annoyed.

I glance around to find a line has formed behind me, folks waiting their turn while I stare off into space and let my imagination run wild.