Pouring Boiling Water, From a Great Height

Thoughts -1

I enjoyed being on top of the building.
I experienced a sense of relief and a feeling that I was, finally, about to determine my own future (or lack thereof).

And I wasn’t too dumb with depression to be aware of the irony; that at my lowest spiritual state of being, I was the highest I’d ever, physically, been.

Not that I was particularly amused at this. I didn’t consider it worth tweeting, with a smiley face.

I was 36 and had recently been diagnosed.

I had researched the matter and concluded, rationally (I thought) that I didn’t want to end up like so many others, becoming a burden (as I had recently been described).

Thoughts - 2

The Civic Centre was not a building with any degree of security. There was nothing to prevent me from getting to the roof and jumping from it. It was a mere matter of arriving at the top floor of the building in the public lift, and from there, accessing the service staircase to the roof. There wasn’t even a lock on the door. Health and safety not nearly ‘mad’ enough here, it would appear.

I’d flippantly fantasised about doing this when I was a teenager and depressed, the time, for example, when that girl didn’t want to come with me to see Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando. In the end, I went with my mate Dave, getting drunk on three pints of weak lager and watching the film in double vision.

This time was different. This would be the end of me and there would be nothing that anybody could do about it. The doctors could give some other poor sod bad news and Claire could find herself a more cheerful boyfriend, one without the temerity to be ill, one who wouldn’t prove to be such a burden.

I would jump from the roof of this fifteen story building, would (hopefully) suffer a massive coronary upon my descent, and my body would then be crushed on impact with the unforgiving concrete, my limbs flailing as though I were a man made of cloth.
The one thing that I didn’t expect to happen was that I would fly.

Thoughts -3

How was I to know that this was even a possibility? I had accounted for no variables in this plan, it all seemed fairly straightforward: Jump and die.

Had I considered that there was even the slightest potential for such a ludicrous outcome, then I’d have put more work into the development of either plan B or C, despite the greater need for resources, and the lengthier, and more painful, processes involved. (Added to which, the greater chance of discovery and ‘being saved’).

Instead of what I thought would be a direct plummet, then, I was caught by a gust of wind, which blew open my arms, and I began to glide naturally. Naturally, this was, had I been a bird and not a 15 stone lump of idiot human.

The intense feelings that drove me to jump from a very high building are easy to summarise: Feeling alone, and in pain, with no faith or assurance that this is going to change.  Quite how I was able to fly is something of which I continue to remain ignorant.

I had always been led to believe that humans could not fly as we have neither the wings nor the lightness of bone that birds have which enable them to be airborne and thus fulfil their brief as ‘bird’.

Whatever the reality of my miraculous new ability, the spell of doom that had been constant since the diagnosis, had been broken.

There is no relief when fear is constant, and all usual and reasonable responses and processes are perverted to the point where they are useless. I had, therefore, no consideration that the circumstances of my life would ever change for the better.

And I would certainly never have reasoned that the change would have come from this, flying over Southend-on-Sea, with my first erection for two months.

Thoughts -4

I was experiencing pure joy for the first time, probably since I was a child. I would say that I had a spring in my step, apart from the fact that I wasn’t stepping anywhere.

And, as I became sensible to my new ability (after I’d understandably finished screaming in disbelief), I began to think about my body.

What were the jobs for my body parts with this new skill?

The legs, formally the go-to limbs for self-transportation, appeared redundant. Instead it was my arms, and, in particular, my hands, that were the boss of my movement.

It all seemed quite natural. Not really any different to when I went swimming for the first time. I was a natural swimmer and now I was a natural flyer.

I’d never even been on a plane. Not through any irrational or developed fear of flying, merely that I’d never been remotely interested in going anywhere that I would need to use flying for.

I had been accused, often, of being a boring, unadventurous man for this reason alone. I had a stubborn refusal to apply for a passport that was the root cause of many a dispute in several relationships.

So, there I was.  A dull, and ill, burden.

Thoughts – 5

Claire had asked me to move out, and I hadn’t argued the matter. The illness had changed everything, making me behave differently, her initial sympathy ground to nothingness by my stark, negative attitude.

If I wanted to win her back, this would probably do it. I would be able to literally swoop down and sweep her off her feet. (Although, I thought, I might have to practice first, on something not composed of living matter).

I didn’t, however, have any desire to do this. We’d spent 10 years bringing out the very worst attributes in each other and that was quite sufficient.

What an amazing feeling this was! Above everything and ignored by everybody. Who would think to look upwards, to see some stupid bloke in his thirties, flying?!

 I was humbled.  Here I was, with this unique insight. Little old me, about whom there was nothing special or notable, was up here, defying the received wisdom of science.

And I had a hard-on like a rolling pin.

Thoughts - 6

Humbleness gave way to perversion, and I considered how I could use my new ability for coarse purposes.   And I started screaming and swearing and telling everybody what I thought of them and how I would take my revenge with various flying based methods of violence.

 ‘Now they’ll all want me. They’ll all want to be with the man who can fly. I can pick and choose and tell them that they’re not my type.  I’ll make love to beautiful naked women on normally inaccessible high surfaces and they will treat me like a God! ‘

I was higher than the buildings and tired and having trouble breathing.  I needed to stop flying and descend. There was no manual for this. By some instinct, I flapped my arms up and down and began to hover, thus preserving energy and allowing my breath to become regular again. I needed to acclimatise, couldn’t take it for granted that everything would work the way it does on the ground.

I didn’t miss the ground. The ground was boring. Perhaps, if everything worked out, I would never have to go there again. Boring people, insanely dull and commonplace, people who would tell you that you were ill and that you were a burden and that you were unlovable.

There was nothing like that up here, where I was a King and a God. I was the boss.

 ‘Down below, the common people go’.

I started singing this, making up a tune that wouldn’t have been out of place in the ABBA back catalogue.

I always knew that I was better than them.  Although I’d often felt inferior, I knew that I was better. I used to think that I was merely different, but now I knew that I was superior. Empirical evidence was finally with me, bestowed upon me.

I could fly. I was above the rest of my species and their petty concerns.

Down below, the common people go, with their jobs and their push chairs and their sex and their nights out and their bowling and their rubbish.

Rubbish rubbish rubbish rubbish. That’s all they’re about and all their business is. They have no freedom and no use and all their concerns are petty and boring and pointless.

'Down below the common people go

Their brains are slow and their bodies slow

On and on and on they go

The common people down below

With their shopping and their watching

And their sex and their money

Down on the ground where they belong

With me, up here, singing my lovely new song.

I KNEW IT!

 I knew I had a destiny that was much better than the remedial existence into which I was unfortunately born. My life prevented me from achieving any greatness of which I might potentially be capable.

My fate, I could SEE now, was that I had to become miserable enough in order to jump off the tall building and to realise my destiny, my destiny as the man who can fly. In a sense I did die up there, my old life died and this new one began.

This was my new life.

Thoughts -7

I flew above the train track, that travelled from Southend Victoria to London Liverpool Street, a journey I had taken on a ridiculous number of occasions before, on the train, the stupid, now pointless, redundant train that I would never need to bother myself with again, with all the Essex Boys, drinking their strong lager and saying ‘Oi mate’ at me, apropos of nothing other than a need to assert themselves over all other men and especially over all different looking and different seeming people. I would no longer have to listen to their dull voices, their grunting conversations about sex and nothing.

As the stations passed, Southend Airport, Rochford, Wickford, to Shenfield, I considered how lucky I was, to have had such a wretched life, otherwise I would never have gone to the building and jumped off and been able to fly.  It is not something that I would have considered, that I would be able to fly, that this was my special purpose. And even if that had crossed my mind as a possibility I am not sure what I would have done about it, that I would have taken any action to put such a stupid theory to the test.

I would merely have put myself in the way of harm and perhaps even had killed myself or become paralysed.  Better to think that I was the second coming. That would be far less dangerous.

I started laughing as I approached Romford, the first time that had happened.  It was exclamatory laughing, but felt quite natural.

Laughing at the thought of all the stupid people below me, encumbered by their method of conveyance, people who would despise me and ridicule me as soon as they saw me, and here I was, above them, free of restriction, able to do what I wanted.

They reminded me of the ants that used to accumulate around the kitchen door, leading to the garden. We got rid of those by pouring boiling water on them. I didn’t think that these were any different. Maybe I should fly down and get myself a massive container of boiling water.

And that’s when the doubts started. That’s when I made the mistake of starting to think about it.

Thoughts - 8

How was I flying? How was I able to fly? How was I, a human being, without the physiological make up to be able to fly, flying?

Exhilaration giving way to confusion, as it usually does, I started panicking.

‘Why me’?  This was the same question that I asked myself after being diagnosed.  ‘Why me?’ And then a friend to whom I’d been whinging suggested, ‘Why not you!?’ That was a different perspective. I wasn’t so special, so yes, why not me?

So, therefore, why shouldn’t it be me that was able to fly? Why not me?

I looked down at the trains which had all stopped. Overhead wire problems or something, I expect. No more of those for me. I have no wires overhead.

I have no string to cut me down.

And then I started to think about Pinocchio and Thunderbirds and all other puppets.

I started thinking not so much about the Why but about the How.

How was I flying?

I tried to think of all the things I had done recently that might have enabled me to fly.

Had I eaten something unusual? Had I been bitten by something, an insect either infused with a large amount of radiation or that had been genetically enhanced? Was I a super hero? Did I now have great responsibility? Sod that.

Had I been abducted, had I been experimented on?

I had been sleeping well recently. Perhaps I had been sedated and interfered with, scientifically?

And, that being the case, perhaps my progress was being filmed by spy cameras, fitted discreetly into the surrounding pigeons, tiny devices woven into their feathers. Which I wouldn’t have noticed, as I was rather too busy concentrating on the flying.

Except I hadn’t been concentrating on flying, I’d just been doing it.  So often in my life I effectively prevented myself from doing things because I was thinking too much and here I was just doing something naturally and not thinking about it at all.

Which was a problem: If I didn’t know how I was doing it, how would I be able to repeat it at any later stage?

Thoughts - 9

I was not very good at problem solving.  I had married a woman who made all the important decisions for me and I did not understand the decision making process at all, preferring to do nothing rather than make the wrong choice.

I had, like a massive great idiot (tut) (eye roll), become accidently airborne.  I therefore had no idea if I might be able to do it again. If I stopped flying, if I touched down and tried to start flying again I might be unable to do so and would presumably kill myself in the process of trying, which I now didn’t want to do because I liked flying quite a lot and wanted to do more of that.

My choice was severe and simple. Do I touch down, stop flying and trust that I will be able to do so again; or carry on flying, through fear of not being able to do so again, which, after all, I would rather like to do as it was the most life affirming thing I had ever done.

My level of comfort with decisions was ‘shall I put the milk in the tea, before or after the water?’

If I were to land and then attempt flight again by the same procedure, it would either be the bravest thing I had ever done or the stupidest, by some distance.

 I realised, however, that I was tired and that I would have to land somewhere, regardless of any future considerations or desires. Damn.

Thoughts - 10

Lost in my thoughts, I discovered that I had flown to London’s Southbank. This was an area I recognised well from my teens, as I had visited the National Film Theatre on several occasions in order to be able to see (then) rare showings of Doctor Who.

Instinct took over. I put my head down, and began to descend at what I thought a reasonable angle and velocity. Upon nearing my chosen spot, I flapped in order to control my descent and thought I was making a decent job of it, until the impact of the landing made me crash onto my shoulder in front of the Royal Festival Hall. My injuries were as nothing compared to my next realisation. Nobody had noticed. All the clever people on the bloody South Bank were so consumed with themselves and their intelligent conversations that they’d paid absolutely no heed to me, whatsoever. 

I was furious. Aching and absolutely incredulous that none of these chattering morons saw what I had just done.

‘Didn’t you see that?!’ I roared. ‘Didn’t you see where I just came from?!’

They looked at me, as usual, as if I were some sort of gibbering, lunatic prole.

‘I just landed right in front of you! How could none of you SEE that?’ Laughter arose, in small but annoying sections. I lost my temper and ran towards the end of the terrace, jumped over and…

Everything went black.

Thoughts - Concluding

I awoke later that day in this hospital bed.  In my haste to prove my superiority to the chattering disbelievers, I had not flown. I had crashed onto the ground beneath the terrace, breaking enough bones for me to justify a long period of convalescence and reflection, my ‘accident’ captured on the phone of an amused skateboarder.

As my longstanding emergency contact, Claire had been called in. I told her what had happened, about the flying and me having found my vocation.

Suffice to say, she did not believe me. And neither, for that matter, did anybody else.

There was talk that, upon my bones healing, I might have to be sectioned. So I stopped telling the truth. I instead told them that it was an accident. They didn’t appear to believe that either, but Claire somehow convinced them that whatever I had done was as a result of my outstanding health issues.

These notes remain an objective, accurate record of my experience and have been a great comfort to me in the face of the absolute disbelief of what is seen to be, ‘my story’.

Thoughts – Moving Forward

As soon as I am able and no longer have a two broken legs, tying me to this bed, I shall be jumping again and flying again.

I appreciate that this may end, next time, in my actual death.

I am resolved as to this possible conclusion. It is, however, I feel, preferrable to have the courage of my convictions and die in the process than to forever dwell on what might have been.  I’ve finally found something that I’m really good at and that I love and I will do it again in the face of all sense, and I will carry a large container of boiling water and pour it over those I feel deserving.