Gullibility. Some argue that it’s a bad thing. Some make fun of you for being gullible. I argue that gullibility is not a bad thing. Gullibility means imagination. Imagination means creativity. Creativity means that life isn’t that boring, and when life isn’t boring it’s awesome. I am a man of much gullibility, and I’m not ashamed of that.

When I was a lad, I was told the legend of Bloody Mary...



That’s how the legend of Bloody Mary was described to me. When I first heard it, I was a little doubtful. Mary was the mother of Jesus not the wife of Satan. As far as I knew Satan didn’t even have a wife. There was one thing that got me to believe, though. My friend, Clint, told me that any pastor or priest would explain how it is a sin to participate in the ritual of Bloody Mary. I was convinced. If a priest believed in Bloody Mary, then I had to too. Ironically Clint wasn’t even religious, and I didn’t know anything about ethos, so I took him at his word. Needless to say it, I never tried it.

Another friend of mine, Robert, tried the Bloody Mary ritual. He explained how he did it in his bathroom, and sure enough the mirror opened up a portal to hell, and as he looked in, he saw other portals where other kids were performing the ritual, some of them being dragged into hell. Then he said blood poured out of the sink’s spout. He immediately turned on the lights and the portal closed, but the blood was still in the sink. So he cleaned it up and never told his parents what happened. This was the same kid that told me he had a hover-board, like the one in Back to the Future. I had my doubts about that. I mean, Robert was the only person to ever tell me about hover-boards, but Bloody Mary was a known fact.

Basically I was so disturbed by the legend of Bloody Mary I joined a squad of Templar and we went on a witch-hunt. My friend Jimmy was the leader, he found out that some of the girls in our class were going into the bathroom at recess to summon Bloody Mary. It became requisite to stop the heretics. So we burst into the bathroom as they were performing the ritual and gave them a real scare. They screamed. Looking back on this, those girls got the scare they were looking for, and it was hilarious. I, on the other hand, felt bad for going into the girl’s bathroom.

The craze of Bloody Mary sort of died down at school, but for years whenever I’d walk by the big mirrors in my living room at night. I’d feel kind of nervous, cause I knew that if the words Bloody Mary were to slip out of my tongue I would forever be a heretic.

Legends such as this were good fun when I was a child, but it wasn’t until I was 12, the age a boy becomes a man, that I heard the most fantastic and amazing story of my life.

I joined Boy Scouts at 12. My scoutmaster was an admirable man by the name of Ron. All the scouts loved him. He was knowledgeable about all things fun that Boy Scouts like to do, like camping, and video games. I went on my first Boy Scout week camp when I was 12. Ron would tell us many stories around the campfire. Some serious. But on that I would dwell on for the next year...



Ron had probably told us a dozen campfire stories before that. All of them obviously farce. This story was different though. Most of his stories ended with some climactic punchline that gave us all a good laugh. Not this one. This one wasn’t funny, it wasn’t about some random troop of boys or campers, it was a story that he himself had witnessed. That pretty much confirmed to me that it must be a true story. If Ron said some guy disappeared in the woods, I had every reason to believe him. Lots of people disappeared in the woods, so why not some guy that Ron knew?

My imagination went wild with the story. I mean it was the Whoosh sound that caught my attention. Though not being too descriptive, Ron made it pretty clear that it was some kind of flapping. Some kind of winged creature that had abducted Mark. It also happens that I had been playing Heroes of Might and Magic II where one of the fantasy creatures in the game was a Griffin. A bird strong enough to lift a man off he ground. I was so moved by the story that I told all my friends about how I knew a guy that knew a guy that disappeared in the forest. They said I was being silly. I tried to convince them it was true.

Then tragedy struck. One year later we had another week camp. As we gathered around the campfire Ron began to tell a story...



I proceeded to listen to this alternate version of the story. All my friends that had told me the story was made up were right. It was just a silly story, and I had believed it. I liked believing it, and now my belief of it was shattered. There were no fantastic creatures in the woods. Nothing frightening at all. No risk of disappearing. The fun of the story was over.

A couple of years ago. In 2007, I set out on a four day backpacking trip in the Uinta Mountains. I was doing a basic trip down Henry’s Fork Trail up to King’s Peak, and then back out the same way. The first day went smoothly and I set up a nice campsite near a lake. On the second day things got a little rough. It rained and I admit, despite knowing that it would rain, I was unprepared. I ended up getting soaked and set up camp early to dry off. I had a cold lunch and later I briefly left my tent to make dinner. By that time, though, the rain had brought out the mosquitoes so I pretty much spent the rest of the evening in my tent doing some reading. Eventually nightfall came so I put away my book and went to bed.

I heard something that night. I was awakened at 1 or 2AM to a whooshing sound. You can probably guess where my thoughts went after that. It was a whooshing sound followed by pounding on the ground, then a few seconds later another whooshing sound, and more pounding on the ground. Whoosh, whoosh, pound, pound. It sounded no further than a dozen yards to the east of my tent. Part of me wanted to peek out my tent, and shine my flashlight in that direction to see what it was, but I was afraid to startle this animal into attacking me. I mean seriously, this wasn’t some campfire story, I was actually listening to some sound I didn’t recognize. What’s worse is I had to go the bathroom, but there was no way, absolutely no way I was going out there with that creature. I mean for all I knew it was a bear. I didn’t know what a bear sounded like, but I knew there were bears in the region, so my best bet was to stay in my tent, and hope that I had cleaned up dinner well enough that it didn’t smell attractive to local wildlife.

The sound went on for about half an hour then stopped. I thought it may have been a dying animal that finally passed on. Or maybe it was some kind of bird that had gone out hunting and was beating it’s prey against the rocks. Whatever it was, it eventually stopped, and I felt okay to take a quick bathroom trip. So I did. As a matter of fact I shined my flashlight in the direction the sound had come from, but didn’t see anything but dirt. While I can’t say I slept well for the rest of the night, I did sleep, and woke up to sunlight in the morning. I looked about to investigate the source of the sound. Nothing.

I’ve heard weird sounds in the forest since then. I’m not really an expert on wildlife, so I’m pretty sure that all the sounds I’ve heard could be explained by someone more knowledgeable. I will say this, though, just wondering if it could be some fantastic thing is a real thrill. Knowing there could be some unknown danger is part of the fun of imagination. I suppose in some regards, telling fantastic stories is a reminder that there are real dangers. I did ask someone with more wildlife experience what the sound could have been. He had no idea. In fact, I think he suspected that I made it up.

I was meant to be a time traveler. Some time in the future, maybe only a few years from now, some guys will make a game entitled The Journeyman Project. Being that this game was first published in 1993, you might think that it was already made. But it wasn’t made then, it hasn’t been made yet. It will be made in the future. You see, the makers of the game sent it back in time so that I could play it. To prepare me for my future career as a time traveler...

The first short story I ever wrote, back when I was in the third grade was about a kid named Johnny. He was from the future, and secretly used his dad’s time machine to come back to our time. Upon his arrival in the early 1990s he discovered the time machine was broken, and he had to fix it. He stole a Nintendo for the parts he needed, was caught by the police during the theft, went to trial, perjured himself, then ended up using a ray gun (set for stun) on everybody in the courthouse to get away and go back to the future. My mom didn’t like my story because Johnny lied in court, and another friend of mine pointed out that the story was strikingly similar to that of Back to the Future.

In any case. I’ve always been fascinated with time travel, but it wasn’t until 1996 that I knew I was meant to be a time traveler. Specifically I was supposed to work for the TSA (no, not that TSA), the Temporal Security Agency. In 1996 I played The Journeyman Project Turbo for the first time.

In the game you play as a Agent 5, a TSA Agent (remember that’s Temporal Security Agency). Agent 5 is a time traveler whose responsibility is to make sure that no one alters history. If someone does, Agent 5 must go back in time and correct whatever has been changed. The game was fun enough, and most adventure gamers of the 90s will agree it’s pretty good, but for me it was more than pretty good, it was the most important game of my life. I knew the game had been made for me. The game was my training. I knew I was Agent 5, or at least I would become him. That’s why he was a nameless, nearly faceless, guy, because the game makers didn’t want it to be too obvious to me that it was me, but I knew it was. The Journeyman Project was my first phase of training. I must have played it three or four times, just to make sure I’d be ready for the future.

I knew I had more training to go, though. By the time I played the game, it had already been out for three years, and there was already a sequel, The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time. This would be the next step of my training. My copy of The Journeyman Project Turbo included a preview for the sequel. It seemed even more awesome than the first. I finally got the game for my birthday. I was all too ready to continue my training.

One thing kind of disappointed me about the sequel. Agent 5 now had a name and face. He was Gage Blackwood, and he had long hair. All I could think was that I didn’t have long hair and my name wasn’t Gage. How could the guys from the future have gotten that so wrong? Then I realized that they couldn’t use my real name, that would be too obvious. All that really mattered was that I played the games, so that I would receive my training, and know what challenges awaited me in the future. It was a cool game too. It has one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard in my life. And, on a side note, there was a music video in the game by some guy named Geno Andrews, who I coincidentally saw credited as the writer, director, and star of the film Cold Play (2008), and couldn’t help but wonder if it was the same guy. It was.

The new feature of the second game, was that no longer did a TSA agent need a time machine to jump through time, instead they had jumpsuits. Literally suits that could jump through time at any moment. As part of my training I decided to make my own jumpsuit. It consisted of a helmet made of paper-mache and a puffy winter coat. I would play around in my backyard while wearing this suit that I had. Mostly I’d play at night, cause I didn’t want anyone seeing me at fourteen years old preparing for my future time travel escapades. It was important to me, though. I wanted to make sure I’d feel comfortable in a jumpsuit. One time I got caught walking around in my time travel suit, by my next door neighbors. They called my mom to ask what I was doing. She didn’t know anything about my future career as a time traveler.

After finishing Buried in Time the years went on. The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time came out a few years later. I knew I would eventually have to play it, but I kept putting it off. My brother eventually got the game in 2000, and I briefly played it, but one of the disks was scratched, so I couldn’t finish it. After that it was pretty hard to find a copy of the game. I did end up getting a rare copy of The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime, a remake of the original game, which had only come out for Macintosh. I even bought a used iMac so I could play it. As time passed, however, I pretty much forgot that I was supposed to be a time traveler.

Then about a month ago The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time was released on Good Old Games. I bought it immediately. I’d waited too long already. I’m pretty sure that by now I was already supposed to be a time traveler, but the Temporal Security Agency hadn’t contacted me yet since I hadn’t played the final game in the series. It was about time I completed my training. I played it, and it was awesome. Truly one of the best games I’ve played in a while (and you can check out all the games I’ve played).

I’m sad to report, however, that upon finishing it, I wasn’t contacted by the TSA. Maybe I delayed my final phase of training for too long. Maybe my training isn’t actually complete and there will be a fourth game in the series. That’s what I hope anyway, that my training just isn’t complete. I really hope these games weren’t sent back in time for someone else, cause seriously, I know it’s supposed to be me.

I watched The Hunger Games last night, the midnight showing. I didn’t really know what it was going in, I mean I had heard about the novels briefly on a few episodes of Pop Culture Happy Hour, but I didn’t remember what was said about them. Nevertheless I was invited to go see the movie, and it has been a long time since I’ve seen a movie in the theater, so I figured, Why not?



Going into the film, it was described to me as, A bunch of kids get put on an island and have to kill each other. This turned out to be an inaccurate description as there was no island, but other than that what I heard was an accurate summary. The way I describe it, however, is a little different. I would describe it as, It’s kind of like The Running Man only different because it didn’t have Schwarzenegger. Seriously, though, it has a similar premise as The Running Man, and I want to make a few comparisons to that film in this blog. The premise of both these films originates with the gladiators of ancient Rome, men who fought to the death as a form of public entertainment. The idea of human brutality and death as a form of entertainment has appeared frequently in classic science fiction. One major difference with this film was that it was written for teenagers, and so the gladiators or tributes as they are called, were kids aged 12 to 18. Talk about barbarism at it’s worst.

My overall impression of the film The Hunger Games was positive. I now intend to read the novels. However, I do want to address one major problem with this film. The problem is in the plot, and it is that NOTHING HAPPENED! That’s not to say that no events occurred. Events did occur, but nothing in terms of plot. To explain, let me give the exposition of the film:



This was more or less the opening crawl of the movie. It was also all that happened in the film. I mean literally, you read the opening crawl, and the whole movie was spoiled for you. There was no plot to this film. Twenty four kids were placed in an arena and they killed each other, but that was the way the world was. Every year twenty four kids were placed in the arena. Every year there was only one survivor. This movie chronicled the 74th annual Hunger Games, but nothing unique happened this time around. It could have been any year. Sure, there was some emotional development of the characters, but that would have happened any year. Anyone watching this knew that the main character, Katniss, would survive, and she did.

Viewers will know I’m not being completely forthcoming about one thing in the film, but the reality is, that the one thing that was supposedly so drastically different, wasn’t really a big deal. I will get back to this topic, though. Meanwhile, let me discuss the film The Running Man. I will do as I did with The Hunger Games and briefly present the exposition:



Now to the plot of The Running man. Schwarzenegger’s character, Richards, is a condemned criminal who competes on the show The Running Man. Unlike every other contestant, he fights back, kills some of the gladiators, and exposes the TV show and those that watch it for the barbaric lovers of violence that they are. Everything about Richards is very different from the typical scenario presented by the exposition of this film.

If The Running Man had been written in the likeness of The Hunger Games this would have been the plot: Richards, a condemned criminal was a contestant on The Running Man, he was killed, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. A short story, at best, certainly not a feature length movie.

I did mention that there was one thing different about the 74th annual Hunger Games: Two kids survived instead of one. That’s it, one more survivor. Those that watched the Hunger Games were never confronted with their inhumanity. They were never made to question that their love of this show was somehow morally deficient. They just sat and watched it, and cheered. Briefly at the beginning of the film, Katniss’ boyfriend suggested to her that if no one watched the Hunger Games, then they might stop doing them. Other than that there was no mention of change. No greater good to be accomplished. Merely two people survived instead of one.

I mean even after the Hunger Games were over, the two survivors just went onto talk shows and acted as if they were heroes. As if they were proud of themselves. They did exactly what the 73 winners before them did. They didn’t call out the barbarity. They didn’t declare, I’m not proud of myself. They didn’t tell the audience they should be ashamed of themselves. They merely basked in the glory, or at least acted as if they were. They were no different from any other survivor.

This brings me back to the topic of exposition. A plot like this isn’t a plot, it’s exposition, and exposition is not good storytelling. Now I’ve been in writing seminars where it has been said that you don’t need plot, just character development. Some writers suggest that ordinary people in ordinary situations makes the best plots, and that all you need for good storytelling is character development. By development, change is implied. Now some can argue that the character’s in The Hunger Games did change. They didn’t. Not to say that the characters didn’t personally change, but they changed in the exact same way that any previous winner of the Hunger Games changed, and that isn’t really change at all. Character development must be extraordinary, not expected. This is what I mean when I say that the survivors in the film were no different from any other survivor.

With as negative as I’ve been, though, like I said, I have every intention of reading the novels. I’m hoping that there is something more to them, maybe some actual plot. I can’t blame The Hunger Games for lacking what The Running Man had, though. The Hunger Games is juvenile literature. The Running Man originated from master writer Stephen King.

Maybe it’s not really my place to write about this, but being the historian of my life that I am, I must tell the tale of TTG. TTG was a friend of mine that I met in middle school. The year was 1996. I was a scared little boy in gym class. Like most academically inclined students, gym was my least favorite class, and in order to survive the scum-bags of education known as gym teachers, I was quick to ally with the other athletically inhibited students. One of which was TTG.

I quickly discovered that TTG and I shared a love of Star Wars, and that gave us some things to talk about. I was even reading a Star Wars novel at the time I met him, Star Wars: Dark Force Rising, and we made a little game that the more Star Wars books you read, the closer you were to become a Jedi. Five books meant you were a Jedi Knight, and ten books, Jedi Master. I eventually got to the Jedi Master level, exceeding TTG and making him jealous, I think.

Well from the friendship that began in gym class, TTG and I continued to be friends all throughout middle school and high school. We were in many of the Honors and AP classes together. TTG also convinced me to join Drama Club, even though I had very little interest in the theater. I had an okay time in the club, even though I only went to one meeting and didn’t show up for the yearbook picture. I did take a couple of years of Drama in high school under the influence of TTG, and kind of enjoyed it. TTG dreamed of some day becoming an actor. Before the Star Wars prequels came out he told me of how he hoped some day he could be in them.

While I could go on about some of TTG’s odd quirks, that isn’t really my intent. What I want to do is talk about his name, TTG, for he was not always named TTG. His name was actually Travis. You might be thinking that his initials were TTG. They weren’t. His initials were TAG, which is only a one letter difference, but drastically different meanings. TTG actually stands for Tattle-Tale Gargoyle. It wasn’t until years after I met Travis that I heard someone call him TTG. I found it quite shocking. TTG? I already knew his initials were TAG. So I asked him, Why’d that guy call you TTG? He looked to the ground with some embarrassment, hoping he wouldn’t have to explain, but knowing I wouldn’t be satisfied unless I got an answer, then said, It stands for Tattle-Tale Gargoyle. Of course, I asked him how that came to be his nickname.

The story still isn’t that clear to me. Probably because it didn’t make much sense as it was happening, so unfortunately I can only give the gist of how this name came about. Apparently, one time he tattled on someone. Or maybe he did it multiple times. It’s possible he was known as Tattle-Tale Travis briefly. When I say briefly, I mean maybe for one day in elementary school some kids teased him with the name or something. Either way, someone remembered that he had been a tattle-tale. Someone that went to our high school. The Gargoyle part is a little more interesting. I guess he was talking with someone during class and he just randomly said the word gargoyle really loud. Loud enough that it got the attention of the entire class. More importantly it got the attention of someone that knew he had been a tattle-tale. And thus, from Tattle-Tale Travis spawned Tattle-Tale Gargoyle. It certainly didn’t help him that his initials were TG. At least that’s my interpretation of the story.

How exactly the name came about is another matter. It may have been made up as soon as he said the word gargoyle, but I’ve also heard that he wrote his initials, TAG, on a notebook so badly that someone saw it and said, What’s TTG? Well that same person also knew he was a tattle-tale, and that he had once said the word gargoyle, so they quickly concluded that it stood for Tattle-Tale Gargoyle.

For a while I thought maybe he never actually said the word gargoyle, and that, in fact, someone accused him of looking like a gargoyle. I refuse to believe that that is the story, because, quite frankly, it makes too much sense, and it’s just plain mean.

In any case, he wasn’t exactly fond of the name TTG and would repeatedly point out that his initials were TAG. Despite his feelings, I liked the name, so I called him TTG from that day forth, much to his annoyance. Which brings me to the reason I am writing this blog today. No one remembers TTG’s nickname except for me, and so I feel it is my duty to document forever in the annals of the internet that there once was a guy named Tattle-Tale Gargoyle.

My love of the name TTG, however, was my downfall. I kept calling him TTG, and he kept telling me not to. Then one day, he just stopped talking to me. Just didn’t respond to me any time I’d say hello. That was it. I had ruined our friendship with the nickname that I liked so much. Calling him TTG had been more important to me than giving regards to his feelings. At this point he probably doesn’t even remember that I’m not the one that gave him the name, it was someone else, but since I used it more than anyone else, he probably thinks I made it up. Of course, I can’t explain this to him, since he won’t even talk to me anymore.

At least I think that’s why TTG stopped talking to me. There is one other possibility. When the Star Wars prequels came out I stopped liking Star Wars, and TTG would always try to argue with me that they weren’t so bad. But the fact was they were so bad that I hated all of Star Wars, not just the prequels, and maybe, just maybe that’s why TTG stopped talking to me. I say this because I remember the last conversation I ever had with him back in 2006. He said, Don’t call me TTG, it’s not my nickname. And you should see Star Wars Episode III, it’s really good. I said, I don’t want to. I think Star Wars is stupid now. He repeated, See Star Wars III, then turned and walked away. He never said another word to me again.

Thus is the tale of Tattle-Tale Gargoyle. He is a truly great man, but it saddens me that his children will never know of his true name of TTG unless they stumble across this blog.

I remember the first time I jumped of a diving board. It was the most exhilarating moment of my life up to that point. I was eleven years old, in the sixth grade, and the year was about to end. I had been a member of the Safety Patrol, an organization of junior law enforcement officers at my school. As thanks for being a member of this volunteer group, we were all taken to a swimming pool to celebrate. I’d looked forward to the party all year. The principal even gave us each a buck to spend on snacks at the pool, and surprisingly a buck went a long way at the concession stand there. I had another buck that my mom had given me, and with two bucks I was able to get a corn dog, nachos, and a soda.

The concession stand wasn’t what I was looking forward to, though. It was the water. I loved swimming, and being in the water, it was so much fun. I had a blast in the water that day. My best friend at the time, Aaron (I’ve mentioned him in some of my other blogs), convinced me to jump off one of the diving boards. There were five diving boards. Two spring boards, and three high dive boards. I wasn’t about to jump off a high dive as it was going to be my first time jumping off a diving board, but the spring boards seemed reasonable. We went over to the diving boards, which were in a separate pool with deep water, and Aaron showed me how it was done. It was quite simple, he just jumped off and into the water. No fancy dive or anything, just a basic jump. I wanted to practice first, so I went over to the six foot deep water and jumped off the edge. No problems there. With the practice jump out of the way, I was ready for bigger things. I made the jump of the board with the least height and swam to shore. I was so proud of myself. I made two more jumps off the higher spring board. Here is my journal entry from the day:



My journal entry doesn’t do justice to how ecstatic I was. I had achieved a great accomplishment. It was one of the triumphs of my young life, because there was one other time I had attempted to jump off a diving board...

Water. I was afraid of water growing up. While I was excited about the pool party when I was eleven, there was a time before that when I feared the water. The fear probably stemmed from my birth as I came out of my mother’s womb, desperately swimming to escape the water that bound me from life. Well, probably not, but at least that sounds metaphorical. I did have a fear of drowning for a long time, though. I was even afraid to take a shower, because I thought the whole stall filled up with water. In fact, the first time I took a shower, me and my brother both went in with our swimsuits on so that he could show me that it wasn’t dangerous.

Swimming was a scary thought. I remember when I was a kid I enjoyed going boating. I wasn’t afraid of that, since I had a life-vest so I wasn’t going to drown. One time while out boating, some guy swam up to our boat to say hello. We were far from the shore by my recollection, and there was this dude, swimming out in the lake without a life-vest. I feared he would drown and asked him if he wanted to hang on to the back of our raft while we paddled him to shore. He said he would be fine and swam off. It boggled my mind, there was no way I would set foot in the water without something to keep me afloat. I always wondered if that guy had drowned. Probably not.

Growing up with a single parent, and one that worked on Saturday, meant I was put in daycare with the neighborhood ladies. Well, one of the daycare neighbors decided to have us take swimming lessons. My mom figured it was a good idea because she wanted us to be at least a little athletic. But there I was, scared to death at the prospect of swimming without a life-vest. I understood, however, that there were lifeguards, so I hesitantly agreed, not that I had much choice. I mean, I must have been a lad of seven or eight, so even three feet of water was a lot to me. I made it through the lessons, though. Scared to death the whole time. I remembered seeing littler kids with those floaties around their arms. I thought that I should have those too, because I didn’t want to drown. I even inquired about putting some on, but I was told that I was too old for that. Too old, I thought, ’’I’m too young to drown and die!’’ I made it through the lessons, if you could even call them lesson, as I don’t remember learning how to swim. I mean we did a few drills, but mostly we were just playing in the water, and I was staying as close to the edge as possible.

Then came graduation day, the final lesson. We were all going to jump off the diving board. I had feared this day since my first time getting in the pool. The diving board was this mystical object above the deep end of the pool. I knew it was there, and I prayed that I would never have to go near it. Deep water, the kind of water where there is nothing to do but drown, was the last place I wanted to go. Alas, our instructor led the group of us kids towards the diving board. I was shaking the whole way as I followed her. I had no intention of jumping off that board. I figured I’d tell her I didn’t want to do it and be done with it.

And so, we arrived at the edge of the deep water. A lifeguard was at the ready with a ten foot pole that had a loop on the end. (I think they call them life hooks.) All we had to do was jump off the board, find the pole, grab on, and get pulled to shore. Since I knew that if I jumped into the water I’d sink to the bottom, the ten foot pole wasn’t very reassuring. One by one every kid in my class jumped off the board, grabbed the pole and were brought back to edge of the pool. I had intentionally gotten in the back of the line. I wanted to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. I wanted to delay my display of cowardice as long as possible. Then it was my turn. I said to the instructor, I don’t want to jump. I’m afraid.

She could have just let me walk away. She had no reason to compel me to jump. It’s not like they weren’t going to pay her if one little boy didn’t want to complete the dive. She wouldn’t have it, though. I’m not really sure how old this lady was, she was way older than me, that’s all I knew for sure. In retrospect, though, she must have been in high school or college. Young enough that she had all the dreams and aspirations of making the world a better place. Young enough that she wanted to help some scared little boy overcome his fear and turn him into a courageous young man. She was going to have me jump off that board no matter what.

I don’t know how she managed to do it, but she convinced me to jump. Or at least, she thought she had. I stepped onto the diving board, walked to the edge, and beheld the water before me. There were gentle ripples on the surface from the other swimmers playing in the distance. I didn’t notice them, though. I only noticed that, as far as I was concerned, I was standing on the edge of the world, about to sink to the end of my life. I could already imagine myself, stuck at the bottom of the pool, trying to get to the surface, watching my life pass away. I looked from the water, back at my instructor, then to the lifeguard and his ten foot pole. It still wasn’t reassuring. I wasn’t going to jump, there was no way. I knew that from the moment I stepped onto the platform. I turned around and walked back. I didn’t even care that I looked like a coward. My life was more important than any facade of bravery.

Back at the side of the pool one of the other boys in the class tried to convince me that it wasn’t so bad. In fact, he went right onto the diving board a second time and jumped. Truly a brave man, I thought, ’’but still, I don’t have to jump, so why should I?’’ But there was my instructor, adamant that I jump, so she asked me, If I jump off with you, will you do it? I don’t know what changed in me that moment, maybe her gentle sincerity convinced me that everything would be alright. Maybe knowing that I’d be in the arms of this mother-figure as I fell to my death brought me the comfort to know that, at least, I wouldn’t die alone at the bottom of that pool. I agreed to make the jump.

So, we together, stepped onto the platform and walked to the edge. I was scared as ever. I knew I was about to die, but at least I had this woman with me. And so, she grabbed me by the shoulders and, with me in her arms, made the leap. The fall lasted for an eternity. I remember every moment as the water approached our bodies. I panicked, there, in the air. My arms flailed like the wind, searching for anything to grab onto. Anything to save my life. The water was coming closer and closer, and unless the laws of physics were about to change, I was in a hopeless situation. As my arms reached uncontrollably for something to save my life, in a split second my hands finally found something to latch onto, the strap of my instructor’s bathing suit. We hit the water, and I knew that I was about to drown. Somehow, by some miracle, I found myself above the water again. I was desperately paddling, looking for that ten foot pole, and there was my instructor, half naked in the swimming pool.