Falling

• Eliza Nolan, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2008

Fear grips me, like a cold hand clutching my heart.
I can’t do it.
I can feel every muscle in my body tensing, every hair standing on end. My hands are shaking as they cling to the reins, and my heart is tapping out a nervous beat in my chest.
The horse stamps its foot impatiently, and I flinch so violently that I nearly fall. It tosses its head and swishes its tail, and every tiny movement makes me more frightened. My head spins as memories flood back. Half-formed pictures, like a badly made movie.
It’s funny that I don’t remember sound. The pictures are there but I can’t hear the thunder of hooves, the roar of passing cars, or my scream as I flew, flew from the saddle, towards the ground.
Did I scream?
My heart skips a beat. I don’t remember. I don’t remember falling at all. That part of the movie is just a slow motion image of a figure tumbling to the ground. It could have been any girl. I don’t remember what the world looked like, the blur of colours it must have been. I don’t remember the wind, whistling in my ears, or the thump, and the spray of dirt as I hit the ground. My mind has filled in the gaps with what I have imagined since. But none of it is real. I don’t remember what really happened.
It was the fall that ruined my life. No, that’s not true. It didn’t ruin my life, but it changed it forever. That fall nearly put me in a wheelchair. The doctors said it was my strength that pulled me through it, pure determination that put me back on my feet. I’d given myself a second chance, they said. A second chance at what, they never mentioned. All I know is that it took months of work, of pain, frustration and wanting to give up as I learned to walk again. I paid a heavy price for my second chance.
I remember that it was worth it. It was worth the endless months of recovery for those precious moments, less than a minute, when the world stopped spinning and I stopped thinking, and started feeling what it is to be alive. It was more than worth it, before I started falling.
Before I know what I’m doing, the horse is trotting and it only takes a moment before we’re flying down the beach, kicking up sand. The fear has disappeared, leaving only pure ecstasy. This time I commit the rhythm of the horse’s feet to my memory, the smell of the salt air, and the dark, earthy smell of horse sweat. I memorise the heat that floats off the horse’s skin, and my laughter. Most of all I remember my laughter. Because I finally know what the second chance was. It was a second chance at this moment, when the world stops spinning, and I start feeling what it is to really live.