Greyhound for Breakfast

The Failure

Whereas the drop appeared to recede into black nothingness I deduced each side of the chasm to taper until they merged. Each falling object would eventually land. And if footholes were to exist then discovering them could scarcely be avoided. The black of the nothingness was only so from the top: light would be perceived at the bottom, a position from where even the tiniest of specks would enable the black to be quashed. And should a problem arise, groping an ascent via the footholes would be fairly certain.

I jumped.

The sensation of the fall is indescribable.

Much later upon landing I faced black nothingness. I had been mistaken about the light. That speck was insufficient. I could distinguish nothing whatsoever. But it was impossible to concentrate for my boots were wedged into the sides and my knees were twisted unnaturally. My arms had been forced round onto my back, with my shoulders pressed forward. The entire position of my body was reminiscent of what the adept yogi may accomplish. I ached all over. Then I had become aware of how irresponsibly conceived my planning had been. It was as if somehow I had expected the bottom to be large enough to accommodate an average-sized, fully grown male.

For a lengthy period I attempted to dislodge myself but to no avail. I panicked. I clawed and clawed at the backs of my thighs in an effort to hoist up my legs until finally I was obliged to halt through sheer fatigue at the wrists and finger-joints. Sweat dripped from my every pore; and the echo consequent upon this was resounding. Beginning from the drips the noise developed into one continuous roar that increased as it rose and rose and rose before dying away out of the top. An awful realization was presenting itself to me: the more I tried and tried to dislodge my body the more firmly entrenched I would become. Think of the manner whereby a mouse seals its own fate within that most iniquitous of adhesives it has entered to search out that last scrap of food. Yes, an immediate reaction to a desperate situation may well be normal but it is rarely other than misguided. My own had resulted in a position of utter hopelessness. And the magnitude of my miscalculations seemed destined to overwhelm me. That failure to anticipate the absurdity of bottom.

No, not a mouse, nor yet a flea, could enter into that. Total nothingness. A space so minute only nothing gains entry. Not even the most supremely infinitesimal of organisms as witnessed through the finest of powerful microscopes can disturb the bottom, for here absolutely nothing exists but the point in itself, the vertex.