Surreality

It looked like a cool ride. One of those track-guided, animatronic-filled trips through some Hollywood fantasy. We'd been riding them all day. But this one had a twist.

We had only vaguely registered the inclined walkways as the line zigzagged through the building that was the front for this amusement park adrenaline service. We oohed and aahed along in the quietly clacking conveyance as latex-covered machines lurched unnaturally at us, and carefully orchestrated explosions warmed our surprised faces. All the while we were carried subtly higher. The cart clacked ahead into darkness, and a rectangular light appeared ahead of us. This was the end of the ride. Or was it?

We squinted as our trolley came out into the sunlight. To our mild shock, we were on a track 15 stories above the park. Around us the scaffolding rose higher for purposes unknown to us, for up ahead the track was level. The view was breathtaking. We were stopped, perhaps to admire what lay below.

"What's going on?" my wife asked, a little startled.

"I don't know," I answered, "but it's cool."

She looked around appraisingly, then shook her head in what was a decidedly decided manner. "No, it isn't."

"C'mon, baby, it's just part of the ride," I told her reassuringly.

She was most assuredly not reassured. "Well, I don't like it," she said in that decided way.

"Relax," I said a little more insistently. "The ride's almost over anyway."

My wife regarded me somewhat venomously. "Why aren't we moving?" she bit.

"I told you," I said as diplomatically as I could, "it's part of the ride. Just enjoy the view."

She shook her head again, discomfort creeping into her expression. "Something's wrong. I want to get off."

"Don't be ridiculous," I said with a roll of my eyes. "We'll get off when the ride's over."

"No," she said in that snaky way, "I'm getting off now."

"What?" I asked with an incredulous snicker.

She didn't answer. As I watched in disbelief she raised the safety bar effortlessly and climbed out of her seat.

"Honey, what are you doing?!" I cried out fearfully.

Without a word, she continued to the side of the track and grabbed one of the wide metal supports on the scaffold and climbed out onto it.

"Oh my God!" I yelled, fumbling with my safety bar. It was safely stuck in place, as it should have been. I looked up in panic.

My wife was climbing down, devoid of fear, balancing precariously as she grabbed onto another support and lowered herself. She was below the level of the track now. I could no longer see her.

"Baby, don't move! Stay where you are!" I called on the verge of tears. I rattled my safety bar forcefully. There was a sudden click, and the bar rose. I leapt out of my seat. Then, I remembered where I was. I glanced around and felt a bit sick. Looking through the track below, I saw the ground, 150 stories' descent, straight down.

"Baby," I called out weakly. "Baby, please say something to me!" She still wasn't answering, but I could hear shuffling and grunting below as she lowered herself down some more. Knowing I would have no other choice, I shakily stepped onto the track and edged over to the scaffold.

I looked over the precipice. The criss-crossing pattern of the massive scaffold played cruel games with my vision and increased my vertigo exponentially. I swayed on my feet and caught myself on one of the massive supports. Closing my eyes, I shook my head to clear away the dizziness. Slowly, I opened them again and looked for my wife, my teeth clenched with determination.

There she was, continuing her trek downward. I was amazed at how much progress she had made, but it didn't do anything to calm me. Seeing I was already part if the way there, I pulled the rest of my body onto the support. My stomach felt like it was trying to stay behind. I resisted its persistent urging and pressed it and myself against the support, clutching the metal for dear life.

With my head threatening to shake loose from my neck, I looked hesitantly over the edge of the support to see how much further she had gotten. She had been climbing down diagonally, following the strangely twisting metal on its way to the ground. Currently, she was somewhere on a part of the scaffold that hung out in the open air before curving back almost directly below. She was about halfway down.

"Who the hell designed this thing?" I couldn't help but ask out of exasperation. I tried to push myself up to grab another support and begin lowering myself, but I couldn't. My hand wouldn't move away from helping to hold me up, no matter how insistently I told it to. I looked back down again.

The scaffold below was swaying. I don't mean it was swaying slightly in the breeze. I mean it was swinging from side to side in a 20 foot arc through the air as my wife shifted her weight out on the vertex of this weird bulge on the illogical jumble of steel.

I screamed, "No! Baby, please stop! Please!" My whole body shook as I began sobbing. It made the slight swaying sensation that I felt up there more pronounced. I laid my head down and squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as I could as tears forced their way out, gripping the support under me with all my strength. I prayed that, whatever she did, she would eventually make it down safely. At the same time I scolded myself for being too much of a coward to go after her.

A few minutes later I heard some shuffling and grunting. I don't really remember everything that happened next. I just know my wife was there. She had climbed back up for me. She knew I was terrified. I remember her guiding me back to my seat on the coaster. Once we were seated, the safety bars came down, and we started moving again. I don't know if the track descended gradually or if there was some kind of death-defying drop. Honestly, I didn't care about the ride anymore, except to get off it.

"Did you have fun?" the worker at the bottom asked cheerily, apparently oblivious to the whole fiasco.

I was speechless.

"It was very exciting," my wife said with a grin.

I continued with the speechlessness.

"Great, make sure you get a picture of it at the stand over there!" the pimply adolescent enthused.

"Oh, cool," my wife replied.

She guided me, shivering, over to the wall lined with monitors. Row after row showed empty seats at various points through the ride. They cycled through the last several stills.

"Ooh, look!" my wife squealed joyfully. "There you are."

There, on one of the monitors, was me. My face was pressed against the cold steel of one of the supports, my eyelids strained from the force of pushing them together, tears quite clearly ran down my terrified cheeks. My wife walked up to the vendor and pointed, cackling with glee.

"Who makes a roller coaster out of scaffolding anyway?" I muttered resentfully under my breath.


Man...dreams are messed up.