High

“Don’t look down.”

“What’s the point in being up here, if I don’t look down?”

“Fair point. But..”

“Fuck, sorry. Oh fuck. Fuck. FUCK!”

“I told you not to look down.”

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

“That should be interesting for those on the ground.”

“It’s not funny. I need to sit down.” The silence and space were overwhelming. “Please stop rocking the basket.”

She took another tentative glance over the edge and stumbled backwards. “How did we get so high?” 

As she tightened her grip around one of the ropes tethering the basket to the huge balloon above, her mind drifted momentarily away on the clouds. How had they got so high? How had they ended up here at all? 

The answer lay teasingly at the edges of her consciousness but as she reached for it, a sudden roar jolted her attention back to the long drop below. The basket lurched and she closed her eyes against a new wave of panic. “What are you doing?!” 

Opening her eyes again, she could see the young man standing in the centre of the basket, tall and slim with black hair that hung in short curls to frame his handsome dark features. His smile was familiar, but not yet known, exciting but not yet safe. There was something about the smile; something about his eyes. Something… with the sun shining directly upon them, she was reminded suddenly of a horse in the moments before it bolts. 

“We need to get higher”. He grinned now, it seemed in her new awareness, without smiling. “Much higher.”

“Higher? Why?” 

“Because we need to avoid that.” 

He pointed, and turning too, she saw directly ahead an impossibly tall spire, spiralling through the wispy clouds like an inverted lightning bolt. 

“Shit!”

“We just need to get higher”, he called over the noise of the burner. Again, the balloon lurched uncomfortably. She let go of the rope and grabbed the edge of the basket instead. “Don’t look down”, he laughed as she involuntarily did exactly that, and gagged. 

“Here, have a drink.”

Letting go of the burner control, he poured a glass of champagne from the bottle that had been resting unnoticed in the ice bucket on the unstable floor. He held it out to her, but he was too far away to reach without entrusting balance to her legs.

“I can’t let go!” 

“Here.” He stepped towards her, smiling, and his smile was inviting now. Gently, he lifted the fingers of her right hand from the wicker edge and with lingering gentleness placed them around the glass stem. She could feel his breath close to hers and wondered if they’d kiss and whether, if they did, she’d taste horribly of sick.

Somehow, the moment passed, and he was back at the controls.

Still gripping the rope with her left hand, she raised her right to take a long gulp of champagne. She swallowed, the bitter sparkling liquid reappearing in her mouth a moment later as a belch. 

The balloon was still moving vertically, and it was accelerating. “Don’t look down”, he reminded her, as the wind whistled down around them. 

Maybe if she kept her gaze horizontal. She fixed her eyes on the eternal gap between them and the end of distance. “Don’t look down”, she reminded herself. 

Overcome by the sudden, familiar premonition that it would invariably fall, she gripped the glass tightly; too tightly. It shattered into ruby sprinkles, dragging her eyes down to witness the flicker of their passage through the blue and white depths below.

She could no longer see anything below them. The realisation squeezed her chest like a vice. “I can’t see the ground”, she gasped. She turned away from the horror and slumped to the ground, drawing her legs tight to her and noticing the blood on her blouse from the cut hand. Her voice found manic strength. “I can’t see the fucking ground.”

The young man smiled down at her. “I told you, we need to go higher.” 

And suddenly they were pirouetting, spinning as they accelerated upwards, faster and faster. She hugged herself against the fear, and wept. 

When she opened her eyes again, it was to darkness. Cold, empty darkness, damp with night and the moisture from her tears. The man, still standing, was staring into the distance now, silent. 

“Why are you doing this to me?”

He turned to her. “I’m not doing anything to you. You’re doing it to yourself.” 

“Let me go.”

“I can’t.” 

He turned his back on her and resumed his gaze into nothing. Coldness slithered in, coiling, reptilian like, around the basket and the balloon above. She watched as tentacles of frost spread, tracing the wicker work until their intricate lace patterns covered every surface. The stinging cold brought a sudden realisation.

“We’re too high.” Her words were lost whisper in storm of emptiness. “What have you done?”

She was answered by a tin sharp voice that, screaming of madness, echoed back “Higher, high..”

The last word was severed, leaving a silence punctuated only by a moonbeam that threw a feeble spotlight into the basket to reveal the man, her handsome guide, grotesquely reconfigured in cold blue ice. She stared, breathless with cold and fear, but unable to draw her eyes from the frozen reminder of a painted scream she’d once seen in another life.

A splintering crash jolted her back into her body. A guideline, heavy and glasslike with frost, had torn free of the basket’s edge. No thicker than her wrist, it whistled like a firework through the brittle air towards her companion.

A sudden, clean crack would forever mark the moment the line cleaved the head from his shoulders. Without any change in expression, the face she might have known, but would never know again, plummeted into the chasm below.

She screamed then; her voice breaking uncontrollably free of her body to echo around her like a siren. She screamed until her scream was exhausted and she collapsed into a restless stupor. 

She awoke to find that light had returned and with it, warmth. The ice had melted; the man replaced by a small pool of water that was slowly dripping away through the perforated floor. 

Feeling stronger, she pulled herself slowly to her feet. As she did, a squirrel glided down and landed on the basket’s edge, rocking it slightly. She grabbed a rope to steady herself against her own wobble.

The squirrel hopped down and looked up at her inquisitively from the floor, before, with slow deliberation, turning its attention to the task of opening a hamper. It lifted the lid and began methodically rummaging inside, eventually dragging out a small, folded picnic table. With care, the squirrel set that up and returned its attention to the ornate wicker. Next, it lifted out a chair. The furniture was followed by a red gingham tablecloth, which the squirrel studiously unfolded and placed on the table before adding a plate and a small spoon. Having carefully and precisely arranged each item on the table, the curious little squirrel turned once more to the hamper, burying its head deep into its depths and rummaging frantically in every corner. When its hands emerged for a final time, they were carrying a small jar of Nutella.

“You know, it’s the drugs”, it said holding the jar and seeming to notice her for the first time.

“What?” She’d been so enraptured by the squirrel’s antics that she’d almost forgotten where they were.

“The drugs.” With tiny hands it began to work at unscrewing the lid.

She stared at him, again feeling that something important was just beyond her mental reach. “Drugs?”

“The medicines they give you…. Ah!” His face lit up with pleasure as the lid gave a little. 

She could feel a distant half-memory pushing at the boundaries of her foggy mind. “I don’t want them.”

“They give them to you anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because you scream.” And with that the lid broke free of the jar and the world exploded.

In a wingback chair that faced the long bay window, the patient was awake and screaming, summoning the men with white coats and needles. Outside, a little girl chased her balloon across the manicured lawns.