dive

the van stopped at the end of a dirt road, off the main highway, by a chain link fence.  i remember getting out of the vehicle, towel in hand, breathing in the muggy, amniotic atmosphere.  we slipped through a chain-link gate, haphazardly shackled, and into the jungle.  the path was narrow but well-worn, darkly muddy, plastered with rotting black leaves.  i tried to focus on protecting myself from the myriad of mosquitoes that descended upon us hiking the path like starving children.  keeping my eyes to the ground, i noticed that the leaves were all uniformly angled...black triangles.  it was several meters before i realized they were hundreds of thousands of single butterfly wings.  i picked one up in curiosity.  the body was completely torn off; only the wings remained, black as obsidian, streaked with shards of iridescent blue.  no idea what species this was.  the macabre path was paved with them.  What was eating these butterflies, i wondered outloud.  The question hung in silence.  The guys didn't seem to care much.  They were as foreboding to them as the carpet in a casino. We hiked, the sunlight oozed through the canopy in patches, and the jungle rustled. Despite the humidity, a shiver went up my spine.
The path eventually broke into a small, picturesque cove, with crystal white sand.  Straight out of a postcard. Not a soul within shouting distance.  The clear sea was as hot as a sauna, the air above the waterline shimmering with energy.  I followed them down the sand to a large pile of boulders that lay at the base of the cliff and we started to climb with hands and feet.  The tall, slippery jet-black rocks interrupted the path with gapes so wide it seemed we would fall through and end up like James Franco in that terrible hiking movie.  We all slipped more than once, with a cry then a sigh of relief.
At the top, through the dense brush was a human-cut path.  And at the very edge of the cliff, the precipice: the cove, the ocean, the glittering horizon.  the heat of the land beat from below, and the sun from above.  a hundred feet or so below, you could see the rocks and fish below the blue surface.
i stood a foot from the edge, taking in the horizon.  At that height the world stretched out before me, endless, mysterious, wonderful.  time stood still.  there was neither the regrets of the past, nor worries of the present living within my head and heart.  only the infinite blue sky, and the kingdom of the sun, the lush forests, and the shimmering heat of the ocean water.  the humid air like molasses.  the infinite scenarios racing through my minds eye.  striking the rocks on my way down crept into my mind. perhaps never coming up after hitting the water.

i remember the end of the falling.  it was like a roller coaster, the inertia of my internal organs finally succumbing to gravity and pulling my nerves and veins and fascia down, down, down to the core of the earth, dragging my stomach with it.  everything became a blur of green and blue.  then, hitting the water, as warm as my blood, and feeling the salinity in my nasal cavities, feeling myself curve into a fetal position, the bubbles of my entry into the sea pushing me back and back towards the surface.

then, surfacing. gasping.  treading. buzzing...