Tyra B - Model Marine

Let us pause Time. We have done it with the sound turned down to avoid listening to the universe stretched out thin in a single moment. That would sound something like a cat chewing a sweater whilst sliding, claws out, down an aluminum blackboard. So, let us focus on the picture instead:

A Hobbit-sized woman with a dirt-flecked face, set in mid-scream, is suspended by a rope fifty feet in the air beneath a canopy of trees. The pine-needled floor below will not be a soft landing even compared with the roughly hewn cargo net dead ahead.

Look closely into the eyes of this suspended woman and you can see the spark of dawning reason that suggests that the only way to reach the relative safety of the cargo net is to LET GO OF THE ROPE. This does not make sense. And in that insane instant of realisation Time resumes its persistent course and the sound swims in like an angry cat trying to escape an old tin bath.

I am not Tyra. My make-up is not perfectly applied. I can't toss my chestnut locks over my shoulder in giddy slow motion. I can't jiggle my hips into a safety harness without breaking a nail and, most importantly, I can't bear my feather-light weight to the top of a woodland platform.

I am only me and, for the first time in a long time, this simply does not seem to be enough. My DNA is rebelling and my genetic code is trying to desperately reassemble itself. I need to be a super model. Why? Well, firstly; because I have never known of a single recorded case of one dying by failing to reach a cargo net. Secondly; because they are so unnaturally light won't they just fall gently to the ground like a bug jettisoned out of a housewife's window? Thirdly (and very finally); If I do wind up dead at least I'll be a pretty corpse and no-one will mind that my underwear doesn't match.

Like Kirk Douglas rising against the authority of Rome I hear a rich, satin voice come from within me,

"I AM TYRA."

My friction burnt palm releases the rope and I swing on with my weight threatening to pull my remaining arm from its shoulder socket. Legs flailing in an epileptic dance I hit the net. Literally. My outstretched arm has gone through it and I hook my elbow and grunt until my feet find a purchase. I would gladly rather hold on by my teeth, ears, eyeballs and hair than let go off that net and now that I've made it, I'm wondering what on earth made me want to do it in the first place. I find myself mumbling a little mantra against the 'god of army assault courses' as I heave myself up toward a little wooden platform where a uniform awaits to tie me to a zip wire that crosses a white-watered river to the forest floor.

In fact I have just made up my mind to NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS AGAIN when an incident occurs that makes me glad I did. The handsome, twenty-something face of the uniform above me beams down as he extends his hand to help me on to the platform.

"That was amazing, Tyra!" He enthuses. "You must be so stoked!"

"I believe I am." I reply, tossing my sweaty curled locks over my shoulder and cricking my neck in the process. "My catwalk training probably helped with my balance."

I smile at his puzzled expression as I zip down the death slide. It's only as I near the bottom that I wonder how on earth I'm supposed to land.

Time pauses. With the sound turned down.

(633 wds)