I Defied Gravity | Teen Ink

I Defied Gravity

April 27, 2010
By rach742 BRONZE, Glen Ellyn, Illinois
rach742 BRONZE, Glen Ellyn, Illinois
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

I scraped my hair back into a ponytail. I stepped into bodysuit wind breaker. The nylon material was my shield; it would keep the enemy out. I looked around and felt my heart skip a beat and my stomach squirm. I was going to jump off the tallest building in the southern hemisphere

Dusk had just fallen over Auckland and the last rays of light had been squashed. The streets were crowded with tourists, business workers and couples going out, but here I was above them all standing in the clouds. Earlier in the elevator ride up to the jumping platform I hadn’t been nervous but then a group of Scottish guys came in. They started saying how scared they would be if they were me and all of a sudden I became really worried. I tried to shake it off with a laugh but that didn’t help. What if the wire that attached me to the building broke or I slammed into the side of the building, or what if the workers had miscalculated something and the wire didn’t slow me down when I got to the ground. My worries hadn’t vanished as I stepped onto the plank leading to nothing.
Out on the edge the view was incredible. All the sounds were muted and the city was just
a cluster of lights. The buildings I had been looking up at earlier now reminded me of miniature model city. After the cluster of lights there was blanket of velvet with nothing in it, the sea.
My heart pounded as I looked over the landscape and my brain screamed don’t do it as the man was counting.

“Three…Two…One…Jump!”
I wanted to do a batman fall with my hands crossed over my chest and just lean off the edge but I didn’t. I simply stepped off the plank defying all laws of gravity. The crisp night air rushed around me and I was very thankful for my shield because it was keeping the wind out. I felt like I was in my own little bubble even with all the craziness around me I was calm. The buildings were popping up just like in a popup book and the people seemed to have drunk a growing potion.
I felt like I was soaring in the air like a bird, but eventually I had to land. So I bent my knees and waited for a painful impact but it never came. I was so relived, the landing only felt like I had jumped off a table not a building. Even though the drop only lasted about ten seconds it had seemed timeless.
I stepped out of the harness; it had been my safety line. As I looked around I felt my face grinning, and my heart beating like crazy. I had just jumped off the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. I could do anything.


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