I was five years old and I had not the slightest care in the world. I did not see the danger that my parents saw when they looked outside and a car was driving down the street. I did not see what was so wrong with trying to jump down a flight of stairs, or trying to parachute off a tree with a plastic bag. I grew up with my parents always around me, hovering over me like helicopters trying to follow a runaway criminal. I had always had stupid thoughts, and I tried to turn them into actions, but someone wiser would always come and stop me, and in that way I never knew what would happen if I did get hurt.

One day in my early childhood I decided to go for a perfectly harmless bike ride with my young, innocent, rock-brained friends. My mom made sure I had I helmet and water, and I was on my way. We sped our way from my house, the air filled with the honey like sound of children laughing. The sun was out and shining, the clouds were floating gently around, their fluffy layers bouncing joyously in the gentle wind. The trees stood tall and proud, like giants watching all that goes around below them. We zoomed on with our bikes past houses with picket fences and barking dogs. At last we reached our destination: the power lines. We went in through the side trail, and bumped our way across some tree roots until at last we reached the skinny dirt trial that spiraled across the grass and weeds. A forest outlined both edges of the field and the power lines themselves stood even taller than the trees, their stout metal forms stretching their way into the clouds. The sleek black wires that were draped across from one end of a power line to the other let out a sharp hum of electricity that crackled in your ears and made your spine tingle.

The path was almost completely downhill and even when going back uphill it was no hard task to do. Only in one spot was there a definite steepness that we always sped up on to see how fast we could go. As we neared this hill we chatted and chased each other with the bikes, and peered into the shrubbery to see what kind of junk someone had tried to hide. There was always something, either a mattress or tire, and if we were lucky, some wooden boards that we would prop up against trees to make forts. At last we got to the hill and looked down it to see a big rock that someone had placed there, that seemed to make an almost perfect ramp. We all raced each other to see who would get to use the ramp first, and as usual the biggest one of us won. My friend got onto his larger “big boy” bike and zoomed down the hill, yelling cheerfully as he did, and rode gracefully onto the rock and flew into the air, landing safely on the ground a few feet further. I pushed my way next and scrambled up onto my bike, which was considerably smaller than my friend’s, and started my descent down the hill. I peddled as hard as I could; my small legs pumped up and down, faster and faster and faster, until I could not get any quicker even if I wanted to. I whooped and tried to go little faster, so I could out do my friend. Air pinched my eyes and cheeks, and the plantation looked like a big yellow-green blur. Finally I reached the rock, and my bike stopped, its small front wheel was trapped in the small space that jutted up from the ground in between the rock, the one thing that made this ramp imperfect.

The momentum that my bike still had from going down the hill propelled me off of it, past the handle bars, and flipped me head first up into the air. The ground was far away from me as I flew up and then I felt a strange sensation coming from the bottom of my stomach, butterflies that were crawling through my body and settling in my throat. Right then I felt my first real sensation of fear and panic. I flipped around for what seemed to me like an eternity, but only lasted for a few seconds, before landing on my back in some thick bushes. I laid there for a moment, catching my breath and trying to get over that horrible feeling that I had, and when I breathed in I saw that my minuscule hands were shaking. My friends rushed down, shouting about how cool that had looked, none of them were worried if something had happened, because they didn’t know better. But I did. I had felt the terror that was there, waiting to find out if I would be hurt or not. I knew that from then on, I would always feel that sensation whenever I did something frightening or dangerous, and I would continue feeling it forever. It is one of those things that you will never forget once it happens; it will always be there to remind you not to risk your health.