Acrophobia--Fear of Heights and a little waffle

An unbidden image arose in her mind.

A monochromatic world, the tiny dots that stained the canvas of her thoughts. They were so miniature, so small. She felt too big, looking down upon all of them. The ledge was reshaping, closing in into a compact area. So painfully tight, so painfully worrying. There was just a fleck of dust to stand on, but her weight was going to make it crack. She was going to fall. The mist clouded over her mind, tracing and retracing a single word that haunted her peace.

She felt her finger slide desperately, gliding across the air, cutting into the breeze swirling around her. Her fingers fumbled over the specks of dust that lolled around, drifting gleefully around the air, thick and lazy. Slender and pale, they opened and closed, as though trying to catch what little ray of glittering sunlight there was in her hands.There was nothing to hold on to, nothing, nothing.

Nothing.


She gasped, the contraction of her lungs, as though a hand had cupped over her throat and wrung the life out of her. It was hard to breathe, so hurtfully hard to breathe. It was impossible to suck in just one small gulp of air-- her muscles were losing control. Paralysed, in mid-air. Her heart thumped, palpitated, and threw itself countless times over the thick walls that was keeping it from escape.

escape-- what a sweet word.


Just one step back, back onto solid, firm ground. If only she could lift up the stumps of her legs, if only she could leap... The muscles in her fingers flexed. As she squinted over her shoulder, it was to her horror and its cheer that the ground was so far away. The gravel was inching away, increasing the distance between them.

There was an invisible feather upon her legs-- tickling them mercilessly with a mocking laugh. She was floating, held up by stronger forces, the wind whipping against her face. Their hands brushed past her bangs, pulling them back gently but firmly. They slid their cool fingers up and down her arms, gleefully asking,

"Can you see now? Can you?"

She shook her head, but all she could manage was a tilting of her head to the left, then right. There was nothing to see, even as her fear's hands peeled her eyes open and purred for her to see the world laid out beneath her. Her shoes, red and pointed, were huge. And she felt as though she was stomping on all those little atoms, splintered into single blocks of life, exploding and then reforming, the cycle of life repeating. She shifted her weight to the other foot, but then paused. What if she were to roll off and fall?

"I don't want to fall," she whispered in a muted prayer. "Don't, don't, don't let me fall. Someone. Someone."