Watching Simon Fall

Afterwards we usually had a beer or two in the pub by the climbing centre, or a coffee. We seemed to never run out of things to talk about, and it became quite obvious Simon was interested in me. Yet, I made sure to keep a certain distance. I was worried about Cathy.

I had mentioned her to Simon that day of my climbing class, and he indicated that he had told her he wasn't interested in anything but friendship, yet Cathy kept mentioning him to me. I had never seen her interested in anyone for that long without that anything had happened between her and the guy. She started seeing someone else anyway, but mentioned to me that she hoped 'it would make Simon jealous.' I doubted Simon even knew she was seeing someone, and if he knew he might just be happy for her.

Then, about a month after I first met Simon, on a warm and sunny day in early May, we decided not to go climbing, but just enjoy the sunshine sitting at the canal, watching the people that gathered there at the first bit of sunshine. Some were juggling, others playing guitar, most just sitting there and talking.

We were in the middle of the city, but the sound of birdsong, the smell of fresh growing grass and trees, the water in front of us, which was almost clean, made us feel as if we were out in nature.

Simon put his arm around me, and I moved a bit closer to him. When his lips touched mine, for the first time, no thought of Cathy crossed my mind. I knew she was seeing someone else, but it wasn't even that. I had forgotten she existed. Or any of the people around us. There was just Simon and I.

Then, his lips and tongue let go of mine, I could still taste him in my mouth though, all I wanted was to lean closer to him, and continue kissing him.

But his mouth wandered to my ear instead, and he whispered those words, that almost a year later, at the Dog's Head, I believed to suddenly hear so clearly again:

"I think I've fallen in love with you."

***

How long does it take for a human body to fall down a distance of 30 metres?

A second? Less? I don't know, but to me it seemed an eternity.

When I now think back to the day Simon fell, what I most remember and what most surprises me is, how quiet it was. All I heard was the sound of the wind, of the birds. All the normal sounds of that area, of nature. Nothing different, as if no one but me noticed Simon was falling down the rock. As if not even he himself noticed.

I didn't scream either. Not on the outside. Only inside my head, there was a scream. A scream of panic, but somehow it mixed with screams of joy, the screams of two voices, Simon's and mine. Shouts of joy from late last summer, when we camped at a little mountain lake for two weeks, and walked up to a small cliff early every morning, and jumped into the water for our morning swim. We were flying through the air, towards the cold water that would make me squeal the very next moment, and then we swam until we were exhausted, and scrambled back onto dry land, and rubbed each other dry with towels, though usually halfway through we started kissing and were rolling on top of each other in the grass, enjoying the solitude of the mountains, and each other's presence. Later on, even more exhausted, but happier than either of us had ever been in our whole life, we would let the sun do the rest of the drying, and keep the warmth in us, that our kisses and closeness had created.

The few times I had travelled before had been trips to Amsterdam or Paris or Prague with Cathy and other friends, and the purpose of these trips had usually been to party, and maybe go shopping. They had been exhausting, these trips, in a very different way than my trip into the mountains with Simon had been. They drained me of energy, and in the end the whole weekend or week we had spent there had always seemed like a blur. It had never really occurred to me, though, that camping and hiking would be something that interested me.

Simon's passion for nature, for mountains, for hiking and cycling and all kinds of other things just as much as climbing, was hard to resist. It felt like this summer I was discovering more than I had seen all the past twenty-five years of my life. I still couldn't get myself to study much more than before, but I felt like my life started having a direction, somehow. I felt healthier than I had in years, and at the same time, safer, less alone somehow. I had always had lots of friends, and occasionally a boyfriend, but with Simon it was different. I can't really explain it. I think for the first time in my life, I, too, had fallen in love.

It had taken me a while to tell Cathy, but eventually I couldn't hide it anymore. It was obvious I was seeing someone. I rarely had time, and occasionally when she called me in the evening to see what I was up to; she could hear there was someone else at my place. For a while I avoided her questions, I was still worried she would see it as betrayal on my behalf that I was seeing a guy she was interested in.

Eventually she had stopped mentioning Simon, though, and now talked about her current boyfriend, whom she had met on one of these evenings out that I used to always join her in -- I hadn't that time, because I was staying at Simon's place. When I told her, it turned out she had known. Or at least suspected. Or maybe that was just what she said. I wasn't sure suddenly why I had worried so much. We were friends, after all.

Despite of that, our friendship wasn't the same anymore. All of a sudden we had very different interests. I didn't notice it very much during the summer; Simon and I had too many plans.

In August he had three weeks of vacation, and it wasn't too difficult to take off from my job in the pub. We decided to spend part of this time in the mountains, camping at a secluded little campsite that very few people knew about, near a beautiful deep lake, and doing smaller hiking excursions from there. The other part of the time we went to Saxon Switzerland, so I could try my first outside climbs on the sandstone rocks there.

These three weeks were of the most beautiful of my life. The last morning at our little campsite is one of these moments imprinted into my mind forever. A bright sun woke us up early in the morning, and we crawled out of the tent into a beautiful day. We ran up to the cliffs and jumped into the cold water, swam a race across the lake, dived and tried to catch each other under water. We swam naked, there was no one else around to see us.

I was swimming in deep water when I felt something hold my legs from underneath, and pull me down. It was Simon; he had swum up to me without that I noticed. At first I struggled, laughing I tried to get free. But he pulled me closer to himself, and started kissing me there, underwater.

With a few strong kicks into the water we got our heads back above the surface, without breaking the lock of our lips once, and got lost in the taste of each other's lips, the feeling of each other's skin under our hands, the sound of each other's breath.

Then Simon broke our kiss. I tried to follow his mouth with mine, to start kissing him again, but he smiled and then sank down into the water in front of me. For a moment I was confused, then I could feel his hands touching my legs, and pulling them apart a bit. Then I could feel his lips and his tongue touch me there, and I closed my eyes.

He was sucking on my most sensitive spot, then flicking his tongue over it. I seemed to be floating more on the sensation than the water we were swimming in.

Every now and then he had to stop, to get above the surface again for fresh air. When his face once again appeared in front of me, I didn't say anything, but with a smile I pointed towards the shore. He nodded, and without a word we swam there as quick as we could.

We fell into the grass at the shore, hugging and touching each other, our kisses almost violent of our need for each other. A slight wind was going over our wet skin, that should have made us shiver of cold, but all we felt was the heat of the other's body. Simon was lying on top of me, I felt his lips on mine, then on my neck, he was biting me tenderly there. I felt his tongue travelling up to my ear, heard his breath, heavy with arousal.

And I could feel his arousal. His cock was pressed against my stomach. He lifted up his body with the help of his arms, and I could feel its head touch my sex, albeit not entering me yet. I wrapped my legs around him, tried to pull him inside me, impatiently. I needed to feel him.

He waited, pushed a bit into me teasingly and pulled out again, and even that was already enough to make my breathing louder, turn it into moans. When he eventually entered me completely with one thrust, there were again screams filling the valley, echoing from the mountains.

*

Later, when we were lying quietly in the grass again, my head resting on his chest, there was silence around us. Only disturbed by the quiet splashes of small waves against the shore, and an occasional breeze of wind or a bird's song.

***

There was no chronological order to my thoughts that day Simon fell. A fall of less than a second is too short to think a year or a life in words, in film sequences, one picture after the next. They were all flashing in front of my mind's eye at the same time, as if time had stopped, or maybe never existed -- as if it all was happening now.

And at that very moment, while Simon fell and the birds kept singing and the rock remained silent, at that moment I thought it would be like this forever. I held on to that belief, that his fall would never end. I didn't want to allow myself to succumb to the fear of losing him.

Yet my hands were clutching the rope, trying to hold him, as if it was still my own strength he was relying on. The rope, however, wasn't attached to his body anymore. It was falling down, just as Simon was, but slower. It was lighter and reached the ground fractions of a second after him. The strong grip of my hands was useless; there was nothing I could do. I wanted him to hold me, comfort me, tell me I did nothing wrong; for that was what I feared most, that it was my fault. But he kept falling, silently.

*

In September I gave up my little apartment and moved in with Simon. In October, we had our first big argument.

It was unexpected for me. Simon and I had never argued before, not even small quarrels, I hadn't thought it was possible. Of course, we had moved in together quite quickly, and I hadn't even lived with anyone since leaving my parents' place. Several of my friends had warned me, but everything between Simon and me had been so perfect, I couldn't imagine any problems.

I don't even remember what the argument was about. Something insignificant that somehow just grew until I angrily left the house convinced I would never come back.

It was October and raining heavily, when I rang Cathy's doorbell late in the evening. We hadn't seen much of each other lately, I had been too busy enjoying the last few sunny days, and then moving. When she saw my tears, she hugged me without asking any questions.

The days I stayed at her place seemed the longest I had ever gone through. I didn't go out much, or speak much, or even eat much. And I refused to call Simon or answer the phone when he called. Yet all I could think of was that I didn't want to lose him. Our argument had been my fault, I know that now and knew it then. And I couldn't imagine my life without him anymore.

It was Cathy, who eventually talked me into meeting up with him. Once that step was taken, when I saw him enter the café we had agreed to meet up in, I forgot our argument, I forgot being angry, I even forgot we were in a public place -- fortunately Simon remembered that.

The winter that followed was cold and long. There was more snow that usual, the temperatures kept us inside a lot. We didn't mind, we had each other. But when the sun was shining, it was difficult to keep Simon inside.

*

Then, finally, spring came, and towards the end of March, the temperatures went up. The sun was shining almost every day, and Simon started talking about his yearly trip to his village, and to the Dog's Head. We had been to the village together before, visiting his parents. The area offered a few good skiing opportunities, which had been a nice change from the dreary city winter.

But this trip was to be different. The Dog's Head was slightly more difficult than the climbs I had done before, and while we had gone to the City Climbing Centre's gym at least once every week during the winter, I still wasn't as well in shape as I had been at the end of summer. And the slight fear I had always felt when climbing had increased. I wanted to continue, of course, but somehow there was a hole in my stomach before each climb, a tickling feeling that increased with each bit I worked myself up the wall.

Also, the Dog's Head was Simon's rock, in a way. He didn't take just anyone along for his spring climb there -- usually he went with an old childhood friend. That he had decided to go with me instead, felt almost like a test.

Simon, however, managed to assuage my fears. He was an experienced climber; he would take care of me. And I was good enough, he said. I would manage the Dog's Head without bigger problems.

***

I will never forget the sound that broke the silence of Simon's fall. The sound of a human body hitting rocky ground. A short, dry thump, a crack of breaking bones, followed by a lighter thump of the end of his rope hitting ground. Then it was silent again, just the birds continued their song.

And then, finally, there was the scream that had been missing all throughout. My own scream of terror. I screamed his name, and ran towards the motionless body.

Simon was still alive when I reached him; his eyes were open and looking at me. I kneeled down next to him, and took his hand in mine. He was lying in a weird, twisted way, there was blood, but the expression on his face wasn't one of fear or pain. I don't know how to describe the look in his eyes. The word that comes the closest might be thankfulness, he looked at me as if thanking me for being there, for that year we had spent together.

I had stopped screaming, it seemed almost impossible for me to speak.

"I'll... I'll go get help," I choked.

He didn't answer, he probably couldn't, but there was a tiny, almost impalpable pressure from his hand on mine. He was squeezing my hand, as if trying to keep me from going, and his eyes pleaded me to stay.

I didn't know what to do. I wanted to cry, but couldn't. I wanted him to hold me in his arms and tell me he was all right, nothing had happened. I couldn't go away and just let him lie there, but he needed help; that much was obvious.

I was still holding his hand in mine, and I put my other hand on his head, ran my fingers through his hair as I had done so often before.

"It's going to be alright, you are going to be fine," I whispered, maybe more to convince myself of it.

He moved his lips; the effort seemed to tire him, and no sound left his mouth. I leaned in closer, to hear what he was trying to say. I couldn't. He was unable to speak; he didn't have the strength anymore.

Instead, with all effort that was still possible for him, Simon smiled at me, and again there was this expression in his eyes before he closed them forever.

***

A year has passed since the day Simon fell. We still don't quite know what had happened, but the fact that the quickdraw for his stance was dangling freely from the bolt, and that in the rope there was a half opened figure-eight knot seem to indicate that I hadn't been the only one who was distracted that day.

They say that any mistake that is possible, is bound to be made at some point. Experienced climbers aren't excluded from that possibility, even if they are as careful and thorough as we all knew Simon to have been. It seems that by mistake he secured the other end of his quickdraw into the noose below the figure of eight in his rope, rather than into his harness.

A year has passed. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be time to start seeing other guys again. Life has to go on, they say. Cathy wants to introduce me to a friend of the guy she is currently seeing.

Life does go on. And yet, all is different. I managed to finish my studies, I don't know how I did it, I suppose in the first weeks it was one way to keep me from crying continuously, and later, well, I had nothing other to do it seemed.

A year. I have climbed a lot the past year, even more than I did with Simon. The strange thing is, I am not scared anymore. Sometimes I feel like I can't die anymore, because I already died along with Simon. What I am living now is a different life, I feel detached from it at times.

But climbing makes me feel close to him, as if he is still there. Especially when I climbed the Dog's Head today. It was as if he was still there, in the sunshine of a perfect April day, in the song of birds, the light sound of the breeze, and most of all in the warm, rough feeling of the rock beneath my fingers.