Traveling the World

As I arrive, I see a shirtless man screaming F*** at the top of his lungs, and I know I’m in the right place. Next up is a girl who screams and tries not to flash everyone. I then go in to the office and happily pull $99 out of my pocket. I am weighed to make sure the cable is of the appropriate strength, to find either I’ve been a pig or the scale is off. The guy marks me off at 65kg, the heaviest I’ve ever been. The last person in front of me is a Viet girl raised in Germany and living in HK. She is really nervous and doesn’t want to jump. When she does, she covers her mouth. As she comes wooshing down through the air, I mentally prepare myself by taking off my shirt and shoes.

It begins to rain as the box descends towards me. My heart beats faster. The rain turns into a storm as I feel the rain beating down on me. I climb into the box and it slowly ascends 12 stories into the sky. The man talks to me to help me deal with my nerves, and he tells me what to do. We arrive and the button turns green. He opens the door to hell and asks me quite politely if I would step to the edge. I comply and do the one thing you are told never to do: look straight down. I look back up and tell him I can’t do it. He says, “yes you can, dammit!” I tell him he’ll have to push me.

Falling. Weightlessness. Disorientation. I scream not in fear, but in shock. My body is plummeting towards the ground at a speed faster than I’ve ever experienced. Nothingness. Excitement. The line reaches it’s maximum length, and my body snaps back upward towards the heavens. Wet. Exhilarated. Pumped. The rain continues to soak me as the man on the ground tries to grab my arms and pull me down to the ground. I’m released from the shackles around my ankles and am left feeling only that I can’t wait to do it again.

(PS – I have no pictures or video of this because of the rain, and their machine that records DVDs of the event was broken).