1
The September night was becoming quite cool, causing Adam and Nancy to walk close to one another, embraced in each other’s arms, keeping each other warm. They walked along the hard sand next to the water. The lights of Bondi Beach surrounded them on three sides. From their feet, the blackness of the ocean extended out towards an invisible horizon, which merged seamlessly with the infinity of outer space.
‘It was incredible, Nancy. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I wasn’t just floating around like usual. This thing happened, this reality change. It was as if I somehow accidentally witnessed a reality existing just behind our normal reality. And there were all these people there, all studying us. It’s as if we were in some kind of experiment. I cannot describe how real it was. Totally, completely real. That’s what made it so amazing. It was the reality of it. I freaked out, you know, threw the hose on the floor and panicked. As soon as I did that, it all disappeared.’
Even though there was no one near them, Nancy spoke in a hushed, secretive voice.
‘It’s making me think about things as well. I doubt that I will ever perceive life in the same way again. I went so far away, I couldn’t tell you, and I did it because I wanted to.’
She paused, thought for a while, and then continued, ‘I think I might buy some books. Or maybe it’s better that I don’t. Maybe other people’s ideas would just confuse me right now. I know one thing, Adam, I know that I feel an almost obsessive need to explore some more.’
‘I can definitely relate to that,’ he replied. ‘My curiosity is off the scale as well. I think we’ve stumbled onto something unbelievable here, something that I don’t think anyone knows anything about.’ He whispered, ‘We can’t tell anyone.’
‘You’re right. Got to stay cool. I would never jeopardise your work. This is our secret
… has to be.’
‘I don’t think we can even tell Robbie.’
‘No, we can’t. He’s on a different wavelength. Nobody can know.’
As they walked along the edge of the limitless ocean, solid reality on their left, the black mysterious void on their right, they both sensed that it was as if they were walking on the very edge of the known universe. They recognised the risk, but as they walked
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along, in silence now, embraced in each other’s arms, they had already decided, in their own hearts and minds, that they were going to take that dangerous step into the infinite unknown.
‘I want to know the truth, Adam. I need to know the truth.’
‘So do I, Nancy, so do I.’
2
Nancy never became interested in any of Adam’s hang-gliding activities. She never actually ventured out of the city. She was a city girl through and through. Drives in the country, well, she called them depression sessions. She’d tell Adam; ‘Look me up when you get back.’ So she never saw any part of that aspect of Adam’s life.
In between all his busy activity, Adam managed to continue to dabble in his hang gliding at Kurnell. Reluctantly he decided to trade in the Datsun 2000 for a white, pre-loved Valiant Charger. He needed to do it so that he could transport his hang glider around. An enthusiast, who did a little work on the suspension and fitted wide wheels and tyres, properly filling out the guards, giving the car a solid purposeful stance, had previously owned the Charger. All Adam had to do was buy a decent set of roof racks and he was set.
He’d been flying Ken’s old glider for the last three years and still hadn’t ventured out of the Kurnell sand dunes. He went there alone most of the time and hung out with whoever was there. There were always a few learners there, climbing up and down the dunes.
Ken, by this time, had followed Steve and Arnold down to Stanwell Park and become one of the leading pilots in the country. Adam, on the other hand, had become king of the big hill at Kurnell. He had flown off it more times than anyone alive and, in the process, had fully mastered take-offs, glides and landings in the whole spectrum of wind conditions.
Adam got to see plenty of Steve and Arnold though. Their factory was located right on the way to Kurnell, in Brighton-le-Sands, and Adam loved to drop in for a chat. Steve and Arnold were also still regular visitors to the Kurnell dunes as that was where they tested their new, experimental designs before taking them down to Stanwell Park.
So even though Adam hadn’t been as regular as his compatriots, he maintained his finger on the pulse of the rapidly-evolving sport through the two brothers.
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He remembered a flying story they told him one late afternoon at the factory. It was the tale of Steve’s first flight off Bald Hill. Up to that day they thought that no one had flown off that huge hill, but as they were setting up, Zeke showed up, introduced himself and offered to give them a hand. It was during the preparation for Steve’s first flight that Zeke told them about his own flight nearly four years before. They weren’t sure whether to believe him, but later on that day when they dropped in on him and saw the actual kite and heard his description of his one and only flight, they became believers. And to make it even crazier, Zeke never had any practise flights anywhere else. It was a miracle that he lived because he flew a completely untried wing off a six-hundred-foot hill, and it was the first flight of his life. Zeke just kept saying that ‘there was nothin around to get bearins off.’
After talking about Zeke, Steve began relating the story of his first flight off Bald Hill.
‘We thoroughly tested the 200 at Kurnell and really felt ready for the high glide off Bald Hill. We didn’t want a day that was too strong because all I wanted to do was just a straight glide to the beach. I didn’t really want to get the kick on take-off from a strong lift band. We’d discussed at length the potential dangers of such a high glide. The main danger, as we saw it, was stalling because I’d be so high up that I couldn’t tell how fast I was flying because I’d have no reference to the ground. The other danger was not making the beach, or worse, landing in the ocean. The back-up plan, if it looked like I wasn’t going to make the beach, was to circle around and land in the small, open paddock right at the base of the hill, the one Zeke landed in.
‘On the day we went down, it was perfect. The wind was only blowing about fifteen knots straight out of the southeast and was smooth as silk. We set up and I got ready to go. The hill looked incredibly high to me, and that beach looked too far away. I clipped my harness into the karabiner and lifted the glider off the ground. The wind was so smooth and steady it literally picked the glider up for me, just like in the dunes, except it wasn’t as strong. I stood on the edge of the hill for ages, ground flying the wing and feeling out the wind. I can tell you now that I was shit-scared and everything in me was saying, don’t do this. Arnold held the front wires for me while Zeke held a side wire. There were only a couple of other people there, probably tourists.
‘My heart was going like a base drum as I psyched myself for the launch. Then I just ran. The kite lifted me off the hill in three steps and I was flying. The Earth literally fell away from me and in a matter of seconds there was six hundred feet between the ground
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and me. My first thought was how good everything felt, no different from the dunes, just heaps higher. I flew a bit faster than I would normally because I definitely didn’t want to stall. When I looked back at the hill, I noticed that I was still level with the top. I realised that I was still flying in the lift band. I was actually tempted to turn and fly along the south face for a while and try to stay in the lift and maybe soar for a bit, but then I thought better of that and decided to stick to the original plan and fly straight to the beach, which now seemed within easy gliding distance.
‘The glide was going so well that I actually started to relax and take in the scenery.
Just as I thought to myself how perfectly everything was going, I felt something snap in my right wingtip. The glider lurched to the right. I had to throw my weight to the left in order to bring it back to straight and level flight. I had no idea what happened. My first thought was; shit, something broke. I kept looking over at the right wing to see if I could make out what went wrong, when it happened again. This time, though, I saw it. It was a huge bloody eagle having a go at my wingtip. This time he slammed in even harder. He must have dived straight into it. The kite lurched to the right again. This time the eagle didn’t fly away. The mongrel hooked himself into the sail with his talons and started ripping up the sailcloth with his bloody beak.
‘I saw him looking at me, straight in the eyes. I’ve got to tell you, he looked pretty upset. I had to fight to keep the glider flying straight. Then I heard an almighty ripping sound. The bloody eagle had ripped the sail. By this time, I was too busy fighting for survival to think about fear. The eagle was trying to bring me down, and he was succeeding. The hang glider had developed a powerful right turn. I was full-weight over to the left but I couldn’t make the glider fly straight anymore, and that mongrel eagle was still ripping and tearing at the wingtip and screeching his head off. He just wouldn’t let go. Then I thought I noticed some panic in the eagle as well. It looked like now he couldn’t let go. Serves you right, you big bastard, I screamed at the eagle, we’re going down together.’
Arnold kicked in with his perspective.
‘Me and Zeke, we were just standing there not believing what we were seeing. It was obvious that Steve was going down. He’d go into a spiral 360, then he’d get a bit of control and fly out a little, then he’d lose control and do another diving, spiralling 360 with that eagle furiously flapping his wings and ripping away at the sail, which was flapping loose in the wind.’
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Steve took over again.
‘By then I knew that I was going to go down spiralling. It’s unbelievable how many thoughts you can process in a fraction of a second during a life or death emergency. I knew that the beach was no longer an option. My only chance of surviving the imminent impact seemed to be the water. So every bit of control I had was directed at taking me out over the ocean. Then it happened. I heard another tear in the sail. It tore all the way from the trailing edge to the leading edge. It wouldn’t have been more than two hundred feet above the deck when the glider went into a helicopter spin. The centrifugal force ripped the control bar out of my hands and I swung around that glider like a rag doll. The eagle, with his talons entangled in the shredded sail, was going down with me, screaming and kicking and flapping his huge wings in an attempt to free himself. I couldn’t make out anything other than the eagle. The whole world looked like one giant whirlpool spinning frantically around us.
‘We both spiralled into about three feet of water, about thirty feet from the shore.
The impact was massive, but here I am to talk about it. I stood up in waist-deep water, without a scratch, and unclipped my harness. We were so lucky there wasn’t much surf.
The glider was partially submerged. Then I noticed the eagle. He came all the way down with me and ended up stuck under the sail, under the water. All I could see was a bit of his wing sticking up. I realised straight away that he was drowning under there and that he had no hope of getting out on his own. I quickly waded over to where he was and raised the shredded wingtip up above the surface. He still had plenty of fight left in him and I had to watch out for his beak. Once I knew that he wasn’t going to drown, I kept my distance and had a go at dragging the broken hang glider out of the water. You wouldn’t believe how heavy a sail gets with tons of water on top of it. There was no way that I was going to move that bloody hang glider, but at least I was keeping the eagle’s head above the surface. It was around about then that Arnold and Zeke showed up. They must have broken all speed records driving down the hill because they got there unbelievably fast.’
Arnold took over the story.
‘We honestly thought Steve was dead. We saw the impact from the top of the hill and it looked like something no one could have walked away from. Zeke drove down the hill like a maniac, and when we got down to the beach … I can’t tell you my relief. I had actually, for a few minutes, thought that I had lost my brother. I never want to feel that again. I was so happy to see him alive …’ Arnold paused for a moment as he dealt with a
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surge of emotion. Then he continued, ‘Anyway, there he was, holding up the shredded wingtip with the eagle still stuck to it, looking a bit like a drowned rat, but still with a lot of fight left in him. He was frantically flapping his wings, still trying to get loose. Steve was saying; Careful, he’s stuck to the sail. He nearly drowned. I pulled him out of the water in the nick of time. We might have to try to cut him away before we try to drag the glider out of the water. Watch out, watch out, he’ll have a go at you.
‘We all stood around the eagle, looking at him, and he was looking at us. His right leg was tangled. Then I noticed his left leg. It was bleeding and two talons were broken.
Even though the water had washed most of it off, we could still see the eagle’s bloodstains on the shredded sailcloth. Then Zeke suggested that we just concentrate on keeping the bird from drowning and hurting himself further, and let him tire himself out a bit more and just calm down.
‘Steve always carries a pocketknife on him. He says that if he ever lands in the water, it could save his life one day. He took out the knife and started manoeuvring around the eagle, looking for an opportunity to cut him free from the sail. A few people had showed up on the beach by then. Then all of a sudden, like he sensed that the bunch of us didn’t want to hurt him, the eagle completely calmed. He was now looking directly into Steve’s eyes. He was breathing hard and we thought that we could hear his heart beating.
‘Steve approached the eagle cautiously. The big bird didn’t move. It allowed Steve to carefully take its right leg into his hands and cut away the sail from it. The bird was free. All three of us took a number of swift steps backwards, thinking that the bird might have a go at one of us. But the eagle just stayed there, kind of resting on top of the sail.
Then the most amazing thing happened. Steve, I don’t know what got into him, he gave me the knife and then just waded over to the eagle. He put his forearm under his feet and supported him with his other hand. The eagle just let him do it like he was Steve’s pet or something. Anyway, we all waded out of the water onto the beach with Steve carrying this huge, bleeding eagle. There were about ten people gathered there by now, standing in a semicircle, keeping their distance just in case the eagle decided to go crazy or something. It was just Steve and the eagle. Steve held him up in the wind as the eagle displayed his massive wingspan. Then Steve started to run directly into the wind holding that noble bird as high as he could. It gave one flap of its huge wings and magnificently lifted into the sky.
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‘For a moment there was nothing but silence on that beach. Everyone was too blown away. Then the people that showed up gave Steve a big cheer. The eagle did a few circles over the crash site before he returned to his cliffs, to lick his wounds we reckoned.
‘We dragged the glider out of the water and found the two broken talons still stuck in the sail. Steve pulled them out and put them on a couple of lengths of leather. He hung one around his neck and he gave me the other one and here it is hanging around my neck.’
Adam had a look at Arnold’s eagle claw. It was huge. Steve finished the story.
‘I never washed the eagle’s blood off my jacket. I’m always going to keep it like it is.
I went back to Stanwell the very next week and had four big flights off the hill. In the fourth one, I soared for half an hour, got three hundred feet above the top of the hill and even did a 360. I spotted that eagle when I was flying and I know that he saw me, but it looked like he’d had enough cause he left me alone this time. Actually, on my soaring flight, he flew up to my right wing and flew alongside of me for some time. Maybe he was trying to figure out how I managed to heal my tip so fast.’
Everyone in the factory just loved that story and even though it had been told over and over dozens of times, no one ever tired of hearing it again. Then Arnold asked Adam,
‘When are we going to see you down at Stanwell?’
‘I don’t know. Do you think I’m ready?’
‘You’re ready ten times over judging by the way you fly those dunes. You’ve got the take-offs and landings wired and that is the most dangerous part. The glide is the easy part. Think of it being the same as flying Kurnell, except the glides are longer. You just keep flying straight until you hit the beach.’
‘Do you think it’s going to be on next weekend?’
‘Could be. They’re predicting a new southerly change during the week.’
‘Then I’ll come down this Saturday, if it’s on. What about my old hang glider? Do you think it’s good enough for Stanwell?’
‘You’re heaps better off flying something you’re really used to for your first few flights. Then you might want to get a new wing.’
3
As it turned out, the forecast southerly never arrived. So, Adam called Nancy on Saturday morning and asked what plans she had for the day. It was near the end of September and the day was warm with a northwester blowing hot air straight out of the
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outback. The hot, northwest wind usually preceded a cool, southerly change in that part of the world.
‘Let’s have a blast in the surgery and then maybe we can have lunch in Centennial Park. I can bring a blanket and some sandwiches and a couple of joints and we can sit down by the lake there.’
‘You make it sound so nice, Nancy.’
‘How’s pick me up in an hour sound?’
‘I’ll be there.’
They repeated the same routine. Adam made the tea and Nancy chose the music. He switched on the machine. This time he set his mind on not panicking, should something happen again.
He mostly expected to see the lecture theatre again. He figured that that was the reality hidden behind his living, day-to-day reality. It was as if life was a play and the actors were unaware of the existence of an audience because they had never seen it. Then all of a sudden, one day, the theatre lights came on and the actors, for the first time, saw the audience and realized that it had been there, watching them, all the time. He thought that he was being studied by a bunch of people who lived in some kind of parallel universe and that he somehow accidentally broke through the veil concealing this hidden truth.
They started breathing the magic gas and began to drift off into their deep, dreamlike, waking sleeps. This time there was no conversation. They both floated off into their respective, different directions.
They were gone for about an hour and a half when Adam re-awoke to the reality of the surgery. Nancy was still gone, calm and obviously enjoying the trip. Adam brought the gas down and began to stroke her hair as she opened her eyes and took the rubber hose out of her mouth. For a while they just looked at each other. Neither of them wanted to be the first to shatter the silence. They just stared at each other with their mouths agape.
The music cassette had stopped long ago. The light was dim. They left the lights off and the only light in the room was that which found its way through the narrow gaps between the partially closed venetians. Eventually Nancy spoke first, very quietly.
‘I watched a sunrise … no … actually I watched two sunrises. I watched one through an intricate lattice, like in some kind of Middle Eastern church, and I watched the other one, I don’t know, like I was sitting on the edge of a giant cliff, overlooking the ocean, and I watched the sun come up on the horizon. Oh, Adam, I can’t possibly describe how
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beautiful and real they were. I felt so calm. I didn’t think anything. It was almost as if someone was controlling my brain, stopping it from thinking. And where did the light come from? It’s nearly dark in here and I was looking at the bright light of the sunrise. I can’t believe how real it was, I mean total reality, Adam. Not a dream, or a vision, or like a movie, but total, full-colour, three-dimensional, full-sound, absolutely being-there reality. Words can’t describe it. And how does the light get into our heads? I have never had anything like … I couldn’t have ever imagined … your theatre thing … it sounds like
… I’m so blown away … Jesus … Jesus …’
Nancy began to cry. She bent over in the dental chair and put her face in her hands.
‘I’m sorry Lord. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t deserve … thank you Lord … thank you …
Jesus thank you … I just don’t deserve anything … nothing … I’m no good … I’m nothing …
no good.’
Adam hugged her and began to cry as well. He thought he understood. She looked up into his tearful face and said,
‘You know, when I was a little girl, I loved Jesus and baby Jesus and I asked Him into my heart, and I really meant it with all my heart, you know, like kids do. And I felt Him come in, I swear I did, and I cried when it happened just like I’m crying now. And I knew that He was there living in my heart all the time and there’s only one kind of crying when Jesus is around. It’s like … melting … like nothing you’ll ever understand unless … unless He’s touched you … and Adam, that’s how I’m feeling right now.’ She looked around the small surgery. ‘He’s here with us. He’s loving us both.’ They both cried for a while, then she said, ‘Look at you, you silly man.’ She smiled through her tears and hugged him in return. ‘Got a Kleenex? Wow, we might walk away from Him, but He sure as hell never walks away from us. God gave me a gift today, Adam. There is nothing for me to believe in anymore because I know He’s real. … I know it! ’ She wiped her tears, ‘Oh, God, I must look a sight.’
He gazed at her exquisite face, entranced, and whispered, ‘No, you look absolutely beautiful. … Those sunrises must have been amazing. Maybe they had a meaning; the dawning of a new day, maybe.’
They sat there for a while, staring through the venetians, lost in thought. Nancy finally asked,
‘What happened to you?’
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He looked down at the floor and shook his head, ‘You won’t believe this but I saw a little angel. She was only a baby, a little girl. She was as real as you sitting there. I guess I’ve never told anyone this, but I had a sister once, named Vesna. She died when I was only four. She was only two years old when she died. I can still see my mum and dad coming out of the hospital, crying, and it was so long ago and I can still see them. If she hadn’t died, I would have had a sister and I wouldn’t have been so alone all my life.’
‘Please go on.’
‘OK. I saw this little angel, like a tiny little cherub, and I kind of knew that she wasn’t supposed to show herself to me. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just knew. Anyway, she broke the rules and she showed herself to me. She kind of sneaked in from the right side of my vision. She was holding a long spear and she was flying around with these tiny little wings.
I know it sounds crazy, but I’m just telling you what I saw.’
‘Go on, go on.’
‘I can’t tell you how real she was, 3D and completely there. Not like some kind of vision, no, nothing like that. Absolutely, totally-3D, full colour, right there, real as life, there, right in front of my face. Anyway, she had this long spear, or a lance, or whatever those things are called, and I remember seeing this cardboard cut-out of a demon, a really ugly, evil-looking demon, and then, I swear, I saw her run that spear right through that cardboard cut-out. She was flying as she did it and she did it with such power and domination. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?’
‘Na na na, nothing’s crazy in this game, Adam. So, what happened then?’
‘Well, she sneaked away real quick, kind of like she didn’t want her boss to notice that she showed herself to me. Without saying anything she let me know that she was my guardian angel. I think I saw my sister. How crazy is that?’
‘I don’t know what’s crazy anymore. I know war is crazy. I know that thousands of kids killing thousands of other kids, for ideas that decompose like corpses in a trench, is infinitely more crazy than seeing your own guardian angel. It’s a stupid world, Adam, but you know, I believe in your sister. It was the power of her love for you that broke through.
How lucky are you?’
He sighed, ‘Ohhhh … these gas trips are starting to get really intense.’
‘Thanks for letting me be involved, Adam. These trips, especially today, are filling a big, empty space, answering a big question and, I feel, setting me on the road towards my lifelong contentment, and you know, I think it’s God doing it. I think He’s showing us just
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enough to get rid of our doubts. God, kind of, must know that we’re not the type of people to believe what other people say. He must know that we’ve got to find out for ourselves and He’s figured out a way of doing it. I’m raving, aren’t I?’
She warmly clasped Adam’s hand in both of hers and held it for a while. ‘Getting hungry?’ she asked. ‘I know I am. Tripping always gives me a raging appetite. Why don’t we take off to Centennial Park and have that lunch I made for us.’
They locked the surgery and rode the lift to the ground floor. Exiting the lift, Nancy commented on the noticeable smell of burning incense pervading the building. As they stepped out into Castlereagh Street, into a warm, sunny day, Adam reminded himself to find out where that incense smell was coming from.
They drove out of the city along Oxford Street, past Taylor Square and through the bohemian stretch of Paddington. They turned right, into Centennial Park, and drove around to one of their favourite spots by a small lake. The lake was fairly-much in the middle of the park. They liked it because there was a secluded spot there, by the water, where they could relax in private and smoke pot without anyone noticing. Nancy laid out the blanket and set out the lunch. As they sat there, eating and drinking, they both noticed a small fish jump high out of the water.
‘Did you see that fish, Adam? Did you see how high out of the water it jumped?’
‘Yeah. Why do you reckon they do that?’
‘I don’t know. I wonder if they think they’ve discovered another dimension, another universe?’
‘Oh really? You think fish can think like that?’
‘Well, consider it. They’re stuck in the same pool all their lives and then one of them decides to take a flying leap through the mirror ceiling and for a second it sees this whole other reality that it had no idea even existed. And when it lands back in the water it goes, what the bloody hell was that?’
‘Imagine it trying to tell all the other fish about what it saw. They’d all think it was crazy.’
Nancy laughed out loud.
‘What?’ Adam queried. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘I’ve just thought of a great name for the fish.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah … Timothy Leary Fish.’
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‘Timothy Leary Fish?’
‘Yeah.’
Adam burst out laughing.
‘That’s brilliant, that’s so brilliant. And all the other fish think poor Timothy is nuts.
But we know better.’
‘Do you think we should blow that other joint now?’
‘Can’t see why not.’
As the two best friends sat together, chatting, laughing and passing the smoke to each other, a cool, southerly breeze stirred the treetops. Adam looked skyward and commented,
‘It’s the southerly change. It sure took its time getting here. I don’t think it’s going to be nice here for much longer.’
‘Why don’t we go to my place,’ she suggested.
4
Adam’s body tensed as another wave of fear flushed through it. He knew that the southerly change meant flying Stanwell Park the next day. No one was going to make him do it. He set his own challenge and he knew that he would have to face it tomorrow. He would remain afraid until he’d either jumped off that huge hill or given up on the idea. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he chickened out, so there was only one option. There was always, ever, only one option.
…….
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