or, how to make sweet love to your panic

The A.J. Hackett Nevis Highwire Bungy Jump: 134 meters
Cost: $250 NZD (convert this)
Difficulty: must love fearing for your life

When the technician clips the bungy cord on your feet, you vaguely start to realize what you got yourself into.

We had just watched six other people do the jump, billed as the third highest in the world. As thousands have done in the past, they jump, the cord stretches, they bounce. When they’re reeled back to the platform, they look stunned and thrilled, probably wondering what to call the neurochemical sucker punch they just took.

No big deal, you think. I can do this. And you were thinking this when you forked over an absurd $250 for the jump, when you boarded the 40-minute bus to the Nevis site, and when you stepped on the cable car that carries six people to the platform, a metallic cabin dangling over a crevice by steel cables.

You’re all harnessed and buckled. The technician sits you on a reclining chair that looks like it was made for dental torture and clips on the right bungy cord for your weight.

“This is the release cord,” he says, and tucks a red strap into the padded harness around your ankles. “When you finish bouncing, pull on this. It’ll release your feet and you’ll be held by your chest harness.”

That way, you can be reeled back up while sitting upright rather than staring at the rocks that were coming at you 50 meters per second.

Bianca waits her turn as a jumper is reeled back in.

He helps you to your feet and points you to the jump ledge. You see the river below, so dry it’s a trickle. You see the tiny pebbles and presume them huge boulders. There’s nothing between you and the hard, sharp ground.

That’s when you realize exactly what you got yourself into.

“I … I can’t,” I muttered. The numerous safe jumps you witnessed up close meant nothing. They no longer factor in. Self-preservation overrides any higher faculty of reasoning.

Which is exactly why the technician stands right behind you, giving you no choice but forward.

“Oh Jesus,” I said with each step forward, invoking my saviour, like any half-assed Catholic, only when I’m completely fucked. “Oh Jesus.”

“Come on, buddy, you can do it,” the technician said with practiced calm.

My toes were past the edge of the ledge. The technician counted: 3! 2! 1!

Every jumper before me jumped on 1. Every time. No one wavered, and this obedience baffled me. Until, that is, it was my turn.

In seduction theory, there’s something called the three second rule: when you see a woman that interests you, you should approach her within a count of three. Any longer and self-doubt will take command. You’ll start imagining everything that could go wrong, defense mechanisms invoke excuses to back away.

Standing on that ledge, looking down on that lifeless abyss, feeling raw ice in my throat, my thoughts stacked up like pancakes over a small opening, too narrow to go through. There’s nothing that will give you any comfort, any encouragement. You don’t have the luxury to think the fear away. And so you grasp on to the numbers coming from the technician’s mouth, the familiarity of a countdown your only lifeline to something resembling faith.

You jump on 1.

At first, there’s complete silence. Even your scream feels muffled, like it never leaves your lips. A black hole suddenly forms inside your chest and you don’t know if it’s the speed or the sight of the ground racing towards you. You flap your arms as if that will give you any stability, or, at best, slow the fall.

To some people the free fall lasts longer than the advertised 8.3 seconds. To me, it was far less than that. By the time I felt the tug around my ankles and the rocks below reversed direction, not a second had gone by.

I pulled on the release cord but it wouldn’t release. I tried six times. The rope that comes down, hooks on to the bungy tip and reels you back up was fast approaching. You’re supposed to be upright by the time it arrives. It clasped and I began to ascend upside-down.

I began to panic about this, too. But, just as I had disobeyed by most primal instinct when I jumped, here, too, I saw the opportunity to rebel. I dropped by arms, relaxed my abs, and let the machine do its job.

Like in the jump, I had to let the panic speak before shoving it aside and taking the leap. Like every important decision I ever took, I had to entertain every doomsday scenario to finally plunge into the blue emptiness.

I was gently lowered back into the dangling cabin and the technician asked, “How was it?” I wonder if he actually knows, or cares to know. How could I explain this to him? Every jump and every reaction is an assembly line piece, perhaps different in size or colour, but essentially the same.

These guys, they are pros. These guys are bungy technicians.

To these guys, I was just scared.