Dearest Rachel –
Not all nightmares could be considered universal; I’m pretty sure that my dream last night would have been enthusiastically embraced by at least one person I know, but the very idea scares the fertilizer out of me. I literally had to be coerced into doing it because if I didn’t, someone I knew (and no, I don’t know who) would be tortured or killed if I didn’t make enough money doing it.
As a quick aside, it’s weird to realize that, in a chat with the girls just last night, I had observed that there are so many things that we as humans would just as soon not do if it weren’t for the promise of monetary recompense behind the task. Granted, this was in response to a complaint about the tedium of filling out months of expense reports for reimbursement, but the principle stands, regardless. Just about any task has its price – although it varies from person to person due to factors like ability, necessity and even taste (since some tasks are enjoyable for some people, while others will recoil in disgust or fear). It’s weird how a statement like that may have fueled this nightmare.
Anyway, the dream. It was a game show that, truth be told, could easily be made to exist in real life – apart from the hostage-taking and blackmail part of it, I should hope. It involved a climbing wall, in which, as one climbed, one had to pry out the various hand- and foot-holds (thereby precluding one from being able to use them as such, and making the climb that much more difficult) to reveal a certain dollar value behind them. There was a judge at the top of the wall that the climber would present these fake stones to (yes, one was required to carry them up the entirety of the wall, and no, I don’t think anyone was given the opportunity to put them in a backpack to do so – so one was forced to climb the rest of the way one-handed), at which point, they would be tallied up in terms of monetary value.
The twist was that this climbing wall was mounted on a belt, which would begin to raise you up the moment you set your feet on it. You could simply hang on for dear life, and the belt would take you up to the top without any further effort, but you wouldn’t have anything to hand to the judge, and you would lose (and I don’t even want to think about what would happen to the person taken hostage for whom I was climbing).
Again, you can think of at least one person who would think this sounds like a great deal of fun – I’m pretty sure it’s the same one I’m thinking of – but for me, this is an actual nightmare. Setting aside the fact that I struggle with acrophobia, and any high place gives me a fear of falling (or at least, the ‘call of the void,’ as I’ve heard it referred to), there’s the fact that, even with the exercise regimen I’ve put myself through, I don’t have the upper body strength to lift myself adequately through a course such as this. With the added pressure of the rising belt (imposing a time limit on me in which I have to grab one or two of these rocks from this thing before I get to the top) and the fact that I’m wearing gloves (oh, did I not mention that before?) that made obtaining purchase – let alone being able to pry the stones out – that much more difficult, this was a terrifying process.
At least, I only remember having to do it the one time, but having to earn something a little more than fifty thousand dollars en route was a tense affair. I actually managed to pull out a rock stating that I’d earned exactly fifty grand shortly after latching onto the wall, but since the requirement was for slightly more than that, I still had to pull one more rock, even as I struggled to stay on the belt, holding on with one hand and carrying the first rock in the other. I think I set the rock in the crook of my holding arm while I tried to dislodge a second stone, and managed to pull it out just before reaching the top and being pulled to safety by the judge, who counted the second stone and allowed whoever was being held by the producers to go free, but it was a close call.
And now that I think about it, I don’t think I was harnessed to the wall, either, or the judge wouldn’t have been able to get me over the top so quickly as the belt rolled over that top cylinder as it did. So between that (and the gloves, making falling a real possibility) and the whole hostage bit, this probably could never be made here in the States. On the other hand, there was still a certain amount of drama that I felt trying to climb this, and I suspect that a decent production company could milk this pretty well. Regardless, I was more than happy to be able to wake up from it and say I didn’t have to do that in real life, that’s for sure.
Anyway, I just had to put this to pixels before I put it out of my mind, honey. Don’t know if you would have enjoyed it, or wished you could have tried doing something like that. As for myself, I don’t know if you could pay me enough to do it – and not just from the fear factor, but also from the reality that I’m not sure I could have done it, outside of a dream… or nightmare.
For now, though, keep an eye on me and my reality, honey, and wish me luck. I may not need that kind of luck, but I still need some.
Letters to Rachel 