A short climbing story

Last year I attended a short writing online course at Mount Royal University, Calgary. The great thing about doing a writing course online is that you never meet your coursemates, so it's easy to post your stories without fear - it's effectively anonymous. The downside of the online format is that perhaps it doesn't pressure you to inject as much care into your writing as you would if you saw the readers every day in person. That's rather like this blog really! I'm going to pretend that I have an audience out there though, concealed behind their iPads and laptops. They just don't use the feedback button - unless it's to post spam...I get a few of "those" emails.

Here's one of the stories that I wrote on the course. The instructions were to write something that focused on interaction and dialogue between characters, in less than 500 words. I chose to write about climbing. Climbers don't talk a lot when they're on the cliff. They have to choose their words carefully to avoid miscommunication that could cause an accident. The story is a bit melodramatic, but I wanted to write something that the non-climbers on the course (i.e. everyone) would find interesting. Raving about threads and flakes, and extolling the virtue of the perfect hex placement probably wouldn't have cut it.

The photo accompanying the story is of a much younger me, leading Riders On the Storm in Pembroke, Wales. The sea was kicking up pretty hard that day, and made it one of the most memorable short routes I've done - or perhaps it's just this photo that keeps the memory alive, 20 years later.

Riders on the Storm, Pembroke, Wales

Ben

Susan steps smartly upwards into the sunlit safety of the stance. She clips a karabiner to a rusty pin, and yells: “BELAY OFF!” Her call is a bird that plunges at the booming sea, before swooping faintly beneath the jutting roofs to her partner’s perch. Unseen rope passes through protective palms, knots bend, and a life passes between hands, observed only by a hooded figure on the headland.

She exhales, relaxes, and pulls a sling from her neck. Safe again! Sweating. Shaken - but so alive!

“I’ve been looking for you”.

With a climber’s reflex she flinches forwards into the cliff, when another might have flipped into the space behind. Above her, Georgina’s curls whip darkly against the wind.

“Oh! Well shit. I’m glad I’d clipped; I nearly went the wrong way then. What’s up, George?” Air rises and falls around her like the waves below.

Georgina sends a shaded, insincere smile. “Just thought I’d check on you guys. How are you getting along with your new partner? ” She edges closer.

Susan shrugs. One hand feeds looping snakes of rope that flap and swing in space, until her partner’s lifeline tightens like a hawser. The ocean shakes the cliff; rainbows arc and fall like flying fish. She locks her belay device, relaxes. “Good, but he needs practice. I didn’t feel that safe leaving the last stance. Still, we made it OK. CLIMB ON!” Her shout tumbles end over end from sight; momentarily the rope comes alive and flows into her ready hands.

Across the gap, George slips into focus like a wary mongoose. “Oh. Sorry to hear.” Her eyes squint downwards into the seething maw; the endless, shifting ranks of whitecaps that besiege the wall. She looks back at Susan; staying silent until the sea’s roar subsides to permit her words passage. “So - was he any good?” She smiles again, falsely, steely; watching. The sky hangs still as stone beyond them.

Suddenly Susan is surrounded by screeching threats: the what-ifs, and she-knows surge from their stinking perches. Gravity pulls, and the wall lurches as if shaking her loose. Like a drunkard she grasps for steadiness. “You know?!”

George nods. “For a long time. You don’t have to say anything. It’ll be over soon. Poor Ben though. Really; it’s not him; it’s you.”

Her meaning is lost to the wind; too late, uncatchable. Susan’s mind scrabbles to fathom it even as she takes in slack rope and below her a figure emerges through the overhang, reaching high and swinging out above the seething sea. Understanding floods back suddenly. “Wait. George, no! You have it wrong. It’s not Ben.” George’s hand opens - in confusion, or bloody conviction? The jury of gulls explodes outwards as a ragged rock flies free to ricochet from the roof. Scarlet shards streak the wall, and a dead weight buckles Susan’s knees.

The sea falls silent; a faint cry carries from the headland. Wide eyes stare at the shocked onlooker, then two voices share his name.