It’s like the Lewis Hine photograph of the construction worker in the 1930s clinging to a cable and ascending high in the sky to where he’s working on a skyscraper in Manhattan. Only there’s no steel cable. Just a thick rope, about as thick as a man’s wrist, with a big loop at the bottom. The construction worker has his foot positioned there, waiting to go up. I look to see if he has both feet in the loop, but it’s just one foot. That seems scary, but then I wonder if that’s just the way it’s done.
When the man starts to go up, I watch his ascent, wondering what I’m supposed to do. I think there’s something that has to be repaired on the building, but I have no idea what. When the man is far above me, he throws down a rope, which I catch, and then I’m going up, about 40 or 50 feet below him. When the two of us stop, we’re at an incredible distance above the ground, at the altitude where airplanes fly.
“Look out!” the construction man yells. “I’m letting this drop.” It’s a chain we needed to get up to where we are but no longer need. I look down and watch it fall, but because we’re so high up, it seems to fall in slow motion. Horrible sensation of vertigo. I have to look away.
Then I realize I’m lying on a platform in the sky that is only as wide as I’m wide and only as tall. “God, it’s windy up here,” the construction man says from his platform. “The way we’re swaying it feels like we’re on the ocean.” I close my eyes and realize he’s right. The sensation is like floating on your back in salt water beyond the breakers. Only there is no cool water. It’s hot up there. The wind is hot and dry.
For an instant I think of what would happen if I were to tilt to the right or left. Falling and falling. “Stop it,” I say to myself. “Why do you always have to start imagining crazy shit like that?” Then I close my eyes and think, “This would be really pleasant if I were on a beach instead of this platform.”
When I open my eyes, I’m floating in shallow water off a white sand beach. I decide to make my way to the shore, and then I see four people, two couples, on the beach. I remember Freud once said that in every relationship there are four people involved.
As I walk out of the water, the four of them seem hostile to me. I decide I don’t like them either. The two guys are wearing dark glasses.
