CLIFF HANGER - SHORT STORY PT 1
Written by Candace Genesis
Cliff-hanger.
An interesting word.
Hanging off a cliff.
An interesting situation.
I should know.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
In a world full of Fitbits and Apple watches that made sure you were active enough to not die, I stuck out like a sore thumb. No, I wasn’t dead. But all that physicalfitness stuff scared me. I was a proud member of the “I couldn’t run for my life” club, but if the situation did arise, I might have made a poor attempt at the exhausting task.
My name is Cari Brooke, and this is my story.
Well, not really, because that would be too long. But this ‘story’ made my ‘story’ way better.
My intolerance to any physical activity other than walking and the occasional “20 second” run to catch the bus painted a very sad picture of a girl who was slowly dying because her organs were failing, when in reality I was a slightly underweight, 5′ 4” Estonian brunette whose closest encounter with death was because of a high fever. So I didn’t worry, I wasn’t dying anytime soon. Or so I thought.
I was constantly given lectures by my Women’s Health magazine-driven friends about how their decision to start exercising changed their lives. I believed them entirely, remembering their numerous encounters with mouth-watering desserts that drove them completely insane. And then they’d begin their ludicrous self-control chants:
“Beauty is pain. Beauty is pain.”
Yeah, right.
I used them as an example to not change my life. At least not into something that resembled theirs. I was too much of a foodie to do that.
But life doesn’t know your allergies or your worst nightmares, so it drops them into the shopping cart that you are, making certain that they’re all wrapped up like presents on Christmas Day, so that you can’t wait to open them up and have a peek.
So one day I made the life-changing decision to do the one thing I dreaded the most in the world: go trekking. This might sound ridiculous to you, but to a girl who never left the city, this sounded disturbingly foreign and horrifying.
And this is how it all began.
“Cari, you have got to check this out.”
“Check what out?”
“This.”
My dear friend Delaney (who had just set a personal record for the highest number of words spoken in a conversation) went on to show me a poster of a breath-taking scenery, posted on Instagram, under which the following words were written :
“The Go-To Trekking Trip For The Athletically Challenged”
It didn’t actually say that, but that basically summarized the inspirational speech attached to the picture.
Believe me, I had seen such posters before, but I usually either laughed at them because of how absurd they were, or cried because I couldn’t handle the glaring truth: I was the only one of my kind. Everyone in the world was aiming at being physically fit, and here I was relying on my skinny ‘genes’ to save me from becoming obese. For some reason, this poster stood out to me. Maybe it was because I was sick of pretending like I didn’t care, or maybe it was my sudden realization of how it couldn’t possibly hurt to give it a try. Memories of all those failed attempts at looking sporty in school, all those arguments to prove how pointless P.E was and all those secret dreams of crossing a finish line ran through my mind.
Delaney looked at me expectantly once I was done staring at it, her green eyes gazing deep into mine, conveying the hidden message: “You’re athletically challenged. Go for it.”
My brown eyes, stared back, smirking: ”Challenge accepted.”
I was going to regret this, wasn’t I?
Cliff-hanger.
An interesting word.
Hanging off a cliff.
An interesting situation.
I should know.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
In a world full of Fitbits and Apple watches that made sure you were active enough to not die, I stuck out like a sore thumb. No, I wasn’t dead. But all that physicalfitness stuff scared me. I was a proud member of the “I couldn’t run for my life” club, but if the situation did arise, I might have made a poor attempt at the exhausting task.
My name is Cari Brooke, and this is my story.
Well, not really, because that would be too long. But this ‘story’ made my ‘story’ way better.
My intolerance to any physical activity other than walking and the occasional “20 second” run to catch the bus painted a very sad picture of a girl who was slowly dying because her organs were failing, when in reality I was a slightly underweight, 5′ 4” Estonian brunette whose closest encounter with death was because of a high fever. So I didn’t worry, I wasn’t dying anytime soon. Or so I thought.
I was constantly given lectures by my Women’s Health magazine-driven friends about how their decision to start exercising changed their lives. I believed them entirely, remembering their numerous encounters with mouth-watering desserts that drove them completely insane. And then they’d begin their ludicrous self-control chants:
“Beauty is pain. Beauty is pain.”
Yeah, right.
I used them as an example to not change my life. At least not into something that resembled theirs. I was too much of a foodie to do that.
But life doesn’t know your allergies or your worst nightmares, so it drops them into the shopping cart that you are, making certain that they’re all wrapped up like presents on Christmas Day, so that you can’t wait to open them up and have a peek.
So one day I made the life-changing decision to do the one thing I dreaded the most in the world: go trekking. This might sound ridiculous to you, but to a girl who never left the city, this sounded disturbingly foreign and horrifying.
And this is how it all began.
“Cari, you have got to check this out.”
“Check what out?”
“This.”
My dear friend Delaney (who had just set a personal record for the highest number of words spoken in a conversation) went on to show me a poster of a breath-taking scenery, posted on Instagram, under which the following words were written :
“The Go-To Trekking Trip For The Athletically Challenged”
It didn’t actually say that, but that basically summarized the inspirational speech attached to the picture.
Believe me, I had seen such posters before, but I usually either laughed at them because of how absurd they were, or cried because I couldn’t handle the glaring truth: I was the only one of my kind. Everyone in the world was aiming at being physically fit, and here I was relying on my skinny ‘genes’ to save me from becoming obese. For some reason, this poster stood out to me. Maybe it was because I was sick of pretending like I didn’t care, or maybe it was my sudden realization of how it couldn’t possibly hurt to give it a try. Memories of all those failed attempts at looking sporty in school, all those arguments to prove how pointless P.E was and all those secret dreams of crossing a finish line ran through my mind.
Delaney looked at me expectantly once I was done staring at it, her green eyes gazing deep into mine, conveying the hidden message: “You’re athletically challenged. Go for it.”
My brown eyes, stared back, smirking: ”Challenge accepted.”
I was going to regret this, wasn’t I?