I could not stop for death

My soul is weary of my life
I will leave my complaint upon myself
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul
--Job 10:1

I awoke. I was alive. How could this be? I was dead. Dead for sure. Death had been imminent and I was not ready to contemplate life again.

There it was though, just sitting there, neither happy nor sad to see me. Life was like death, equally powerful and equally insignificant. Trying to find meaning in life or death is like trying to find an elephant inside a mouse’s body. It is ridiculous to even try, because it won’t be there.

I hadn’t jumped off the cliff. It didn’t start out as a cliff anyway, it began as a steep slope. The last thing I remember is looking down at my feet, noticing that I was sliding along the loose rocky soil, and looking up at the stunning vista in front of me. I was holding on to my camera. That’s how I got into trouble in the first place. I was crouched down on my feet, trying to get a good angle on the glacier that was running down the side of the mountain. I kept inching forward, not paying attention to the precariousness of my situation. About the same time that I realized I was moving, I lost my balance, fell down and began sliding on my side and front as I desperately tried to grab hold of something, dig my fingers into the ground, stop myself from certain death.

The ground was hard and rocky, a typical glaciated terrain. I had as much control as if I had been sliding on ice, the tiny rocks and pebbles carrying me down, down, until steepness overcame their power and I was gone. Anyone who happened by a second later would not find any evidence of my having occupied that tiny plot of earth.

I never panicked on my way down and beyond the scrabbling and desperation to not fall, I remember nothing. I awoke in a bed somewhere on another tiny plot of earth, baffled, and very thirsty.