Slackline!
My sweet little summer story is out in the morning!
Slackline
by Sarah Black- out today at Dreamspinner!
Blurb:
When Bobby Kincaid is walking the slackline - a narrow, flat webbed rope
stretched between two anchor points - he offers a silent gift of beauty to the
air and sky. Making peace with the world
is one reason he’s drawn to the seastacks off Scotland’s Orkney Islands. Colin Rose, the Olympic skier who pushed
Bobby away after a horrific accident two years earlier, is another. But Bobby and Colin will each need to heal
before they can return to that space between earth and heaven where they both
can fly.
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Excerpt:
Bobby was breaking the most
important rule for slackliners, the critical rule, numero uno, the Prime
Directive. But the very fact that he was breaking this rule meant he would
never be caught. The strangely circular logic appealed to him, as did the
quiet, and the clean salty smell of the wind. He was setting up a slackline
across the sea of Hoy, from one of the famous seastacks that dotted the Orkney
coast. And he was going to walk it alone.
Not very safe; there was no
question it was risky, probably stupid, highly dangerous. But it was worth it
for the silence. No chattering from the other climbers, no cameras strapped to
heads filming the whole deal. This was the way slacklining was supposed to
be-the only sounds the waves, and the wind, the only audience the strange,
flat-eyed seabirds who watched him set up the anchors. Man on a tightrope,
walking across one of the coldest, rockiest seas on earth. For the beauty of it all, and the pleasure of
doing it.
It was more than just pleasure.
Bobby had developed an entire theoretical model of slacklining in his head, the
result of many hours of solo hiking and climbing and walking on bouncing
tightropes. This model was why he was crouched at the base of the Old Man of
Hoy, wrapping his anchors around the rocks.
Slacklining, he explained to the birds, should
be a silent gift of beauty. It should be offered up to the air, and the sky,
with no witnesses, no sponsors, no sounds, other than a quiet thank you for the
day, and the bounce in the line, and the ability of his body to move through
the yoga routine called Salute to the Sun. He suspected that gifts of beauty
such as his, offered up with a clean heart, would somehow alter the karmic load
of pain that was dragging civilization to its knees.
But he refused all such thoughts
of the consequences, good or bad, concentrated on making something beautiful
and pure, his gift to the world. He stepped out on the line.
The slackline was a narrow flat
webbing rope, pulled almost taut, but with a bit of bounce. His feet, snug in
their Vibram Five-Fingers, curled around the line, and he crouched, arms
outstretched, until he found his center.
He started into his routine, the
Surya Namaskar, Salute to the Sun. This had been the first yoga series he had
mastered, and it was still his favorite to do on a slackline. The line felt
good under his feet, strong and with just enough give. He was halfway through
the routine, with salt spray on his lips and the sun just touching the sea,
when a nasty wind came up off the water and tumbled him off the line.
It felt like he had been falling
forever, that his outstretched arms had turned into wings. But thoughts of
Icarus filled his head, wax melting in the sun and feathers tumbling into the
sky. He was going to miss the rocks, he was sure of it, and braced himself for
the shock of falling into arctic water.
A second gust of wind howled
around the Old Man, so loudly he wanted to clap his hands over his ears, and it
tumbled him head over heels. He tried to tuck his knees in, with some vague
idea of rolling, but there was no rolling, only the rough North Sea and the
rocky shoreline waiting below.
His right shoulder and arm hit a
sharp edge of rock under the surface of the water. He tried to pull his head
up, but it was too late, and his last thought before his face slammed into the
rock was that he was probably not going to see Colin Rose after all.