An Occurence at Ayers Rock

I was unimpressed by the view. After one hour of climbing the rock, and reaching the plateau, I awaited anxiously for the sunset, expecting the sun to become a dying ball of fire on the horizon. And there it was, silently fading away with no glory.
By the second day we had nothing else to talk about. Our impeccable plans had been followed by the letter, just like we did not want them to. There had been no bumps on the road, no flat tires, no unusual encounters, no interesting people. We would sleep on the rock, climb down the next morning, drive for four more days, and get on with our lives with no stories of adventure to tell. All the questions would simply be answered with yes and nos. I looked at my two best friends, and cursed what was ahead of us.
We had decided to climb Ayers Rock because it seemed that it would become a rite of passage into manhood. Our boyish thoughts would cease to exist, even though we wanted our boyish looks to endure at least another decade. Yet, there had been no change. I wanted the feeling of rupture. I wanted something to break inside me.
Without saying anything, we stood up and started looking for a place to camp. We knew we shouldn’t sleep on the rock, because of the “laws” of the aborigines, and not even this transgression gave us any thrills. It was getting dark really fast, and all the tourists, most of them with a disappointed look on their faces, started to climb down. They had to be careful now, because with the winds and the lack of light, the steep climb had become treacherous, and it almost made me laugh when I thought of a tribal chief saying “I told you so”.
We walked east and found a cave. We had to hide from the tour guides, but they seemed so interested in all the money the tourists were practically giving away that they didn’t bother with us. No one had even checked our backpacks. We waited in the cave until it was completely silent, and began to set our sleeping bags.
“Here’s to hell”, whispered Dave, opening a can of Foster’s.
“Well said”, I agreed, “the perfect word to describe our lives”.
Andrew didn’t say anything. He had planned everything so carefully, and he felt as if the lack of excitement was his fault. But it was everyone’s fault. The rock was simply there to show us how meaningless our lives were.
After a couple of beers, there was no other choice but to go to sleep. It was cold, and we couldn’t light up a fire. But the sky was clear enough, and the light from the stars gave the cave a gloomy atmosphere.
We were tired from the walk in the park, and the climb itself had been exhausting. There were still some cans of Foster’s left, but we didn’t feel like drinking. I lit up a cigarette and thought that what we really wanted was to get back to our houses, our mediocre lives, and hope for a disaster in the way.
After half an hour of awkward silence, I fell asleep. I had a dream about an ocean, the deepest ocean, and I was sinking fast. I held my breath for as long as I could, but it was inevitable. The water filled my lungs and I felt strangely warm. It felt like floating, and my eyes got used to the blurriness of the waters. I saw buildings and houses in the bottom, and I recognized my own house. The garden was filled with algae that glowed in the dark. I looked up and saw the stars, the trembling lights trying to cut through the water. Then I felt a strong pull upwards and I didn’t know if I was awake or asleep because I felt like I was soaking wet.
There was someone or something dragging my sleeping bag when I opened my eyes, and I was breathing fast, trying to understand what the hell was going on, still drowsy and already getting dizzy, for I was being pulled in high-speed. I tried to release my arms out of the sleeping bag, but I couldn’t. The reddish dust was getting in my eyes and mouth, and all I could think of was that everything had been a mistake, we shouldn’t have slept on Ayers Rock, we shouldn’t have stolen my father’s car, we shouldn’t have climbed this fucking thing in the middle of nowhere. I was panicking because I couldn’t see my assailant and I had no idea what was happening.
I started spitting the sand out of my mouth and I tasted blood. I screamed the names of my friends at the top of my lungs but there was no answer, not a sound but the loud noises made by the ragging of my sleeping bag against the rocks on the ground. Then it stopped, and my whole body was lifted from my left side, and the lights from the stars shined against the blood on my sleeping bag. I started screaming again but a thump on my head made me shut up. I was sobbing, I was sure my friends were dead and I would soon be too. I didn’t even know if I was hurt, if all this blood on me was mine or not.
I imagined a sacred ritual, a dark ceremony where the trespassers are dissected alive by the aborigines who had successfully deceived everyone into believing there were peaceful. They would strip me naked and skin me alive chanting to their rock god. Or maybe this was their god, the protector of the mountain, doing justice to those who did not obey his law. My delirium was escalating fast, and nothing practical came out of it.
From this angle I could see the entrance of the cave, and with horror I recognized the two sleeping bags, thorn to shreds and also covered in blood. I looked for the bodies, or for signs of escape. But if they had escaped, why hadn’t they tried to save me? If they had been killed, why was I being dragged so far away from the cave? I was being pulled towards the edge of the rock, and I was being lifted by strong hands. I tried to coil in and make myself heavier, because I knew what was going to happen. I would be thrown from the edge. My body would reach the foot of the rock in pieces.
My efforts were useless. I was lifted two meters high, and the stars were all I could see. I felt the strong fingertips on my back, the pressure and the steadiness of the hands, the lack of hesitation. I was slowly lowered so that the impulse was taken, and all I could do was scream.
My body swirled in the air, and I swooped down fast. My left side hit the ground first and I closed my eyes as I heard the dry thump of my arm breaking. I continued to spin on the ground, gaining speed and breaking more bones. I felt my skin breaking as the rags of the sleeping bag stopped protecting it. The pain was unbearable and I knew it would only get worse. My face hit a rock and blood poured out of my nose. I tasted sand in my mouth, and when I opened my left eye for a second I saw my hands in the air, all the fingers in the wrong places, one of them held only by a thread of skin. I shut my eyes tight and hoped to pass out. It will soon be over, I thought to myself.
When my body reached the foot of Ayers Rock I knew I was disfigured and dismembered, but I couldn’t understand why I was alive. My eyelids trembled as I tried to cry. I was surrounded by darkness, and then I heard a voice.
“Alex, wake up! You don’t want to miss this.”
I slowly opened my eyes and saw the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen in my life, and it was the beginning of a whole new life.