Until this precise moment up high over Namib-Naukluft Park near Sossusvlei in Namibia, I didn’t realize I could be terrified and awed at the same time (terrifawed?). My pupils dilate with fear as my irises greedily drink in the scenery that is something out of a schizophrenic’s fairytale picture book. The rising sun diffuses color over two distinct panoramas. One, a vast undulating sea of pink-hued silicates. The other, a green tufted plain with majestic rocky peaks thrusting up proudly wherever they see fit. Where the two landscapes meet, their borders abut in an unspoken truce without overlap.
Having disallowed my boyfriend to move his feet lest he hasten the destruction of our fragile basket, he is forced to pivot at the waste to take this all in. I, however, am now crouched down shaking violently, feeling like a caged animal before slaughter with my flee sensors tripped. Mockingly, there’s nowhere to flee but down.
Thoughtfully, he bends to check on me and I snap, “Stand upright! You’re throwing off the balance!”
I see the last vestiges of sympathy stretched thin across his face.
“You’re missing it,” he says. “Come on. Stand up next to me. I’ll hold you. You’re not going to fall.”
I consider confessing that the reason I can no longer stand is because my bowels are as loose as synthetic shoelaces and the only way I can retain control of them is to engage in a full-body muscle compression. That he has the gall to then take a step to the other side of our compartment informs me that his waning patience would be overwhelmed by such a disclosure.
The noxious smell of butane and the frequent, fickle belches of flame are doing nothing to calm my nerves. I’m convinced that in addition to my current state of cardiac arrest, I am now also facing death by asphyxiation. But slowly, ever so slowly, I will myself to rise. Although more from fear that my crouching will draw unwanted attention from the man in charge of this bloated bird. A man whose perfectly blended features exude the delicate ruggedness one so desperately hopes for in her hot air balloon pilot. And here I am about to befoul this beautiful man’s most prized possession.
