The Gorko Gazette

Dangerous Dave

This dangerous thing. It’s like a drug. I can’t get enough.

I knew from an early age what I wanted to do with the rest of my life..

It all started in the park when I was young. The slides then were tall. I used to love doing tricks. Go down them head first, run up the slide. But then I wanted to go one thrill further. So on a whim I stood on top of the slide and prepared to jump. A small crowd gathered. I hesitated, it looked a long way down, but I jumped. The girls gasped and then cheered as I went flying back to earth. The rush of air as you fly down from the sky. The adrenaline rush too within. Then the crunch as you hit terra firma and all your bones slap into one another like an accordion being squeezed. That’s when the pain hits you.

I couldn’t get up. My feet were not working. But everyone gave me a hand getting me back home. I was a hero. You’re so brave, they said.

I was off school nearly a week with sprained feet.

And I found the thing that I wanted to do in life. To seek danger and do crazy stunts. To hell with the consequences. I sought that rush again, the acclaim of the crowds, to be the hero.

Before all this doing dangerous things I was a nobody.

So that’s what I did: sought stunts and things to fall off that were ever more scary and deadly. The people around me soon started calling me “Dangerous Dave”.

And the name stuck.

I was somebody, people knew me for being a daredevil.

Only when you’ve got a name like Dangerous Dave, you’re under pressure to start living a life that matches the new name. People didn’t expect Dangerous Dave to do something like stamp collecting or play chess.

They expected daily danger and excitement.

So I get to do more and more dangerous things to feed their expectation, to live up to my name. Yet it’s a struggle. You see in the run up there’s the fear and anxiety. Like stage fright. The more I push myself to do these stunts the more nervous and fearful I get. I haven’t slept well for years – worrying about the latest stunt I’m about to do. Worrying what it will break or damage. Whether it will kill me. But so far the urge to do the stunt has always proven stronger. Though it’s getting harder.

I’m not getting any younger and the fear is getting stronger.

I’m scared and frightened.

I sometimes wish that I’d never jumped off the slide that day.

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About the artist

Simon is a ND writer from England. He is a member of the All Seasons writing group. He will be publishing ‘Deadlands’, a collection of contemporary Gothic poetry, in September. He seeks stillness and solitude.

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Image: Playground in Freiham 03.jpg