Chapter 5 — Bunjee
And thus begins Chapter Five.
Now, children.
Tomorrow arrived.
The council grows concerned.
Remember Tomorrow Nuo?
The idiot to whom I had so confidently assigned the problem of jumping from 109 meters?
Children.
I had become Tomorrow Nuo.
There was no longer anyone else to blame.
Now.
For perhaps the first time in my life,
I arrived somewhere at exactly the requested time.
8 AM.
Sharp.
The council gasps.
Punctuality?
From the Unbegun?
Children.
Fear is a powerful motivator.
There I stood outside the bungee office.
And around me gathered others.
Fellow adventurers.
Fellow thrill seekers.
Fellow explorers.
The council shakes their heads.
No.
Let us call them what they were.
Fellow idiots who had voluntarily paid money to jump from a perfectly functional platform.
The council applauds.
My people.
Now.
We boarded a bus.
The journey began.
And naturally,
everyone started talking.
Introductions.
Conversations.
Stories.
The usual social rituals.
People asked where others were from.
Why they were travelling.
Whether they were nervous.
Whether they had jumped before.
And I?
The council already knows.
Phone.
Camera.
Record.
The archivist had awakened.
Mountain?
Recorded.
Tree?
Recorded.
Cow?
Recorded.
Dog?
Absolutely recorded.
Interesting road?
Recorded.
Uninteresting road that might later become interesting due to nostalgia?
Also recorded.
The council nods.
Thorough.
Children.
I have never understood the concept of:
“Just enjoy the moment.”
I am enjoying the moment.
I am also collecting evidence that the moment existed.
Two things can happen simultaneously.
The council approves.
And eventually,
after enough mountains,
roads,
animals,
and footage no reasonable person would ever edit,
we arrived.
The council looks upward.
There it was.
The platform.
109 meters.
Children.
Numbers are strange things.
On a brochure,
109 meters is simply:
109 meters.
Clean.
Clinical.
Harmless.
Then you stand beneath 109 meters.
And suddenly mathematics becomes threatening.
The council nods.
We ascended.
Higher.
And higher.
And higher.
Until eventually,
there was nowhere left to ascend.
The platform.
The council grows quiet.
Now.
Everyone gathered.
Harnesses waited.
Equipment waited.
Gravity waited.
Then came the question.
“Who’s going first?”
The council looks around.
Silence.
Nobody moved.
Children.
These were intelligent people.
Every single person suddenly remembered that jumping from great heights was an activity evolution had spent millions of years teaching us not to do.
The council applauds.
Natural selection briefly regained control.
Then,
for reasons still unknown to historians,
I raised my hand.
“Yeah, I’ll go.”
The council erupts.
WHY?
Excellent question.
No answer survives.
Perhaps I wanted to get it over with.
Perhaps adrenaline had already begun replacing reason.
Perhaps social anxiety convinced me that standing around waiting would be worse than plummeting toward the earth.
Children.
The mind is mysterious.
And mine is particularly poorly managed.
Now.
They strapped me in.
Harness.
Cables.
Safety checks.
Backup safety checks.
Additional things I understood only as:
Hopefully This Stops Me From Dying.
The council nods.
A respectable category.
One person pulled something.
Another tightened something.
Someone checked something twice.
I nodded confidently,
as though I possessed even the faintest idea what was happening.
Then,
it was time.
The council falls silent.
I walked toward the edge.
One step.
Another.
Another.
Until nothing remained in front of me.
Just air.
The instructor gave me one piece of advice.
“Don’t look down.”
The council pauses.
Children.
Sir.
You are about to throw me from a platform 109 meters above the earth.
I would like to inspect the situation.
And so,
naturally,
I looked down.
The council groans.
Immediately,
I understood the advice.
Holy hell.
That was high.
Not:
“Oh, this is a bit high.”
High.
The kind of high where the ground stops looking like a surface and begins looking like a concept.
My stomach filed for independence.
My knees reconsidered their careers.
And fear finally arrived.
The council leans forward.
Children.
There is a tiny window between seeing something terrifying
and your brain fully understanding what it has seen.
A brief moment.
A fraction of a second.
I used it.
Before my survival instincts could seize control,
I yelled:
“PUSH ME.”
The council erupts.
The instructor did not hesitate.
Traitor.
He pushed.
And I fell.
The council falls silent.
Not gracefully.
Not majestically.
Not like an eagle.
Not like some cinematic adventurer surrendering himself to the sky.
Children.
I dropped like a sack of potatoes thrown from a building.
The council collapses.
Arms somewhere.
Legs somewhere else.
Dignity remaining on the platform.
And then.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
The council applauds.
A profound philosophical statement.
Now.
For several seconds,
there was nothing.
No sadness.
No house.
No weight.
No thoughts.
No past.
No future.
No council.
Just falling.
Children.
Pure falling.
The kind of moment where the mind becomes too busy surviving to manufacture misery.
And gods.
It was glorious.
The rush.
The speed.
The wind.
That impossible sensation of every instinct screaming while another part of you laughs directly in its face.
The council smiles.
Then the rope caught.
I bounced.
Once.
Again.
The world flipped.
Sky.
Earth.
Sky.
Earth.
And eventually,
gravity and engineering reached a diplomatic agreement.
I survived.
The council erupts.
A successful experiment.
Now.
They returned me to civilization.
I stood up.
Or attempted to.
Children.
My legs had become decorative.
I wobbled toward the office like a newborn giraffe recovering from emotional trauma.
The council applauds.
A graceful return.
I collected the video.
Naturally.
Proof.
Archive secured.
Because if one throws oneself from 109 meters and fails to obtain footage,
did one truly make a terrible decision?
The council considers this.
No.
Exactly.
Now.
The sensible next step would have been to return to Odin’s Abode.
Rest.
Eat.
Recover.
Perhaps contemplate mortality.
Instead,
I exited the office,
looked at the roads,
and selected one.
The council sighs.
Where did it lead?
No idea.
Why that road?
No reason.
Children.
Sometimes wandering requires elaborate planning.
And sometimes you choose whichever direction feels mildly interesting.
So I walked.
And walked.
No destination.
No guide.
No dog this time.
Just roads.
Buildings.
People.
Rishikesh slowly unfolding around me.
And somehow,
eventually,
I reached the river.
The council grows quiet.
The Ganga.
Now.
There were people gathered near the water.
Collecting it.
Containers being filled.
Hands dipping beneath the surface.
A quiet little ritual happening all around me.
I approached.
Observed.
Attempted to understand.
The council waits.
Children.
I understood approximately nothing.
But everyone appeared to know exactly what they were doing.
So naturally,
I decided to participate.
The council nods.
Cultural learning through imitation.
I bought several small containers.
Filled them with Ganga water.
Sealed them.
And placed them into my pockets.
The council pauses.
Several?
Children.
The crow had discovered sacred water.
Of course there were several.
The archive expands.
Now.
There was another ritual.
The lamps.
The offerings.
The river.
People performing the Ganga Aarti with a familiarity I did not possess.
And I stood there,
trying very hard to participate respectfully
while simultaneously having absolutely no idea what the correct sequence was.
The council smiles.
I watched.
Copied.
Adjusted.
Probably did half of it wrong.
But children,
for once,
being correct wasn’t the point.
I am not religious.
The council listens.
But I was there.
In a place that clearly meant something to the people around me.
And I wanted to enter that moment properly.
Not as a tourist laughing from the outside.
Not as an archivist hiding behind a camera.
Just as someone willing to participate.
So I held the little offering.
Did what I understood to be the appropriate motions.
Mumbled a small prayer.
Nothing elaborate.
Nothing doctrinal.
Just something quiet.
Something mine.
Then I placed the offering gently onto the river.
The council watches.
And the Ganga immediately swallowed it.
The council erupts.
Children.
I had imagined this beautiful cinematic moment.
A tiny light floating peacefully into the distance.
Symbolism.
Meaning.
Perhaps spiritual revelation.
Instead:
plop.
Gone.
The council collapses.
I stared at the water.
The water offered no explanation.
To this day,
I remain unsure what exactly I accomplished.
But it felt nice.
Peaceful.
And perhaps that was enough.
The council grows quiet.
Because peace does not always require understanding.
Sometimes you simply stand beside a river,
do something people have done long before you arrived,
say a tiny prayer you aren’t sure anyone is listening to,
and feel slightly less alone afterward.
Now.
Eventually,
I decided to leave.
Which created a fascinating logistical problem.
The council leans forward.
I had absolutely no idea where Odin’s Abode was.
The council applauds.
Of course.
No route remembered.
No useful landmark.
No language skills.
And thanks to the morning’s highly responsible financial activity,
limited money.
Children.
I had spent nearly everything I possessed on being thrown from a platform.
Priorities have consequences.
So I developed a plan.
The council already fears it.
Find people with vehicles.
Say hostel name.
Hope.
The council collapses.
A transportation strategy built entirely from optimism.
I approached one driver.
“Odin’s Abode?”
Confusion.
Another.
“Odin’s Abode?”
Nothing.
Another.
Nothing.
Children.
I wandered around saying the name of my hostel to strangers like a malfunctioning navigation device.
Then eventually,
someone understood.
Or claimed to.
At this point,
the distinction no longer mattered.
There was a vehicle.
A truck.
And apparently,
space behind it.
The council pauses.
Inside?
No.
Behind.
The council sighs.
Naturally.
I climbed aboard.
No ticket.
No QR code.
No explanation.
Just me,
the back of a truck,
and faith.
The council nods.
The ancient transportation system evolves.
And off we went.
Through the roads.
Up the city.
Toward somewhere I desperately hoped contained my bed.
Children.
Remarkably,
it did.
I recognized the area.
Then the hostel.
Odin’s Abode.
Home.
Or at least,
temporary home.
The council cheers.
I climbed down.
Thanked whoever had accidentally become my transport provider.
Walked inside.
Reached my room.
And collapsed onto the bed.
No ceremony.
No reflection.
No dramatic conclusion.
Just immediate unconsciousness.
The council nods.
A traditional Unbegun ending.
Thus concludes Chapter Five.
The Jump.
The Fall.
The River.
The Prayer.
And the Hitchhike Home.
That morning,
I had voluntarily stepped off a platform 109 meters above the ground.
Hours later,
I stood beside the Ganga,
placing a tiny offering into water I did not fully understand.
One moment adrenaline.
The next silence.
One moment falling.
The next floating.
The council grows quiet.
Perhaps that was Rishikesh introducing itself.
Not through one feeling.
But opposites.
Noise and peace.
Fear and surrender.
Falling and letting go.
Children.
I had come here because the weight had returned.
And for several seconds,
while falling through open air,
there had been no weight at all.
Only gravity.
Then even gravity let me go.
