By: Eric Weinberg

I pulled off my socks and threw off my shirt to get in line for the blob. I had never seen the tall jumping platform or the huge, long, slippery multicolored blob up close, so I began to sweat. My hands were shaking, and my teeth were chattering. I was fifth in line, so when I jumped, there would probably already be some people on the blob. The first few people were already starting to jump. I saw their bodies coiling up and then launching off the edge of the platform, high into the air and landing on their bottoms and rebounding back into the stratosphere. My sweating started to intensify after seeing the erratic bouncing and launching.

“Are you good?” Holden asked. “Your hands are shaking really badly and you’re sweating bullets.”

“Y-y-yeah, just a l-l-little uh, you know, um, n-nervous? Like, uh, um, yeah, first t-time on t-the b-b-b-blob.” I answered, barely making out the words as I began to climb the steps up to the peak of Mount Everest, my teeth chattering. I was now at the top of the platform, looking over the dark waves and crisp breeze that washed over Upper Lake, making it seem more like the middle of the Atlantic Ocean instead of a tiny lake. I could now see kids launching themselves off the platform, soaring through the air, and crashing back down onto the blob.

The cold-water specks stung my red cheeks. I could only barely see. The fear clouded my vision, and I saw myself jumping off and hitting the water instead of the blob. Tiny piranha started to drag me down to the bottom and eat me as other dangerous water species came to feast on my corpse. I snapped out of the vision but still could not see over the misty veil that covered my eyes, fear. I could feel the counselor’s little water bullets from his hose trained on the blob in order to make it more slippery and dangerous. They felt like machine gun bullets cutting into the muscle and flesh on my face.

“Next!” said the counselor loudly. I gingerly walked to the edge of the platform. The cold hose water felt like a slap to my back, its force pushing me closer to the edge of doom, allowing me to see the murky depths that lay below, the blob my target. My toes peeked over the edge, and the cold metal made my feet shake even more.

“Alright you can go now!” shouted the counselor.

My fears finally came up and bit me like a cobra. I was squeezing harder and harder. My eyes swam, and my legs froze up. The blob and the murky water in front of me was fading into the oblivion of blackness…

“JUMP!!!” the counselor yelled.

I snapped out of it, facing the expansion of water that lay before me. I thought about how much fun I could have if I just got over this fear. I would be jumping and laughing with my friends, bouncing around, and making bets about how high I could get.

So, I jumped.