Momentum

You've spent time preparing, following your ritual, pushing yourself, watching, striking and striking with the hammer again and again, shaping the stone until you feel ready, until you feel sure enough to start running, running with all your strength, like the others do, one step after another, each time with more confidence, each time bigger and each time faster, only to jump, to throw yourself into the void and enjoy that instant of magic, of floating, of culmination, of feeling time stand still.

Until you realize, looking down, that time keeps moving, that in this world there is gravity, and it pulls you back down, makes you descend again, plant your feet on the ground and drag yourself back to where you started. You get angry, but you don't give up, you rebel and pick yourself up again, get ready again, take a breath again, to strike the stone once more, to walk again, to gather momentum once more, to retrace the path already walked, but with more confidence now, perhaps running straight from the start this time, and you begin to climb, climb upward, high up, to jump again, to fly again, to be there again, in that instant where everything stops, to feel once more that wonderful sensation of culmination, of having taken the leap.