SUSPENDED

From: Murder Incorporated - In a Keg

by Harold J. Treherne

he following story was prompted by a trip to the top of Grouse Mountain on the Grouse Mountain Chair Lift at Vancouver last Summer. The chalet at the top is 3800 feet above sea level and the lift operates in two sections from a point part way up the mountain and now for a lapse into reverie and retrospect steeped in an imaginative mood. So bear with me, into this realm of fact and fancy.

The person I have in mind is middle-aged and rather slim built and of good average intelligence. He is one of many hundreds who enjoy this scenic and aerial attraction. Maybe his home life is not all that it should be and he hankers after a spot of solitude and on the spur of the moment he engaged a chair for the round trip which will give him ample time and opportunity to think things over. Late on this summer evening, he finds himself leisurely soaring aloft and has already changed to the second lift to the top of the mountain and is now part way down on the return trip when, in an instant, the cables cease their creaking, the chairs stop and he is left suspended. Maybe this was the last round for the night and he could have been the only one on the circuit. Now, thinking it over he couldn't remember seeing anyone else. It could have been the last round or something went wrong, but here he is.

He is alone (it seems) on this ghostly line of silent cables and empty chairs slightly swaying in the late evening. It is Summer time but cool at this altitude. There will be no one to talk to for hours which might be an introduction to his thinking. Also it will be that long before anything moves. He's no acrobat to swing it down the cables and it's too far to the ground. He was scared just thinking about it. When he fully realizes the spot he is in he becomes impatient and seethes with revenge. Wait till he meets those responsible! He will sure bawl them out. It is no use shouting for help. He's no sissy and all he would hear would be his own voice echoing in mockery. By silent teachers he may learn something from this experience tonight.

They are going to hear all about this and his mood consumes him and how is he going to sit in cramped idleness for hours? Common sense suggests he look around for possibilities. Who invented this mechanical contrivance? What does he care? He is trying to simmer down and sit on his resentment. Time and impotence will wear him down. Then, his mood slightly less aggressive he studies the hefty cables and all that weight on them. And do they bother to oil all those pulleys? How stupid he thinks he is, they would have sealed bearings. Anybody would know that! Then his imagination plays tricks on him, the chairs are moving, he was sure of it. He's sure he will be good for nothing by morning. Those stupid fellows down below, why don't they send up a chopper? I'll bet they haven't even thought of that. So he carries on till his animosity lessens. He is trying to get his feelings under control.

Another thought strikes him, maybe I could get my feet up, like this and put them across the other half of this chair. That's better, now I have a little more room. Feeling more amiable now, he returns to his former line of thinking. How far would this cable stretch? That would be twice the total length of the chair lift. Maybe halfway across the city then he doesn't think it would go anyway near that far. So he tries a little arithmetic. It takes two hours, say, to go all the way round and at four miles per hour that would be - no, it can't be that far. Say three miles an hour and one hour and a half from start to finish. That's four and a half miles. How many chairs would there be? That was too much to figure out and he became disgusted with that idea. Frustrated again, he doesn't care a hoot anyway. I'd like to wreck the whole blooming works. Maybe I could drop to the ground but there were too many stumps down there and it was too dark to see now.

Now he wonders what time it is and he would say it's after midnight. He's been here for hours, then he begins to think about the chalet and what a cosy place. That coffee was just right and couldn't I do with a cup now? He's not suffering any. He never saw a fireplace that big before. With all that wood around they certainly could go whole hog on a fireplace. That settled that. Now what time would they open in the morning? Which way would they go to get there? Couldn't come up where the chairs are, too many stumps. Now he knows this thing is getting him. Wouldn't they use the chair lift? Now he was concerned about all those trees they had to cut down. How would they get rid of them? He is becoming frustrated again, just thinking about it. How did the trees get into it? He's sure gone off on a tangent. He can't think straight. It was the coffee and the chalet, that was it, and of course the road but they didn't need the road now, because they would use the lift. So he goes, and how awful to be suspended in thought. He is still concerned with himself as the focal point. It's true he's not quite so resentful and realizes the futility of resistance. Hopefully he will try to take a nap but how? The bent pipe forming the arm would be a hard thing to lay a fellow's head on so he changed his position again, now sitting up. Leaning his elbow on the pipe and his head on his elbow he tried to concentrate on sleep and this would help to pass the time away.

Drowsy, at last, he is dimly conscious of lights, dark shadows, trees and all pervading darkness as he fell into a fitful doze. The solitude of his position, the enveloping vastness, the stability of the mountains seeped quietly into his subconsciousness.

How long he had been asleep he didn't know but his cramped position finally woke him up. For a moment he had no idea where he was. It all came back in a hurry. He moved sideways, stretched his arms and shook his legs to ease his cramps. A strange thing had happened to him, he had lost all feeling of animosity and a different force was working within him. This was positive as against all his previous negative reactions. He yawned a time or two and just sat letting his thoughts just wander at will.

Presently, ruminating more or less to himself, he said he lived in a city, not Vancouver, but the lights here were far brighter than he had ever seen before. There were so many thousands of them even in this dead-of-night time. Thousands and thousands of them, so far away down there, they looked like toyland - Santa's toyland. It's not far from Christmas either, is it? He had forgotten how far it was at the moment. He really chuckled though, at the thought of a real Christmas coming up. His receptive mood and isolation added an aura to the event. All those people down there and everything appears so small, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. It must be nearly a mile from here. Those people are all asleep and their troubles are over for another day. This reminded him of his own troubles but he put them behind him. They weren't troubling him now although he was conscious of them.

He traced the pattern of lights for something to do, up one street, down the next and they all stopped suddenly a long long way off. That must be the Strait, then he noticed narrow bands of lights over the water stretching farther away yet, bridge lights over the water. Vancouver Island was still farther away and then the mighty Pacific. He thought of the mountains on Vancouver Island just as huge as the ones right here and he had heard of the hundreds of miles of mountain ranges which rise up from the floor of the Pacific Ocean but didn't reach the surface. The magnitude of things was beginning to sink in. Here was a veritable feast of light below him and all the rest of the circle impenetrable darkness by comparison. His thoughts wandered to the dark forms of pine trees between him and the starry sky on either side. An almost solid wall of trees, straight as ramrods. These trees thriving on such steep slopes and to such heights how did they know which way was "up"? A silly question, maybe. He was beginning to marvel at the most commonplace things. He had always taken everything for granted but was vaguely aware that something was behind it all, things didn't just happen. Everything in this World is worked out to the Nth degree.

He pondered again those Pacific waters and mountains submerged deep. He remembered reading in school the Pacific was six miles deep at its deepest point. He could feel himself going down, down, down into inky blackness, not losing consciousness and he could even see the water right down below him. He almost broke out in a sweat of fear and jerked his mind off his morbid thoughts. He was scared: all pervading darkness all around him and dark deep water. He looked about furtively almost afraid to move and grasped for something pleasant to think about. Leaning back idly, gathering himself together, so to speak, and as his tears receded he casually surveyed the dome of Heaven.

His attention quickened at the multitude of stars and his mind, receptive again, pursued this new interest in a new and wondering frame of mind. Not that he was going to astound the mathematicians or come out with any new theories, nothing like that. He swung his feet up on the other half of the chair, pushed himself down and rested his head on the enclosing pipe using his soft hat for a pillow. This was a far cry from luxury. He idly looked at the panorama above and what did he see? A bunch of stars, some little, some big and some blurred patches. He had seen them more times than he could remember.

Gradually, his interest aroused, he concentrated on one spot almost directly above him and as he became more absorbed, his physical wants and his surroundings were of no account. As he looked he saw stars and more stars, some so faint that if he shut his eyes for a moment, they were not there and he had to seek them all over again. He tried another spot and it was the same thing. Then he looked at a bright twinkling star and its light had transcended all those around it. They were there all right but the naked eye would never see them because they were swamped by the other's brighter light. As he continued gazing he became aware that all those points of light intensified in brilliance and appeared in much greater relief. He was almost dazzled by their brightness and how truly amazing, the dome of Heaven is studded with bright jewels. He was overwhelmed at the dense clusters of blue points he could see and that cloudy and misty streak of infinite dimensions, wasn't it the Milky Way? He viewed from the realm of finite things but this host of Heaven portrayed the infinite. He still gazed upward and the stars silently kept their places and some twinkled.

He was at one point on Time's curving track, a never-ending one and a thousand years hence, if each minute of that thousand years represents another thousand years and each second of every minute of all the thousands of years is so multiplied, ad infinitum, he would still be on the same orbit of time and he wouldn't be any farther along Time's path than he is now. How could he be?

Time has no beginning and Time has no end. We are everlastingly separated from nothing by infinity both ways. The orbit of time and space are the same.

In one final and prodigious mental effort and concentra- tion of vision, stirred by a deep inner urge, he sought to fathom the unfathomable, to span that gap between the finite (himself) and the infinite, but he drew a blank. His mind registered nothing. How conceited that man, with a purely finite mind, should seek to penetrate the infinite. He was only conscious of the staggering unbelieving immensity of the Universe and the infinitesimality of himself. He was learning and probing and that zest for living was about to blossom into lifelong blooms.

Now he began to wonder what time it was and his guess was around 3 a.m. There were no visible signs of the dawn yet. Everything appeared to be just the same. He raised himself to a sitting position and then hoisted himself to his feet holding on to the center pipe. It was somewhat shaky but the change was as good as a rest. He turned and marveled at the huge bulk of the mountain looming behind him, solid as creation itself, like a giant and a string of giants on either side of him holding back Pacific waters. He meditated in silent wonder.

Then a dog barked from a long way off and brought him back in a hurry. Maybe it was the chalet dog. Was this a salute to the dawn? He would like to think so and felt a sudden wave of friendliness to this canine large or small. He wasn't completely alone. Then, curiously enough he began to wonder why the dog barked maybe in answer to another dog. He hadn't heard a sound. A star could have zipped across the Heavens in a brilliant blue streak, a not unusual phenomenon and the dog had just seen the bright light and it had scared the bark right out of him. Then again, he might have been dreaming and his response was involuntary or he might have barked out of sheer loneliness, just waiting for the day to appear. He was in sympathy with the pup.

Those lights down there were just as bright as they had been for hours and hours. What a thought, every minute had been accounted for it seemed in his memory, minute by minute, mostly slow and stubborn, slowed by boredom. After an eternity of boredom, the mind emerges at last and the labored persistent tick, tick of Time gathers momentum and silently purrs on. The stagnant pool of dejection is transformed into a lake of blue water, calm and placid. Could the dog see those lights away down there and if he could, what would he see, just a blur? If it was only possible (with his other experiences tonight) to see things just for the space of two seconds, as a dog sees them. Man in his fleeting existence down the ages has discovered many things and the animal world and himself have grown up together. He can surmise the reactions of his closest friend and companion, the dog, but without active intelligence and reasoning, what do shapes look like to a dog? Of course he didn't know but it opened up a wide field of conjecture. Who knows what the future holds?

Now he could wait for the dawn: he settled himself as best he could and tried to put all thoughts out of his mind. Patience would win in the end. His frustrations, resentments, and trials of the last few hours now swamped by his peace of mind were too much. Slowly, yet in sweet content, his heavy eyelids close and he is aware of movement. Praise be to Allah, his chair, the whole line of chairs, was moving again the lights paralleling the cables too were shining and probing the darkness on either side, enhancing the shadowy forms of trees. He was floating downwards on a long line of cable with a slight upswing as his chair creaked over a pulley, then describing a long very shallow arc to the next one. A faint smile of contentment spread over his face as he swayed gently sideways. Home was down there somewhere. This night's experiences were well worth while but enough is enough, all his bitterness was over.

He jumped off at the halfway house, waved farewell to the attendant and started the second and last lap to the bottom. This is great and it's a little warmer down here and what an absorbing story to share with his family. There away down he could see the building housing the motor. This was the end of the line and the beginning of his freedom.

Now he was close to the building and was about to jump when an imperative voice within himself commanded him to "Stay on, don't jump, you can't, you can't."

He extended his hand appealingly to the attendant but the attendant didn't even see him and his limbs refused to move. Helpless he made the U-turn and tried to cry out but to no avail. He was being transported up the mountain a second time. All the lights were extinguished as he turned the corner and black night enfolded around him again. This was a living tomb and he tried to pray but he had no words. Depressed, he reached the upper end of the first section and mechani- cally, as if impelled by some unseen force, took the next chair to the top.

Then a voice again, within him implored: "Come back, come back."

He was becoming apprehensive and was suffering morbid fears of impending doom. His head ached, his body was stiff and his toes tingled. A groan escaped him and he muttered something incoherently. All he was conscious of was the voice, quiet but insistent, "Come back, come back."

After an eternity of time, he reached the top, passed through the building and resigned himself to the futility of trying to move and continued downwards. My, how he ached, but instantly, in one convulsive spasm, the Voice, his subconscious mind and he the man himsell, merged into one entity. "Oh!" he groaned out loud, this time without any effort. Did his head belong to him? It felt like a hive of trip hammers. His back: he shed a tear as he moved, and the tingling in his feet! One lift of a muscle and a multitude of sparks jumped merrily on the ends of all his nerves. What a nightmare! Thank God, he wasn't starting another round on that torture rail. Even though he was where he was, he was in his right mind. It took a few minutes to straighten himself out, to dissipate his cricks and loosen his joints, to realize that he was still half way down the upper section and everything was just as it had been for hours. But what a sense of relief he felt after that terrible dream and now he could anticipate the coming of the dawn with courage.

He didn't have to wait long. There was a lessening of the darkness which was quite noticeable. The stars weren't quite so bright and behind him over the mountain top, a faint light was spreading westward, tipping the canopy of darkness back as if on hinges. Then the trees assumed definite outline as the dark picked and threaded his way over the mountains, waves of light advancing in his train, shooed on by life's great sustainer. Electric lights flicked off here and there as the Master switch made contact. The stars excused themselves and retired in a body, only the brighter jewels remained to welcome the day ere they too, silently bowed out.

Glorious day (more glorious to him who was watching) was breaking like millions before, no fanfare, the stage all set for those who care to see and the greatest actor ever. Earth, endlessly turning her face eastward, bows, beamingly to greet the Sun, and he, expansively extends golden fingers over the mountains, enfolding a few stray clouds in his exuberant embrace. Horizon to horizon is his domain. He steals into mountain crevices, rubies the tree tops, exults in filigree patterns of light and shade amongst the evergreens. With one stroke he burnishes the Eastern horizon in giant achievement, ruddies and beautifies drab buildings in his stride, tints gardens and flowers, adding beauty to beauty and seeks diversion over the wide Pacific, dancing from wave to wave and glinting on the crest of the spray.

Our hero of the night extends his right hand in silent and heartfelt thanks to Him for such a Dawn as this, never before had he seen such splendor and meaning. In his mind and emotions he has come closer to the Almighty and understands a little more His mysterious workings. What happy vistas will now lie ahead through those unfolding years yet to come and what nostalgic memories lie behind him to be daydreamed upon. They mellow with the years.

What is and is not important - and does it matter?