What is the Most Dangerous Situation You Ever Willfully Put Yourself Into?

Photo by Vincentiu Solomon on Unsplash

I parachuted in behind enemy lines for what would turn out to be a near suicide mission. As soon as I landed I could see that the enemy was everywhere. I immediately began to look for cover to assess the situation.

At first I was greeted by an eerie silence but then suddenly out of the blue I heard this blood curdling battle cry, which I could tell instantly it was the enemy. If these people found me I feared it would mean certain death, little did I know what I had coming in my future.

I quickly found myself some cover and slid up tight between this green gawdy plant thing and what I could only assume was a tree or something as it was extremely hard and immovable. I never took the time to analyze it.

Instead, I pressed up against it as tight as I could and I depended on the shadows to conceal what the tree and the plant thing had left in the open.

Once the enemy had walked past in their tactical column, I reached into my pack for my weapon and realized that it was lost. The damn duffle bag must have got caught in the turbulence of my landing as it was no where to be found.

You always stick with your overnight ruck sack as it can typically hold all you need but, on this particular mission I had to bring some high explosive sticks bomb cake to distract the enemy.

I made my way very quietly around the corner back onto the main path and then I found the trail my contact had told me about. The trail gave way to what looked like man made carved steps in the terrain upwards.

I figured my contact must be up there so I slowly and carefully started scaling the steps when suddenly, I heard that battle cry again and the sound of what seemed like a thousand stampeding horses. I knew I had no time, so I had to risk being seen as they were coming back.

Those relentless hunters would be scouring the earth for me once they knew I was on premise, I thought. So, I threw caution to the wind and ran in the wide open skipping a stair with each step until I was into a some chamber. I realized this is where my contact had occasionally transformed into a shell of her formers self, nicknamed ‘The Thing That Should Not Be’ was at rest and that the transformation had occurred again.

I went over to my contact and gave her a nudge. Her eyes shot straight open and were red, bloodshot, and were bulging out so much that they looked like they were going to explode.

I whispered ‘hows it going?’ She replied back with a mix of vomit into a bucket, groans of pain, and what sounded like the guttural roar of a demon emanating from within. I knew this was not a good sign for the mission.

I asked her, ‘are you going to make it, it appears there are Guerilla fighters’ all through the area’ and she replied with a tone that bore no words, no humor, and yet conveyed all possible meaning that would be needed for me to understand that the situation had just turned dire for me.

Realizing the bleak future ahead of me, I knew I had to do something to save the mission and after what I had just witnessed, I had zero desire to hear her speak again.

The Thing That Should Not Be was the name I gave the demon that I imagined was trapped inside her and was the cause of her migraines — as that was when it came out. It was a demon that had no tolerance for people, and wanted no living thing anywhere around it.

You may think that is what the dangerous part was but it’s not — the dangerous part hadn’t even begun yet.

By the time I sent up the signal flares hoping for a miracle helicopter extrication, I realized there were no choppers coming and that I was the only hope for humanity, that was when I hit a record low.

I had somehow found myself responsible for the joy of ten, eight year old girls who were over for a birthday party, and I barely knew the birthday girl. The squeals and screams were unending. It was though there were some type of banshee convention in the house and I swear at one point the paint on the walls began to peel.

I’ll spare the details but will say that somewhere between the kids launching themselves off the couches thinking they were trampolines and them smearing icing all over the fridge in a giant “J” for the birthday girls name, I became numb to the perpetual nonstop demands, howls of hurt feelings, and screeching of sugar jacked joy. This numbness is what would allow me to survive the rest of the night. It was a defense mechanism to keep my sanity safe.

By the end of that birthday party — there was not one nerve left, not one eardrum unharmed, and not one part of me that hadn’t been spilled on, bumped, or jabbed in some way through the relentless gauntlet called ‘Birthday Games’. This was literally the Hunger Games but for the host adult in charge, it was being tested in battle — by being thrown to the wolves.

By the end, all children were accounted for and all were happy and excited saying it was the ‘best birthday,’ which they all say to each birthday kid at all of their birthdays but, this was a particular proud moment for me as we made it through and no kids were wounded, the birthday girl was walking on air, and somehow I managed to hold everything together and keep everyone happy, fed, and safe.

The toll on me however was a different story. I still wake up in the middle of the night screaming ‘no more piñata, please!’ I hear that PTBD (Post Traumatic Birthday Disorder) does get better with time.

Myself and millions of Canadians/Americans who have suffered similar trauma, are all excited for that day.