ILLUSTRATION: BRIAN STRASSBURG
Thomson Newspapers
COLD COLDTYPE
Issue 2 / 1995
“I put the muzzle of the revolver into my right ear and pulled the trigger. There was a minute click, and looking down at the chamber I could see that the charge had moved into the firing position. I was out by one. I remember the extraordinary sense of jubilation, as if carnival lights had been switched on in a dark, drab street. My heart knocked in its cage, and life contained an infinite number of possibilities. It was like a young man’s first successful experience of sex. — Graham Greene
The
Joyof Rısk By BOB WHITBY
t the top, 250 feet above the sand, I decided I’d made a mistake. Waiting in line for three hours, fastening God’s own rubber band to my ankles, riding a spindly platform hoisted by a probably derelict crane — it was all wrong. From the ground, bungee jumping looks simple. You pay your money, ride to the top, jump off, yo-yo, go home. I watched a one-armed World War II vet do it, bald guys do it, young girls do it, and nobody got hurt. But from the metal half-cage swaying in the breeze, there was only down and enough of it to squash all perspective flat. There were no waves in the ocean, only lines of white foam. Horizon to horizon,
A
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