There I was, standing on the starting platform. Today was the filming of the “Back to School” special episode of the ridiculous obstacle course TV show “Wipeout”. I was contestant number 4, out of a field of 24 young, athletic teachers. I wore sparkling blue basketball shorts, a form fitting black shirt, and my gold jacket. My semi-long hair was re-bleached to surfer-blonde. I stood with my feet shoulder width apart, chin up. Mr. Confident. I heard a loudspeaker announcement. “Let’s hear it for Mr. Sandt!”, to which a chant started in the student section: “Go Mr. Sandt! Go Mr. Sandt!”. I was told to turn around, and they counted down from 5. 5…4…3…2…1…

The horn blew, and I took off down the first ramp. It was perhaps 30 feet long, angled down about 35 degrees. At the bottom was a couple feet of water, and a big floating cushion.

OK, I will run most of the way to it, but I’ve seen people slip at the bottom, so when I’m 2/3 of the way down I’ll leap for the cushion and avoid the slippery part.

3 steps till jump. 2 steps. 1 step.

SHIT!!!

I slipped on the very step I planned to jump. Some “thoughtful” person had soaped the ramp from that point down. Looking back at it, the people who run the course to test it for the production company must have figured out where people would plan to jump and intentionally trapped me.

Stupid idiot!

WHAM! I hit the side of the cushion and was instantly sopping wet, including my tennis shoes. The audience roared.

Not an auspicious start.

GET UP!

I was only down for a second, then was up on the cushion and jogging. The course turned right, then left, then left again, up some stairs, then right to the first real obstacle. It was one of those god-awful ledges. I see these on TV all the time… You run across, thinking you’re ok, but part of the wall can move to smash you off the ledge when you least expect it. The producer who briefed us on the obstacle has said nothing about a moving piece of wall. She just mentioned a sweeper arm that we had to watch out for. “Run fast, avoid the sweeper, and you might make it. But only if you run super fast!”

What a liar.

I’d planned for this. Watch the sweeper arm, yes, but only to make sure it wasn’t in a bad position as I started. It wasn’t. I ran fast, but hugged the wall, watching like a hawk for something to start moving and counting on my reflexes to save me.

Where is it where is it where THERE IT IS!!!

Part of the wall was opening like a door, really fast, in an attempt to hurl me sideways into a giant vat of mud!

Brakes! Lean left!!!

I stumbled, trying to stop from a full sprint in just a few feet, piled into the door, and bounced back several feet. My left lean saved me, and I landed on my butt, still on the ledge.

GET UP GET UP HURRY SHIT SHIT HURRY!!!!

They were retracting (more like reloading) the door! I was up, and threw myself forward. The door sprang open again the moment it could, but it was just a hair late, and caught me only a glancing blow, turning me but not hurling me from the ledge. I reached the far end of the ledge! The audience roared! “Go Mr. Sandt! Go Mr. Sandt!”

Dazed from my first major impact, I trotted left, then right, then up some stairs.

The Big Balls were next. There was a little running room at the top of the stairs. I took a step forward when suddenly I heard a motorized sound behind me!

Without even looking, I knew the danger. It was called “The Motivator”, and it was designed to propel hesitant runners off the edge the ledge leading to the Big Balls. They activated it early!

Trying to punish me for beating the first obstacle. I smiled viciously.

I had planned to do a nice running long jump to try to reach the 3rd of the big balls, but the motivator changed the equation. Instead, I just barreled at them, leaping for the first one. After an awkward double footed first ball, I caught the second ball off balance, then pitched forward into a superman pose to face plant into the third ball before falling flailing off the left side.

Sky-water-sky-water-SPLASH. IDIOT! You were supposed to fall off the RIGHT side so you don’t have to swim so far! All the ladders are on the right side of the course.

I came up and started freestyle swimming, but it was exhausting. Quickly I took the advice of the producers and flipped over on my back, kicking with my feet and making snow angels with my arms.

Much easier. Breathe. Swim.

Where’s the ladder? A little left. A little further. I grabbed the ladder.

Someone yelled “Your time is good!”, but I barely registered it. I didn’t want to leave any chance of not making a round two qualifying time. There were still twenty more athletic teachers to come after me!

Up the ladder. Why the hell is it so hard to move my left arm? Oh damn it, I’m still wearing the gold jacket! It had come partway off and was now pinning my arm to my body. I climbed as fast as I could. At the top, I ripped off the jacket and threw it away.

Next obstacle. It was a narrow path, perhaps 18 inches across, shaped in a half circle. In the center point of the circle was an axle, and every 120 degrees around the axle an obstacle protruded. They included some giant sunglasses (you had to jump through the lenses), 3 hanging boxing pads with only a few inches between them, and a sweeper arm. They all rotated on the axle, so in turns they came at you as you ran the half circle pathway.

Bad luck… The sweeper arm is just passing, and it’s the only one I can beat. The other two were a sure fall. I had previously decided that if I knew I was going to fall, it was better to fall early and swim, saving as much time as possible. I ran at the approaching sunglasses. Each lens was over the water. The center of the sunglasses covered the path.

Impossible. I leapt through a lens, clipped the edge of the ledge, and fell.

Sky-water-sky-water-SPLASH! Surface. Which direction? That way. Swim! Grab the ladder!

I forced my muscles, which felt slow and unresponsive, to climb. I was carrying SO much water weight in my clothes and shoes. Thank God for my arms. I have strong arms.

Upon reaching the top, I found myself on a small island with the equivalent of a diving board sticking off of it. About 5 feet past the diving board was a shoebox shaped room that was moving like a magnitude 10 earthquake was destroying the world. A hole was cut into the end facing the diving board. I’m gasping for air by this point, and things are getting foggy. I can’t think very well.

OK, run and jump, then figure out what to do next.

My leap carried me into the box, where I promptly ran into a U shaped moving obstacle and slid under it. By the rules, you have to pass OVER those things, so I scrambled backward (hard to do in an earthquake), stood, and launched myself over the U. It moved while I did it, tumbling me to the floor but safely over.

What’s left? Looks like a little moving wall about 5 feet in front of me. Uh… feet. Get to my feet. No, too hard. Crawl toward it first. Stand when you get there. God I’m tired. No air. But that’s all that’s left. Crawl.

WHAM!!! Another “hidden” moveable wall ejected me out of the side of the shoebox room.

Sky-water-sky-water-SPLASH!

Surface. Uuuurrrrggg… That corner looks like the ending. Swim toward that. Wait, what am I doing? Hey I’m not swimming in quite the right direction. Swim toward that end point. JESUS I’m tired. Why does it feel like I’m so slow? Steps at the edge of the pool. Thank God. Oh, my feet don’t work. Left foot, go! Right foot! Lefffft. Right.

I cleared the pool, staggered the last 5 feet to the finish platform, stepped onto it, raised my arms in the victory pose for a moment, and folded over, hands to knees, gasping like I’ve never gasped in my life.

THIS is what oxygen deprivation feels like. I thought I knew from having run miles before. I hadn’t had the faintest clue.

Vanessa (the hot hostess of the show) walks up to me, holding a mic.

“KLJSH SKJH RIOPUH FHT!” she says.

“What?” I gasp back.

“You got past the stop sign!” she says again.

“What stop sign?” I gasp.

She laughs, shakes her head, and walks away. Someone throws my gold jacket at me, it hits me in the chest, and I only catch it out of reflex.

One of the show techs motions me to follow him. I step off the finish platform and stagger hard, about four feet sideways.

My God. Focus! Step FORWARD. Left. Right. After a short time I’m following him, not talking at all, just gasping and trying not to black out.

When I could talk, I asked the tech about the stop sign Vanessa mentioned. He told me that the wall next to the ledge was painted like a school bus, and the “door” that had opened was painted as a giant stop sign. It hadn’t registered at all when I ran into it… I had been too frantic trying to get by it without getting launched into the mud. It was my worst fear on the course… hitting the mud, having to open my eyes while still covered in it. I’d beaten the one thing I was really afraid of in the first stage!

Like a drowned rat, I collapsed onto the floor of the contestant holding pen. The next several hours were a blur of pain and exhaustion. I never got up, never ate, never drank, never even shifted positions. I just lay there trying to remember what feeling normal was.

After that, it was on to round two!

For eons, the electrons orbit their nucleus, the cherished center of their universe.

Existence seems predicated on their relationship, and nothing else matters. It gives peace, stability, and comfort.

Then comes the beam. Ripping, shredding, forcing... the nucleus torn apart and scattered.

The electrons catapult away in shock. Confusion. Loss. Dread of the unknown, at leaving their familial home.

Sudden impact! The electrons pinball against other nuclei, unintentionally splitting them from their own partners.

More chaos. A universe of relationships torn asunder.

Fire and brimstone: The fallout of a single atom's demise.

Finally, calm... a shattered world left over after relationships end.

Then, slowly, it's rebuilt as new bonds form.

But always, always, the sense of loss...

My muscles felt the pleasant burn of accomplishment as I strained for the next crack in the cliff face.

As a middle school kid at a summer camp in the Colorado Rockies, I was with a group of campers out for a day of cliff climbing.

Catching the crack, I hauled myself up past a flat, smooth section of rock that had stumped every other climber of the day. I had great arms, and now I used them. Everyone else had failed because they could not find a place for their feet. I succeeded because I didn't even try to use my feet. Hand over hand, I slid up past the obstacle.

From down below, I heard a few cheers from onlooking campers. A few muttered astonished phrases as they saw what I'd done.

The camp counselor who was belaying me pulled the excess rope out of my way. Soon my feet found a new purchase, and within another minute I was at the top of the cliff. Smugness overcame me.

Yep, I'm a badass. Even better, everyone below me knew it.

I touched the carribeaner at the top of the cliff, the official signal that a climb had been completed.

With a smile, I looked down the hundred foot drop to the ground. "Ready to repel down!" I called.

"Ready to belay you!" the camp counselor called back. My hard work was done. All that was left was to let him lower me down while I sat back on the rope.

Looking back up at the cliff face in front of me, I kicked off from the rock.

And fell.

I fell forever. The rock shot past me in an uncontrolled blur. My arms and legs waved frantically.

I would later learn that the camp counselor had become distracted in the moment after he confirmed he was ready to belay me, and he'd dropped the rope.

In the brief moments of my fall, I felt certain I was about to die. No one falls so far onto rocks and survives.

Ten feet from the ground, the camp counselor managed to tackle the rope, suddenly jerking me to a stop. My neck snapped hard, and my rope pendulumed first away from the cliff face, and then toward it, smacking me against the rocks.

Slowly, the counselor lowered me the last few feet. Half dazed and bleeding from cuts on my face and arms, I focused on his face. He was sobbing.

"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! Oh my God I'm so sorry!" Tears streaked his face, and his breath came in choked gasps.

I reached up and took him by the shoulders. "Hey! Hey, listen. I'm not angry with you. Right now, I'm actually really thrilled with you. You saved my life. Maybe later I'll be angry about getting dropped. But right now I am feeling nothing but positive feelings. OK?"

He looked at me with skepticism through watery eyes.

"I mean it. Thank you for saving me."

I hugged him. It was ok. I was ok. In a few hours, so was he.