flying. shrieking. swearing. pleading.

The sister, the bff, the bff's sister and I walked into Sha'ab Leisure Park with one sole purpose. To go on the skycoaster. The skycoaster is a structure consisting of a triangular frame and a tower, connected with cables. Strapped into the cable, it pulls you up to a height of 60 m (15 stories). On reaching the top, you pull a cord. And then, you oscillate like a pendulum at 93 km/hr.

It's on my old bucket list; I've been wanting to do this for years. If you've lived in Kuwait since you were a kid, I can probably surmise your reaction accurately. 'You haven't been on that yet?' Didn't get a chance.

We planned to leave the best for last, as the sister put it. She's been on it twice before, sang 'I believe I can fly!' her second time. The rest of us were virgins.

It was a longggg queue. We waited.. and waited.. a really long while. The bff and her sister were too freaked out to go together, ruining my own sister's plan of going with me. So I paired with the bff.

The sister was her usual hyperactive self, totally pumped to go.

The other two were scared out of their skins, having a fear of heights. 

I was hungry.

We watched the people before us take their turns either two by two or three by three. 

Going up... before us

We gasped 'oh my God!' at one particular trio that didn't hold on to each other as they were tossed down, looking as though they were going to separate and fly out in three different directions. We cracked up at hypothetical scenarios of the bff's sister sneezing (allergies) at the top and then flying face first into the remnants of her sneeze in the atmosphere :D The bff's sister almost chickened out. My sister reminded her she was getting married next month; that was scarier. The bff, still freaked out, gave her sibling her ATM pincode and told her to tell her family she loved them. I tried to console her with, 'dude! Zindagi na milegi dobara! (You Live Only Once - a recent Hindi film). Her sister was nothing less, she called her fiance to tell him she loved him. He told her to get a grip.

And then.. FINALLY.

the tower?

The bff and I each stepped into our harness, posed for a quick pic and walked to the platform where we would be strapped in, all set to be lifted up. I instructed my dear friend to pose like Spiderman does when he thrusts out his web and like Superman when he flies fist forward when we were at the apex. My heart started pounding as the realization hit me. We were going to be suspended from 60 m. And I wanted to go sky diving! They were playing the worst music ever, slow love songs, totally inappropriate. The song that played for us was Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You. Was that supposed to be a sign?

I was going to pose like this.

and like this. Went clean out of my head.

Three Arab guys that went before us stood waiting for the platform to be lowered as we were getting buckled up. Since I was going to pull the cord, I had to go on the right. 

The guys started making conversation, 'your first time?' 

Bff said nervously, 'YES!' 

'Ah, it's very scary.' said the tall one.

'Hold tight,' said the guy in the middle.

The attendant told us to let our legs up. Confused, we muttered 'what'd he say?' and then screamed when our feet suddenly went off the ground. We were hanging face down from our tummies like sheep for slaughter. We continued screaming though we were two feet off the ground. I wondered whether the guys were laughing at us because I couldn't see their faces and I couldn't hear anything; the air was rent with our screaming. And then.. we were being pulled up diagonally towards the triangular wire frame.

The bff went into hysterics.

She clutched at my arm really hard, squeezing it, both of us yelling blue murder. I quietened after a bit gazing at the view straight ahead. It was kinda relaxing. But the bff? She wouldn't shut up!

What she shrieked: 'OH MY GOD! Bismillah hir rehman nir raheem (in the Name of God, The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful)! Oh God, please I'm sorry! Dude, I can't do this man! Dude, please I want to go back down! OMG!' And then she closed her eyes.

At a couple of points I experienced weightlessness, which was a little frightening. I'm not really afraid of heights but when we were getting higher, I looked down below me to see hard concrete and people eating right below (ALL staring at us, their attention caught with the high-pitched wails). Even my heart failed a little and I hurriedly looked straight ahead again, warning my unfortunate friend not to let her eyes trail downward. But she did. I desperately wanted to laugh out loud at her reactions but just giggled silently.

When we finally stopped ascending, we heard a voice on the megaphone - '3.. 2.. 1.. FLY!'

This was my cue to pull the cord.

The bff - 'Dude don't pull it! Please don't do it!'

Me - 'Sorry dude.'

I pulled.

'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

What I shrieked - 'THIS IS AWESOME!! THIS IS SO FRIGGIN' AWESOME!!'

It was so relaxing, the spitting image of rock a bye baby. We sent flying kisses to our sisters. We waved at an old lady calling out to us. We swung around and around.

Once we lost momentum and came closer to earth, one of the attendants cried, 'remove *something*!'
Assuming I had to pull something else, I replied indignantly, 'I'm not removing anything!'

He meant our feet from the harness so we could land feet first instead of face first..

The sisters went next. They had a fantastic experience too. The dialogue was more colourful.

We all wanted to have another go.

So much for fear of heights.

It's not sky diving.

It's not exactly bungee jumping either.

But it's a start!