My desk is located exactly fifty feet above the ground next to an ancient cypress tree. It defies all logic and all natural laws as it floats there while I work.

As I sit at my desk I can look out over the surrounding swamp and up and down the river and now and then a large, long legged, purple, red, blue and green wading imagi-bird lands on one corner of my desk and gives me advice, such as under which rock the frilled Flop-N-Grizzle is hiding. (He doesn’t charge for this advice.)

This same bird, my imagi-bird, is my staunchest editor; at times crapping on a particular piece of my writing as if to say ‘O.K. Chuck, you can do better than that.’

I chose this particular spot fifty feet up here in the air because it opens the clogged sinus’ of my creativity.

Did you know that fifty feet is known as “the, redline” to climbers? Yep, the, redline.

It is commonly held that if you were to fall fifty feet to the hard ground you will very likely die. Indeed, an adult can easily die after falling five or ten feet if he lands on his head.

A person who is dropping in free fall through space often turns upside down and falls headfirst. This happens because with most people the upper half of the body is heavier than the lower half, and so, gravity being the wonderful thing it is the person tips over and plunges head downward like one of those wonderful, long outlawed lawn darts of yesteryear that could in a moment render a lobotomy with no warning whatsoever.

Oh, I am sorry, back to the, redline.

In a headfirst landing after a fifty foot fall, the shock crushes the skull and breaks the neck, destroying the brain and shearing the spinal cord off at the base of the skull causing Instant death. Nice picture, what?

No matter which way the victim lands, the impact normally breaks the victims back, leaving him paralyzed (if he survives.)

If the person should happen to land feet first, a shockwave travels up the legs, breaking them in many places, shattering the lower spine, and cutting the spinal cord.

The lungs can collapse from the force of the impact or they can be punctured by broken ribs, and the flattened or torn lungs can fill up with blood.

Major internal organs, including the liver, the kidneys, the spleen, and the bladder, as well as the aorta, can burst during the impact. If they split apart they flood the body cavity with blood, catastrophic internal hemorrhage is the result.
O.K., so you are probably wondering why I painted that lovely picture for you, aren’t you?

While I am floating up there at ‘the redline’ I am not apt to let anything distract me until I have reached that days quota.

As a writer that is so very important. Stay focused, avoid distractions and if it means that you have to perch fifty feet up in a tree to do so than by all means, PERCH!

I try not to take any little spur of the moment jaunts and when my quota is reached my desk gently floats down and I walk away to whatever is calling me until the next day when I again ascend up into my gallery up there at the redline with only my imagi-bird for company.

What with the previous blog and now this one some folks are apt to get the idea that I am obsessed with the tops of trees, which might be true but then again, it might not.

You have a nice day now ya hear, Chaz

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