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the impact.

The laws of slant projectile motion assure us that falling bodies with horizontal velocity travel in a parabola on their descent. The momentum of my handstand will propel me outward roughly twelve inches from the fire escape; a thirty-five foot fall magnifies that lateral distance to nine feet from true vertical at the landing. My landing target is a vinyl-covered "crash pad" of dense foam rubber, measuring five feet wide, ten feet long, and thirty-six inches thick. My margin for error is over four feet on the long axis and a foot side-to-side.

There is a psychological wrinkle, however.

Because of my planned parabolic trajectory, the crash pad sits roughly seven feet distant from the edge of the fire escape. In the ready-to-fall position, the mat lurks somewhere at the top edge of my peripheral vision; I have to crane my neck to spot it. I will be doing my precarious handstand while looking down at paving bricks directly below my head.

According to Newtonian formulas I cannot not hit the bricks even if I try, but the thought starts my palms sweating anyway. Physics theorems provide a poor counter to the survival instinct shrieking I will plummet to my death. I bend over the rail, rehearsing the stunt in my mind for the fiftieth time. The bricks are still there. The stuntwoman beside me, my assailant, mimes her choreography in cooperation. When her hand touches my back she can feel me shaking, and she asks if I'm all right.
"I'm fine," I lie, "I'm just scared." That part is on-the-Bible true.
She nods sympathetically and reminds me that I don't have to do the fall. I look down at the clock-watching director, the knotted film crew, the unblinking camera. I think of my contract: I am the hired Stunt Man. I have to fall.

I wipe my hands on my jeans and give the thumbs-up. The cinematic mantra begins. Quiet on the set. Places. Roll sound. Roll camera. Technicians sing out the calls, the remorseless litany sealing my doom. Tape to speed. Marker. Action.

The choreographed shove sends me into the railing. I grunt in mock pain and half-acted fear, folding double and lining myself up with the distant pad below, grabbing two iron balusters, praying my hands won't slip at the wrong instant. Now I feel my partner's tug on my ankles and I kick my feet overhead, ignoring the way my arms tremble. My legs reach their apogee and change my balance, swinging my center of gravity outside the railing. My hindbrain screams a warning and my chest tightens painfully as I clutch

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