Alan's

When Skydiving

mooneyedandglowing:

     It’s exhilarating they’ll say. People will tell you that it is safe, and it is safe, sort of, but you’ll still google and read real-life stories underneath big, red, and screaming headlines of “Skydiving Accident Ends in Death.” They won’t tell you how small the plane will be, how flat the land must be, how very still the air must keep itself to allow your descent. Your friend, who has been skydiving before, will smile at you through the safety briefing. You won’t listen to the safety briefing because you’ll be too focused on the idea of your own body plummeting though the nothingness that is the sky. You’ll be too busy thinking about your bones and skin and water weight cutting through wispy, low-hanging clouds. The only thing you know from the safety briefing is that your body will be strapped to another body that is similar to yours in size. They will be on your back like a monkey controlling your life, which sounds like life anyway to a certain extent.

    As you take a bus to the plane, a bus full of people all lacking the caution of reason, your friend will nudge you in the ribs. He’ll say, winking, “You can always close your eyes.” You will get big-headed about courage and decide you can’t close your eyes. You will fill your mind with this mantra. The bus sways back and forth, back and forth. It’s some old and rusted machine, and so is the plane. The bus pulls up to the runway, and there it is—your transportation to heaven. Your transportation to heaven is a dinky, dirty toy-like thing. You imagine a giant child dragging it through sand.

     Everyone gets off the bus, and a woman ties herself to you with things that look like seatbelt straps—which is just a little bit funny in that morbid sort of way no one likes to talk about because you think of how useless that’ll be if you crash. Nope. You aren’t thinking about that. You are thinking, “Don’t close your eyes.” Everyone has someone on their back now. Everyone looks suitably ridiculous for this bad idea. Everyone hurls themselves on the plane because no one can be graceful when tethered to a stranger—which is also a bit funny in that way you like to pretend you don’t think because everyone is about to hurl themselves out of the plane.

    No one will tell you how loud the plane will be. The wind will tear violent through the seams. People will yell at each other, but no one will be able to hear over the white noise. It can’t possibly get any worse than this. You will keep your eyes fixed on a window without truly looking out of it. “Well, this isn’t so bad,” you’ll think until the cabin door is opened and wind spills in like water swallowing a boat. You’ll think, “The plane is taking on wind.” You’ll look away from the door to keep your eyes open. Your eyes will go back to that window that tricked you into thinking things weren’t so bad. The woman on your back will tap you on your shoulder and yell something like, “We’re next,” motioning toward what you are sure is death. You’re going to roll out of the plane. This is a choice you had to make: front roll out of this metal-nightmare called a plane like you’re five and taking your first tumbling class at the gymnastics center, or something else that you can’t remember because you stopped listening after your decision. You realize that’s probably a bad habit of yours, but you won’t really have the time to ruminate on it.

    You keep your eyes open and approach the gaping doom door. They will have stuck some goggles on you earlier, but you can feel the wind whipping around inside them like a mini-tornado. The goggles aren’t small enough, but it’s too late now. Keep your eyes open. There you go. You’re falling. You slice through wispy clouds. Your hair is thrown back into the instructor’s face. The ground looks increasingly like it’s going to grow a hand from burnt-grass, reach out, and smack you, but the parachute is pulled at the moment of your terror. Your body bungees back up, and then you’re floating. Would you look at that. They were wrong, it isn’t flying. It’s floating. You’ll gaze at the brown and gray mountains in the distance, the blue swath of sky painted above them. You will have never felt such a peace as this peace. You’ll be so quiet the woman on your back will yell, “Are you okay?” She ruins the moment, but there’s the angry ground again anyway. You’ll both start running in the air, looking like a pair of dogs swimming in their sleep. Your friend, who went before you, will tell you later how they closed their eyes.