Trending Up

They call it an affirmation of life.

People will generally live up to their names. Maybe skydiving with Richard was a mistake. Though, it may have been the best decision of my life.

“Don’t forget your parachute!”

The words and his hands gripping my lapels startled me from my catnap. Then I was soaring through the air. I caught a wink of steel from doorway as my emaciated frame flew past it, my feet never touching the floor. Not that he had given me much choice, but I had done what Richard advised me not to. Then I was in the great blue abyss.

I was surprised. Friends don’t throw friends out of airplanes. Panic gripped me as I realized I was going to die in a painful manner. But wait, I wasn’t falling, I was floating upward!

It took time for me to get hold of myself. Breathing deep I closed my eyes. Just when I got into my zen place I realized I was approaching the stratosphere slowly, but not slowly enough. The air was getting so thin it was hard to breath. Damnation, I was going to die.

I didn’t panic though. I signed up for the jump because at ninety the doctors informed me the good news was the dementia settling in was still pretty mild but would eventually do for me. The rapidly failing liver was going to work quicker. So bouncing off the ground, or atmosphere, didn’t matter. My death sentence was confirmed, it was just the manner of execution up for debate.

I twisted until I looked down. Open country spread out for miles. At a certain height it looks like colored squares on a school map. It looks like love. That kept me calm. In the distance were towns and cities near crystal blue squiggles of rivers and ugly grey scars of highways. That was beautiful too.

A dot bloomed a rectangle, Richard opening his chute. Gasping for breath I was still serene. I wanted to hate him but I couldn’t. I was floating up like an angel winging to heaven. The thought pleased me more than the ever expanding view.

The sky above me faded from blue to black. Soon the ozone would turn me into the world’s oldest signal flare. Richard had given me a gift. I didn’t want to go out of this world gibbering, drooling on myself, unable to remember my name as my organs filled me with increasing pain.

His plan would have sent me out like a meteor, surrounded with terror and the thrill of life. My odd twist of fate was going to turn me into a blazing afternoon start wrapped in a warm embrace just before I froze. My last thought before the lack of oxygen caused me to pass into dreamless eternal sleep was this.

Not many men go out as a meteor. Even fewer go out as a star. Most leave this world as a vegetable. Richard was a pretty good friend.

#shortstory #author #writer