Flight

The parachute was not working. It was funny, really. Samuel was an old man now and he had no fears except this one and it had happened. He heard his hangman hum above as it abandoned him, quickly drowned out by the roaring of the wind. Was his heart beating? It was but he could not count the beats and before anything he was falling. It was the falling that had scared him. The jumping was always easy. He knew how to do it. But this was what he feared, and he cursed himself that it had happened.  

Seconds passed and he fell through the clouds and for a moment he could see the curve of the Earth and the green below and the glory of the sun but then it was gone and all that was left was the terror. He wanted to stop. If only he could stop. Samuel wanted to sit and be still and read after a meal. He wanted his feet to touch ground and he wanted his stomach to feel solid and his breathing to be light. Yet the wind still howled as it eyed him; Samuel had conquered his fears before but this terror was a beast that tore and gnawed at him and it made each second of his plummet an agony because it wouldn’t let him die; he wasn’t scared of dying but he was scared of falling and that’s what it did to him. 

He had not really faced the terror before. Not when he killed a man or had a son or lost a son.  Samuel was not scared of any of that, no. It was only this, only what was happening. He had chosen a cheap, shabby plane with no instructors and this was the cost. Why had he done it? Why had he gone to the plane? It was because of the fear. Fear had to be killed. It had to be conquered. That was the only way to go out. He would not go out incomplete. Samuel would go out unafraid. It was funny too because he had only pulled the parachute twice and then he had given up. 

He tried to breathe. In a few minutes he would hit the ground and it would be over. Be still, he said to himself. He thought about the end of the fall. He could hear his bones cracking and his blood gushing on the impact. It would be a sorry sight to see and even in the terror he was sorry to whoever had to clean him up. He hoped that whoever it was wouldn’t be young. Being old was like being young except the face that stared back was different and life had gone by. As a boy he had said that he would never get on the plane and that was a promise he lived by. But his life was ending now and all that remained was to beat the terror. That was the only thing left. Be Still. Be Still.  

And for a moment Samuel managed it. For a moment, the wind began to sing. He had closed his eyes but he opened them again and admired the sun. It was sunset now, and the horizon was painted a delicate gold, gently embracing the world.  It was warm and good and worth it. He missed his boys. It had been a while but at least they knew him well enough to know that it was the parachute that was broken. Samuel was not defeated. Even now he readied the courage that he would club the terror to death with.  

Yes, it was there now. The warm feeling in the stomach. The one he had beaten all the fiends back with. In a moment it would be ready, and the terror would die and then he would. All he had to do was seize on it and then brave himself against the beast. Yes, the wind roared, and the terror was on him. Its onslaught began as it clawed and clawed and its teeth sank deep into him. The plummet terrified. Samuel could make out what was below him now. The wind roared again. He hated the falling, the helplessness. He hated the impotence of flight and the unapologetic fact that his body betrayed him with every moment of terror. The beast suffocated him now and Samuel’s lungs were empty, and his throat was too dry to swallow. 

 Falling. He was falling. Why was he falling? Why was his head splitting? Why did it hurt? Why did his heart not sputter out, so the falling would go away? But his heart didn’t fail, and he was betrayed and damned to the falling. He closed his eyes and succumbed to the feeling and wanted to die again. He just wanted to be stopped. But he couldn’t stop because the warm feeling wouldn’t let him.  

No, it just wouldn’t let him. It was the courage that was there. He searched for it and it came to him. It was the still quiet thing that raged against the world and the falling. It was always there, always burning, always wanting to revive. But it would also kill you and most people wouldn’t let it. Samuel wasn’t sure if he ever let it. He wasn’t sure now. Yet it could slay the beast and he needed it to. Yes, it could. Be still. Be still. All he had to do was lose himself and then it would complete him. Be still. Be still. He could hear his heartbeat now. Be still. Be still. Yes, the terror was a weak and infantile thing. Be still. It flourished only in the falling, and never in the -- Be still.   

He opened his eyes. It was gone now. The terror’s corpse fell away from Samuel and it was adrift in the wind. The falling belonged to him now. The plummet was his dying throne. It was a proud, good way to die. He was content. Yes, he was even happy. The birds were his peers now and he was a young man again in the flight. He was flying as much as falling. That’s what had killed the terror. Samuel liked the flying. He pitied the men who did not – could not – do it. The world was wonderful to look at. It was wonderful to see. It was wonderful to fly in. He understood the people who dived for fun now. They were the smart ones. They understood the wonder. Though maybe they held back and the parachute blinded them. Maybe only he could see it. That was all irrelevant now anyway. Samuel looked below at the hard fields and the flattening inevitability of his plummet. No, he would not shake the earths. They would be the end of him. But that was okay. He was whole. Samuel was whole. It was all okay. The old man smiled. He had not lived a perfect life. He had failed many times. But that was okay now. All the fiends, all the terrors, from the least to the greatest, had been slain. In his past there was a mountain of their bodies – all the beasts were dead to him. Here he was, in the skies, powerful and peerless and ready to face his death with glory!  

The ground was getting nearer now. Samuel was excited for it. He wanted it. It was so near, so close. It was time to think of peace now. Time to enjoy the fruits of the battles. Peace was a wonderful thing and in the stillness it was even better. The flying was the calmest most still thing he ever knew. Samuel was sure of that now. It was a wonderful thing and he was happy. The ground reached out its arms and invited him. He wanted to embrace it like the sun did. He yearned for it- for peace. Yes, it was time now. The time had finally come. He closed his eyes – a smile breaking through the wrinkles of an aged, wounded life, - and he went to his end more happily than he was sure any old man ever would. Then the parachute opened and for the first time in his life he was afraid.