Speed Dating

There she was, just ahead. He’d been staring at her for half the morning but hadn’t quite found the right thing to say. 

He’d wanted to act calm and casual, to look like he hadn’t a care. He felt like he’d basically achieved that. He’d been leaning back, stretching out, pretty much the image of a relaxed guy. Wearing the sunglasses indoors had probably not been the best move as he had probably missed some of the visual part of the briefing. He’d been so busy trying to act cool that, to be honest, he had missed some of what had been said as well. 

She wasn’t far away now. 

He could easily have spoken to her earlier. Why hadn’t he? He had just been so preoccupied with the idea that she might have found it odd that he would have said hello. Lots of other people had exchanged greetings. All it would have taken was for him to have got up and headed over to her, then spoken. But he had just stayed still. He could have gone to her as slowly as he liked. 

Suddenly, she was moving towards him. Rushing, in fact. Or was he rushing towards her? It was all happening so quickly, it was hard to tell. It wasn’t as if he’d changed what he was doing – she was coming towards him. She was zooming- 

-right past him. 

He looked over his shoulder. She was retreating into the distance, at a rate that felt quicker than ever. Still, this wasn’t really the right time to start up a conversation anyway. 

Not whilst he was in free fall. 

Intellectually, he knew that she had simply opened her parachute. She had been ahead of him but had slowed her descent. Moving towards him had been nothing more than that. 

The ground still seemed very far away. Having said that, he was moving towards it very quickly and moving away from her almost as quickly. All in all, it was probably time to focus on the here and now. 

He pulled the rip cord. The parachute took a couple of seconds to balloon out behind him, then it pulled him. It was as if it were lifting him up, though he knew that he was still moving downwards. Accelerating upwards when you’re moving so quickly downwards... not that different from his plan earlier to get to meet her quickly by staying absolutely still. It seemed to have had a different effect, though. He’d had every opportunity to talk, but he hadn’t. 

Rather than kicking himself some more, he allowed himself a chance to breathe, to take in the beautiful surroundings. They truly were stunning. Below looked somewhere between a model train set and a fancy carpet. Or maybe a mosaic. The range of colours in the fields was fantastic. It was wonderful to be able to look down on it all. Quite windy, but still majestic. More and more details came into view as he looked down. He gazed upon it, soaking up the magnificent countryside as he drifted above. 

And yet he knew that he’d rather be in the briefing room, admiring her from afar. Even if he never reached out and said hello. Even if he never crossed that short distance to meet her. Even if he never touched- 

-the ground, which had been growing not just more detailed and more vibrant, but also ever closer, chose this moment to renew his acquaintance. His legs slammed into the earth harder than he’d planned. This wasn’t his first solo jump, but he’d never been so distracted by anything or anyone before. He had been so focussed on her that he’d lost track of everything else. 

So it was, that after managing to fall 10,000 feet, just about landing on his own two feet, that he took another short fall the rest of the distance. 

All of the wind up above buffeting him, yet now that he was down, all it had taken was a very light breeze to blow him over. 

He pulled himself up gingerly, testing his legs (his left felt OK, his right felt like it wanted to take it easy for a while) and started packing down the parachute. He was finished with any sort of falling for the day. That was it. 

Looking up from his carefully gathered chute, he saw her descending gracefully, only a few tens of metres ahead of him. Hers was a much better landing. But then, why shouldn’t it be? She had probably jumped dozens of times. She had probably kept herself aware of where the ground was. She had probably not been thinking about any of the other skydivers. 

He sighed to himself, watching as she gathered her chute in a much more efficient fashion than he had. He decided to walk – all right, limp – over. 

“Nice landing,” he said, trying to keep his limp to a minimum. 

She looked round and smiled. “Thanks. I saw you got two for the price of one.” 

There went any chance of looking cool. Having tried to stack the odds in his favour, he’d stacked it instead. 

“Well, we’re always admiring the scenery, I thought I’d go in for a really close-up look. And taste.” The words had flown out of his mouth in a torrent. His plan to be cool and minimal with responses had gone out of the window. 

He waited for her to roll her eyes. Or to stare blankly at him. 

“You’re funny,” she said. No laugh, though, which really would have been reassuring. “The way you were staring at me from behind your shades earlier, I thought you were just being weird.” 

He froze. Nothing for it now, he thought. “Yeah, it feels kinda silly now.” 

“You bet.” 

“Sorry.” 

“That’s OK. Just... talk to a girl, next time.” 

He nodded sullenly. Then a thought hit him. “Is there a chance I could... talk to a girl this time?” 

Her eyes narrowed, but then the edges of her lips turned up into a grin. “Now there’s a guy who just found his reserve chute.” 

Maybe he could fall one more time today.