Flying Pigs

I’m falling. It’s beautiful, brilliant, and plain amazing. I love it. Feeling the wind in my hair and hearing nothing, like in movies when all you hear are singing angels.

At about the right time, I pull the cord attached to my backpack, and jerk upward from the sudden impact of the parachute hitting the wind. Now falling slowly and more safer, it’s calmer and I completely enjoy the view of the world from the atmosphere through my sunglasses. The break of dawn on the east horizon is glorious, and I silently whisper a prayer of thanks to God for this beautiful world.

I hear the distant sound of a buzzer, and  look for the source. The wind whispers in my ear, “Time to wake up….” and I sigh, knowing that it’s time to go back to the room I was currently dreaming in.

My twin brother Dan was being annoying like always, and poking me on the nose and practically screaming in my ear, “Wake up!” I groaned, and lifted my eyelids groggily, searching for the “snooze” button on my clock. “Go away, five more minutes,” I croaked not wanting to leave my dream. He hit me with his pillow and threatened to get ice cold water from the bathroom across the hall. “Okay, okay, just go away!”

He rolled his eyes, “Remember?! We’re going skydiving today!” it suddenly hit me, my dream was coming true, Dan was smiling and I joined him in the act. “Well come on then, get a move on,” I said getting up and walking toward my closet, and he ran out of the room and downstairs.

Our dad was a pilot who let off skydivers and parachuters, and he occasionally did it himself. He loved the sport as much as I dreamed about doing it – which was every night. Today he was taking Dan and I on our first skydiving adventure. And to add to the fun, he would drop with us instead of playing the role of pilot.

After getting changed into my comfiest jeans, I went downstairs, had some tasty Cheerios, and got in our silver Suburban. Dan was there searching through the songs on his iPod and singing horribly to one of them. I put my own ear buds in and waited.

Dad got in the car and we drove about half an hour just listening to music and talking about how thrilling it would be to fall so far. I remember my dad saying the most important thing that I would need to know for falling, especially that day, “Always make sure you know your parachute is with you, and you can easily pull the cord. Don’t ever let it get tangled.” I just thought, “Whatever,” and went on.

When we got to the mini-airport, we put our gear on and went to the quick safety class everyone had to always go to before diving through the sky. I zoned out most of the time, wondering if it would be anything like my dreams, while Dan was listening intently, bouncing up and down. I was still thinking, “Whatever, I could do it alone, I’ve done it a million times… in my dreams, but I’m smart enough.”

Finally getting on the plane, I began bouncing too, never being able to control my wide smile. “Oh my God, we’re really doing it Dave!” was the last thing I heard my look-alike brother say before the small plane took off and all I heard was the engine. We went higher and higher in the air, feeling my ears pop and my eyes widen at how far away the ground actually was. I saw fields, lots and lots of fields, and a random looking house and dirt road in the middle of it. “That’s strange,” I thought, but I totally forgot about it when the hatch in the floor started opening.

All I had to remember was to pull the red cord before I hit the ground right? That wasn’t too hard, but too simple really. My dad yelled “Good luck!” and grinned right before he dropped out of the hatch, looking completely helpless. I was after him, it was time.

I waited until he was definitely out of reach before jumping out, doing a flip. Dropping at first was beautiful, doing little tricks added to the fun, and taking in the breaking dawn was just as I imagined, except for the part where I pull the red cord and then get jerked up from the parachute. That never happened. A sudden panic was setting in. I couldn’t find the cord, which meant I was in deep trouble.

Falling past Dad made it worse, I almost hit his parachute, which meant I wasn’t too far from going splat. Then I found it, but the darn cord was tangled! I swore as I twisted and turned until I knew I was too close to the ground to save myself.

Suddenly something grabbed me and lurched me up forcing the air out of me with an “Oof.” I looked up and saw Dan. His parachute was up and I couldn’t believe he was strong enough to hold me. “Hold on Dave!” was all I heard him say before a sudden wind blew us forcefully.

Realizing we weren’t far at all from the ground, the wind blew us toward that random lot. “Oh, it’ll be nothing but a small house,” I prayed, but the closer we got, the bigger the building got – and the pool in the back. Elderly people were sitting in lawn chairs enjoying the early morning. Well, they would get quite a surprise.

One of them stood up and pointed at us, yelling, “Look, a flying pig!” loud enough that we could hear his weathered voice. He obviously couldn’t see very well, but it was still enough for all the others to believe him and scurry back inside. It was our chance, “Aim for the pool!” I screamed up, and he nodded.

And that’s exactly where we landed. The parachute ended perfectly flat in the backyard behind us. When I came up for air, dripping from the water, I hugged my brother until he started choking. “Oh, sorry,” I laughed, hitting him on the back, “You saved my life!” He looks half mad at me, “Yeah, pay more attention in the class next time and maybe you’ll learn.”  Then we both laughed the same laugh, and walked up the steps of the pool. “What happened anyway?” Dan asked, and I was wondering the same thing, and took off my unused backpack and showed him.

“Whoa,” was all he muttered before saying, “Didn’t you know you had an extra?!” and showed me a free dangling blue cord I’d failed to see before. My mouth just hung open and I slapped my hand on my forehead, and we both laughed. We laughed because we wanted to do this. We laughed because I was smart enough to actually listen to instructions. We laughed because I almost died. And lastly, we laughed because we landed in the backyard pool of a nursing home with a guy who thought we were a flying pig.