Parachute

• Toby Grice, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2015

Falling. The air is rushing past my face. That wonderful feeling of exhilaration. I gaze at the beautiful Australian landscape spread out before me like a painting and wonder how I ever lived without it. I pull the cord on my parachute, waiting for that familiar fumph and the reassuring jerk that comes with stopping. But it doesn’t come. I’m already starting to lose control by now; I’m spinning faster and faster around. I desperately reach for the emergency cord, but the anti-gravity is stopping me from doing so and I can’t quite get to it. My vision starts turning red as all the blood rushes to my head. The world is spinning closer and closer; I’m almost there now. And then everything goes black. ? Lying on the ground, I knew I was dead. It felt like I was watching myself from a distance, unable to control my body while still being in it. Just as I was starting to wonder if this is what death is like and I’d be like this for all eternity, the memories came. At first they were all bad. I saw myself when I was little, being bullied by the kids at school and taking it out on my parents. I saw myself screaming and yelling at my little sister. I saw myself when I was older, needlessly and cruelly firing people at work. I felt hate, greed, resentment- but most of all, guilt. So I fought back. I saw myself making up with my parents, giving my sister a hug. I saw myself standing up to the bullies and apologising to all the people I’d fired or rejected at a job interview. I felt happiness, compassion, forgiveness, and love. I realised just how special life was… and then I woke up.
?Epilogue:?
It wasn’t a dream. After I woke up in the middle of a field with a parachute bag in my back, I wasn’t able to move. I had to lie there for 3-4 hours until the search party finally found me and took me to hospital. There I made a miraculous recovery and in two weeks I was back on my feet and going to work. The doctors said it was a miracle I survived; I fell from 10, 000 feet. Apparently the parachute bag cushioned my fall. But I don’t think so. I think it was something else… ?