FFP#8 – The Paratroopers
He doesn’t come from the sky. He comes from under my bed.
He falls up, his parachute exploding behind him, one arm pressed against the ceiling.
He falls toward the window and holds his hands out to me. I don’t want to touch him, this stranger who crashes about my room like a heavy kite spiraling out of control. He smashes through the window pane and disappears.
My hair stands on end. My stomach turns. A parachute bursts from my shoulder blades. Now I’m falling too. I grab at sheets, at curtains. No use.
Through the window I go.
I fall up and up. Soon I’ll touch the moon!
But then —
My head hits wood.
And there I am, falling up from beneath a different strange man’s bed.
He smiles, his eye squinting in welcome and surprise.
My head hits the windowpane. I extend a hand and he grabs it.
His turn.
Together, we launch through another window, shards of glass cutting our exposed skin, the cold night wind drying the tiny beads of blood on our faces.
Up we go.
There are thousands of us in this darkened sky, falling, flailing, flying. Moving so fast we can’t catch our breath, moving so slowly we get nowhere.
We pump our fingers in the air, a silent code to God, S.O.S. S.O.S. S.O.S.
Tags: flash fiction project
Uncategorized | 
February 15, 2010 1:28 am
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