Oh, The Downward Fall

Oh, to liken life and living to a person who exits a parachutist’s plane at birth. So high, he did not see the earth below. He exited the plane – his ripcord to his mother severed. Hence he fell, not seeing the danger of the earth below… his ultimate landing. So high above the earth he started his descent downward. He thought to himself, ‘No need to open his parachute at such a high place… ‘ for there is no threat… no calamity will befall me – not in my youth. He barely noticed that the speed of his decent quickened… at first, his freefall carried him through the cheery, wispy cirrus clouds of youth… then, as he fell further, the darkened cumulous of adulthood intermittently rose as behemoths, the torrential winds and lightnings flashed around him. Alone he was, but yet – off to his side, he had seen another all along… though he did not admit it… his conscience revealed a man who matched his speed and offered an outstretched hand… smiling, the man beckoned him to take it. Take it? No, he thought. Perhaps I should dispatch my chute now, he thought, amidst the torrent, but what would happen? Once I deployed my chute what would happen next? No, he reasoned, that would slow his pace through the threatening clouds and he wanted to run. And to languish there he would risk death by electrocution or find himself blown into some mountaintop. No, he decided to continue his fall believing he’d deploy his chute when the threat became real… when the earthward span of his freefall would come to its end. He knew it would. He knew it all along. No, he’d open his chute then – later, and as to that hand that he saw offered, no, he’d wait, not quite yet, if at all. Thus, he continued in his descent – downward… ever downward – as he entered the gray of the low-lying horizon and saw the white of the frigid snow – coming closer and closer. Now, it was time, he thought to himself… he would open his chute and land softly, but sadly, the chute that he thought he carried on his back was merely the accumulative weight of his sin. Frantically, he looked to see the outstretched hand of his companion, but he was not there.