I was sitting in John’s lap when the moment of truth arrived. As the door swung open to reveal the abyss that awaited me, that tiny cabin was suddenly transformed into a howling wind tunnel that was being sucked inside out by the vortex that raged on the other side of those walls. In that moment, every last bit of confidence, which I had hitherto touted with such bravado, left my body…
For as long as I can remember I’d always wanted to jump out of a plane. This desire no doubt stemmed from my obsession with flying. As a kid I spent many an hour daydreaming about soaring through the air like superman, and just as much time throwing little plastic army-men attached to parachutes off the highest things I could find. As I aged, I sought-out experiences that would get me closer to this feeling. There was my trampoline phase. My cliff-jumping phase. Even a lucid dreaming phase. The idea there was to learn how to control my dreams so that I could fly all-over the place in the land of nod. My yearning to fly is also one of the things that saw my lifelong passion for skateboarding take off. As my shred-sled allowed me to get closer than ever before to that weightless feeling of flight. And while all these things are wonderful in their own right, nothing but the real experience was ever going to extinguish my desire to go skydiving. And so, on my 17th birthday, my parents and I headed off on our two-hour journey to the spot where I’d finally get to leap from a plane.
The address the sky-diving company provided led us to a large field in the outskirts of Bunbury. Other than the cow turds that littered this field, which was soon to serve as my landing zone, the only other landmark in sight was an enormous three-walled steel farm shed. Although, to call it a ‘farm shed’ is probably a bit reductive as it looked like this oversized construction served many functions. Some of the more obvious being a hay barn. Some sort of black-smith type workshop. A storage facility for a range of dirt bikes, four wheelers, and tractors. An airplane hangar for a little puddle jumper. And as it turned out, this farm shed was also the office of the ‘High-fly Skydiving’ company that my parents had paid an exorbitant fee to ensure that their thrill-seeking son was safely returned to earth. This is where we found the three men who made up the entirety of this organisation. Two instructors, and one pilot. They were, to put it lightly, the sort of rough-looking country blokes one finds in the rural pubs of outback Australia. Except to be fair, all three looked somewhat fitter than your average bar fly.
Upon arrival one of the instructors, John, greeted us and introduced me to, Susan, the other first-time skydiver. As John gave me and Susan a pre-flight rundown the other two men busily packed the parachutes, which at the time were still sprawled out on the hay-speckled floor of this farm shed. I distinctly remember one of the blokes shouting; “Hey John, there’s a rip in this chute” to which John replied, “ahh she be right mate, just chuck some tape on it”. I can’t say I really understood this comment. I knew it was just a joke done for mine and Susan’s benefit, but it made me wonder why these guys would want to make us first-time jumpers more on edge than we already were. Although, as arrogant as it may sound, at that point, I wasn’t scared. I was excited. After all, I’d been wanting to do this forever. Not only that but for years I’d been puffing-up my chest and confidently reassuring anyone who’d ask, “no way, I’m not scared of going sky-diving – besides, you only live once”. Looking back on it now, I find it rather cringey how often I used to utter the latter half of that statement. ‘You only live once’ – as if at 17-years-old I actually knew what I was talking about.
Once John had finished with the pre-flight instructions – the only one I remember being that I needed to cross my arms over my chest when he tapped me on the shoulder because that meant he was going to open the parachute – we hopped in our harnesses and jumped in the plane. The cabin of the plane was strangely similar to that of the farm shed. Not that it housed a bunch of unrelated objects, but rather that its interior was also littered with loose strands of hay. The only other notable features of that cramped space were the plane’s control panel and one seat for the pilot. And so, once me, Susan, John, and the other instructor, Paul, had piled into the back, to sit on the floor amongst the hay, the plane’s wheels began to rumble over the gravel runway.
After the excitement of a rather turbulent take-off, I found myself wondering why the inside of this plane was so damn empty. Did these guys also use this plane to cart drugs? Stripping every unnecessary part away to make more room for their smuggling operations… However, my musings were cut short, as preparations continued. Next on the agenda, Susan and I were to be harnessed to the front of our respective instructors in the same way that babies are sometimes mounted to their parent’s chests. I was strapped to John. And given that John was a six-foot-something bloke who looked like he’d been throwing hay bales his whole life, and I was a skinny five-foot-nothing teenager his big spoon dwarfed my little spoon in a way that made me feel like some helpless fawn in the clutches of a bear. Once my torso was securely fastened to John, legs and arms left to dangle somewhere in between his, we all eagerly waited for the plane to reach its desired height. John watched the dial on his altitude gage slowly climb, Susan and Paul chatted about God only knows what, and I tried to forget the fact that I was sitting in another man’s lap. Then the moment of truth arrived…
Staring out into that foreboding void sent all my arrogant claims about not being scared and all my hollow bullshit about ‘only living once’ flying out that plane’s door just as fast as those loose strands of hay. As I watched Susan and Paul eject from that aircraft, violently tumbling earth bound like a pair of conjoined ragdolls, my eyes began frantically searching for something I could cling to. That’s when I realised why the back of that plane was so damn empty – it was to thwart any last-minute changes of heart. In that moment, I wanted desperately to scream the words, “I don’t want to do this John!” but before I could, the bear had taken us both out the door.
As the earth, the sky, and the horizon took turns flashing in and out of my vision, my stomach tried to keep up with my body by doing as many summersaults as possible. Once we’d performed enough triple-twisting-double-layouts to endow me with a newfound sympathy for gymnasts, John finally decided to level us out, allowing my vision to rest on the terrain below. The freefall was all I’d hoped it would be. I was awe-struck. Falling from the sky hurled me into this hyper-focused state where all my sensory experience was ramped up to eleven. I was able to take-in so much of that moment all at once, while simultaneously having this serene sense of calmness wash over me in a way that saw time and my internal dialogue melt away. What I found particularly interesting about falling for an extended amount of time was that once we had levelled out, I was no longer aware of that feeling that pulls at the pit of your stomach when the ground falls out from under you. Since there was nothing around for context, it didn’t even feel like we were falling. Instead, it felt more like we were floating in a body of water. The only difference being that there was a remarkable force of wind roaring up at us from below. I later realised that that so called ‘wind’ was actually caused by us ripping through the air at ever increasing speeds. But for those brief weightless moments that’s not how it felt. In fact, the only obvious sign that we were falling, other than the rapidly approaching earth which still looked like it was ages away, was when I got a glance at John’s altitude gage as the dial on the thing was spinning backwards so fast that I thought it was going to break through its casing and fly away.
Then, I heard it. The unwanted noise that rudely yanked me out of my awe-stricken state. John, who I’d forgotten about, started screaming ‘woo hoo’ in the same way someone riding a mechanical bull at a country fair might do. Now as selfish as it may sound, the first thing I thought when I heard John’s howls of excitement, was; “I wish this cunt would shut the fuck up and just let me enjoy this”. But then I got self-conscious. I wondered if I should be screaming ‘woo hoo’ as well? Was that the appropriate response to have in this situation? Did John think I was awfully quiet for someone who was mid-way through a 15,000-foot freefall? And so, I’m ashamed to say, I folded under peer-pressure; letting off my own little ‘woo hoo’. Although I’m not sure whether John believed in its sincerity. Either way, a second later John tapped me on the shoulder as it was time to pull the parachute. As I crossed my arms over my chest, I thought to myself, “well if this chute doesn’t open, me and this big screaming bear are dead”. Which strangely enough I felt okay with at the time.
Once the chute deployed John let me play with the two handles that are used to steer the parachute. I careened us around in circles for a while as we drifted peacefully through the air; while John pointed out a few landmarks and the location of Susan and Paul who were floating somewhere beneath us. I nodded along as if I was interested, while trying to take-in the gravity of where I was and what had just happened. What I enjoyed about being carried through the air by that parachute was that I could see the world in a way I never had before. It was totally different from shrinking your view down to looking through the tiny window of a plane; instead, from this unobstructed vantage point the view of the world filled the entirety of my gaze. Eventually, it was time to hand the reins back to John who steered us back down to the turd-covered field where we made our somewhat inelegant landing. And in case you were wondering, no; we didn’t land in a pile of cow shit. Somehow, John managed to avoid them. But we did meet the earth with enough force that we both ended up skidding along the ground on our butts until we finally came to a halt in the same position we’d been 15,000-feet above – me securely ensconced in John’s lap.
Ha no brevity in gravity - made my coccyx hurt in just the reading - Welcome back to Planet Gaia phew!
Michael, sir, you had my attention through the entire story. Well crafted POV. Well spun. This was very good.