Falling

Three words that I never wanted to hear. Three words, which the pilot of our plane is now loudly yelling for me to hear. Three words: we’ve been hit!

It had started out as a routine mission; fly our plane over the target and then drop the bombs and fly back to camp. It had all gone wrong, though, on our way back to camp. Enemy planes started flying towards us and the next thing I know the pilot is yelling, our plane is falling though the air and I am trying to escape.

I am finally out of the plane, but I don’t see James or Mac, who had also been in the plane, anywhere. I realized that they hadn’t been able to get out; two more of my friends were now dead.

I tried in vain to get my parachute to open, but it refused to comply. My life started to flash before my eyes as I freefell towards the ground.

I thought of my family, my friends and even the people that I had killed during a mission. I thought of my wife and my daughter, who were never going to see me again. I also thought of my friends from back home and my friends who I flew with. I thought of the countless others who had died from our camp and the thousands more who would die in this war. I thought of the men who had gone crazy from what they had seen in this war and the men who killed themselves because of it. I thought of the many people who had died from the bombs that I had dropped and the people who had survived the attacks. I imagined how they must have felt to know that they were alive and their loved ones weren’t.

I remembered all the good times I had spent with my wife before the war. All the fun I had with college buddies and the happiness I felt with my family. I remembered the time that I broke my arm as a kid and my first kiss. I remembered when my wife and I got married and then when my daughter was born. It saddened me that I would never return to them.

As I fell closer and closer to the ground I tried my parachute again, but it still wouldn’t open. Soon, I could distinguish the different colors of the land and I could almost feel the tops of the tallest trees.

I closed my eyes and waited for the impact and then the endless darkness that would soon follow. I closed my eyes with a smile upon my face as my body shattered against the cold October ground.