A tale of an Ostrich turning into Pelican

It sounded like the war chants of the Norse gods in Valhalla. The wind swept through the ears and reverberated the cerebral tissues like a symphony of Beethoven. Life suddenly seemed surreal.

Yes, it was the experience after the sortie from the underbelly of an aircraft. The day was clear. It was not a day supposedly at the Le Mans for an endurance test. It was a day to just fly like that apple which fell on Newton’s head (read Isaac not Becki), except that I was at the mercy of a Savior who would defeat the fourth horseman of the apocalypse by deploying the chute. For those mere mortals: it was a day of Sky Diving. And yes I’ve Acrophobia.

50 seconds of free fall felt like that FTP connection lingering without being able to get through to port 21. The compression ratio of the heart had to be within the threshold limits. The chute was still not deployed; my prayers to those gods of wars and love was from the newest testament out in Beverly hills bookstore; love thy neighbor’s chute skills. Earth from 13000 feet looked like Hitler’s moustache which slowly turned into Stalin’s stature and then Churchill’s belly as I descended with gravity pulling me down.

My tandem jump instructor yelled “банан банан”. I felt I had forgotten everything mama had taught me singing lullabies. Little did I know that he is descendant of the Cossacks and банан meant banana in Russian. To perform this shape when skydiving, arch head up and your feet back to make the shape of a banana.

I must have said Grace before my dinner some day during spring ’08 and the chute deployed alright. The glide after the chute opened was like how the leaves wither from the trees during fall season, an experience I did not want to end unlike the FTP linger before. The 5 minutes assisted fall ended with a landing a la the “Great White Egret”. I thanked god a gazillion times for inventing the parachute forgetting that I should actually thank HIM (or HER for the feminists out there) for blessing me with 150$ to pay for the battle of the Spartan.

Was I scared? Hell yes. Do I still have Acrophobia? Of course (My insurance does not cover psychiatrist). Would I do it again? Swear on Olympus; I would definitely.