Just Typical

Prompt: 'Well this bad,' David thought as he catapulted through the air toward the ground. His rip cord failed. And the backup. Oh bother.

‘Well this bad,’ David thought as he catapulted through the air toward the ground. 

His rip cord failed. 

And the backup. 

Oh bother.

You know, for a cynic with depression, these all seemed too perfect. Of course the second he stepped out of the airplane there was no other way for his life to end. Whoosh, splat, curtain. 

“Let’s go skydiving,” Jean had said, “It’ll be fun,” she had claimed. “It’ll get your mind off the breakup.” You know, impacting the ground at terminal velocity from 10,000 was probably going to take his mind off Kelly dumping his ass. Bet she’d feel real bad when she found out he died trying to get over her. Showed her he thought with some grim satisfaction—half a second before he noticed Jean falling not too far away, gesturing to pull the cord. 

He held it out in front of him and shrugged. 

Bummer. Jean’s impending guilt over his death was really ruining his schadenfreude. A second later, amidst the roar of the wind and a particularly spectacular view, Jean slammed into him like a bullet, knocking the wind from his lungs. “Gotcha!” she yelled.

Except she didn’t. Even as she tried to wrap herself around him, David just kinda, limply flopped loose. His fault, he supposed. That’s what Kelly had always told him. “Your misery is of your own making,” she’d always say. 

The ground was rushing toward them with alarming velocity and of course, David was still thinking about his ex-girlfriend. His last thought was going to be about how right his ex-girlfriend was. What a depressing thought. As he closed his eyes to accept his inevitable fate Jean crashed into him like a meteor, wrapped her legs around him, and gripped him like a constrictor with a vendetta. She pulled her ripcord and a beautiful parachute opened above them. 

David sighed. He was saved.