Thursday, November 14, 2013

Jump!

At my new job I had to work nights, although I can't remember what it was that I did there, but I do know I carried around lots of cardboard boxes. My first night at work I realized I had forgotten my lunch, so I had nothing to eat when I took my break. There were a couple of dudes that I worked with who spoke Russian and they shared some of their food when they saw that I didn't have anything. It turns out they could speak English, too, although most of the time they spoke Russian and I had no idea what they were talking about.

From what I could make out, they were talking about a plane that they had sitting outside and they were going to go skydiving in the dark after work. It seemed the plan was that one of them would fly the plane while myself and the other dude jumped. They asked if I had ever jumped from a plane before and I said, "How do you think I got to work tonight?" They joked and thought I would scream like a girl if I jumped out of a plane, but said I would get a chance to prove myself later.

They laughed and I laughed too, and thanked them for the sandwich. I thought we were joking, but as soon as we clocked out after our shift they insisted that I follow them outside. They went back behind some trees and bushes and came out pushing a great big plane. They said they were not allowed to fly anymore after last time(?!!), so we would have to be quiet until we were ready to take off.

The other guy (who had a crazy grin and looked like Merle from The Walking Dead) who was going to be jumping threw a parachute at me and then started strapping on his own parachute, motioning for me to watch so I could put mine on. I put mine on, but when I was done, there were still a couple extra straps hanging loose from it. I held them up and asked how to put them on, but he just shrugged and climbed into the plane.

I was getting really cold feet about the whole thing and decided not to get in the plane. They were insistent and the dude with the parachute got out and grabbed onto one of the shoulder straps on my chute and started pulling me in. I decided to go along and watch, but no way was I going to jump.

The rickety old plane shuttered and shook and everything in it rattled. We taxied across the parking lot and then lifted off, brushing against tree branches as it started to climb.

It was really hot and muggy out and the side door of the plane was wide open letting in the humid air and thick exhaust. The plane circled the building where we worked as it climbed until it leveled off. We weren't very high up at all, but they said it couldn't go any higher.

The guy with the parachute stepped into the doorway and said that as soon as we jumped we would have to pull the rip cord right away since we didn't have any room to free fall. Well that was all the convincing I needed to decide that this wasn't happening for me. The guy flying the plane looked over his shoulder and saw that I wasn't going, so he turned the plane sharply to the right causing me to fall out of the doorway. I pulled the cord right away as I fell from the plane and I saw the other dude doing the same.

Our fall didn't last very long and in moments we were just clearing the trees, hoping to slow down enough before hitting the ground. He landed first and then I landed a couple seconds later and managed to stay on my feet. Right away, he began packing up the parachute and said that we had to leave before we got caught. I realized the plane was already on the ground(?!) and they were getting into their car to leave.

I drove home and found the driveway full of old broken down vans because people kept leaving their old discarded vans in our driveway every night.


There was more to this dream, but it was mostly about trying to figure out how to clear all the vans from the driveway and then a snowstorm came through while we were moving the vans.