A Near to Death Experience
Am I imaging things or does every comedian who’s been skydiving have a bit about skydiving? I can guess the impulse to write about this. A strong fear of death fuels the desire for comedic catharsis. Emotional intensity fuels laughter. Anger, sadness, anxiety, discomfort – all fertile ground for humorous release. But what’s more powerful than fear of death?
Yet from observation, skydiving jokes rarely land well. There’s no possibility for a surprise ending. You’re telling the story, so obviously you didn’t die.
What is skydiving if not an intentionally failed suicide attempt? A disrespectful, sick burn on mortality. I went and did mine on February 2, otherwise known as the dumbest day of the year (二二). I did it in Thailand, where the tyranny of modern safety regulations has not yet placed its jackboot. My wife of almost ten years raved about how much she’d enjoyed going years earlier with her ex-boyfriend, who was in the Navy.
A functional human brain is hardwired to react to falling from a high place. It’s part of our evolutionary inheritance from cavemen falling off cliffs throughout the years. Yet humans got soft and became settled in our existence. Common sense says life will end, but the heart refuses to follow. So, we pay (likely) drug addicted and depressed young men, young men who skydive all day long, take hundreds of people on this journey every month, young men who are so hungover on adrenaline they can barely achieve a normal level of daily functioning, WE pay THEM to strap us together and abort this thrilling “rounding-third-base” make out session with death before it goes too far.
***
The plane is perfect for the third page headline of a second-grade Thai newspaper. “9 Killed in Skydiving Accident in [Province name with consonants in the all the wrong places]”. I can see the locals reading about it now, rolling their eyes. “Foreigners…” they say to each other; no other explanation being needed. It’s not a tragedy, it’s simple evolution. You dance too close to the fire, you’re gonna get burned.
I’ll undertake some mild speculation. The pilot is probably fleeing a roiling familial conflict back in Australia. After all these years, he’s still here in Southeast Asia. His parents quickly skip over him and move onto to his brother when telling people about their children. The rest of the crew are a group of guys too slick for comfort. They are overly optimistic and good natured about our grim task. Four cord pullers, each strapped to their respective tourist.
My wife is as cheerful as a bunny. She’s wearing the big smiles and enthusiasm of a camp counselor at a relay race. She’s sharing a harness with Troy, a guy who clearly works out a lot. Meanwhile I am strapped to Luca, the Polish leader of this motley crew of Thailand expats. He decides early on it’s best to tell me information on a need to know basis.
The first three tandems jump, my wife letting out a gleeful squeal as she disappears out the door. It’s now just the pilot, Luca and I in the plane. At this moment I learn one of the most fundamental bedrock truths of this world: men will go to unthinkable lengths to not look stupid in front of their wives…
We jump. Or rather, Luca jumps and I am strapped to him. I remember the clarity of one thought – this is what it will feel like to die one day.
In an absurdity indicative of real truth, I am falling through the air strapped to a Polish man, praying to the God of Foxholes that the lady back at base camp didn’t fill Luca’s backpack with pots and pans instead of a properly folded chute.
He pulls the chord, the shoot opens, and it becomes very quiet. In that moment God revealed to me that he is, in fact, a Polish man. Beyond the pearly gates he is waiting for us, chilled glass of Zubrowka in hand, speaking calmly in the systematic speech of a Lodz-based process engineer. He wanted to show me the most beautiful sunset I’d ever seen, his words were slow and comforting.
Back down on solid ground, I went to the tour bus disoriented and shaking, like a kid who fell off the back of a hayride. We pull into town an hour later. I’m craving something pink and rum-based, preferably that has a tiny umbrella.
***
As of this sentence I’m still alive. There’s no possibility of a surprise ending, unless you consider skydiving a direct window into reality.
I’m still falling and it’s hard to tell just how far away the ground is. Maybe fifty years? Maybe five? I forget that I’m falling, I thought I was holding onto to something solid – a job, an identity, a house, a family, health, dry ground. In fact, I barely comprehend my position in this universe. I’m on a floating mass of rock, water, and gases, suspended in a black mystery dumbly named “space” because we’re not sure if there’s anything out there or if it’s just empty.
I don’t believe in the concept of a ‘non-religious person’ because we’re all strapped to something. Luca is your religion. God, I hope there’s a parachute in this backpack.
See you at the punchline.