A little bit of anxiety, some excitement, an adrenaline rush, the antsy feeling of a hundred millipedes marching up and down his spine to a funeral tune, and a hundred others doing the salsa and lambada together in his stomach, etc., etc.
These were some of the vivid descriptions he was trying to form in his mind to describe his current situation but he felt that he had failed in this mission miserably.
There was a time for monstrous words and unparalleled eloquence, but this was not it.
He felt that this would probably be a time for him to pray; but being an atheist, he found himself on a side of the fence that he did not really care to be on with regard to religious beliefs.
He looked out through the tiny plastic window and found the cotton clouds zooming by him, unaware of his predicament, or the effect they were having on him and his psyche.
If there was anything else that existed in that small steel gray cabin, it did not matter to him. What mattered was that small red light that did not turn green, despite all his best efforts at mentally willing it to change.
Telekinesis, it seemed was not made for him.
Wanting to break the hypnotic effect of the small red light, he looked around that cabin one more time and caught the eye of his best friend standing behind him; and immediately he wished that he hadn’t.
That languid grin, half jeering, half encouraging from a man who was accustomed to such vagaries of life did nothing to increase his confidence.
He gave a weak nod, and a watery soupy smile, the kind you give your dentist when you see the drill in his hand and you wish you were a few hundred longitudes eastwards.
He got a thumbs-up sign in return. “What bloody good is that?”, he thought.
And suddenly, without warning, within a few milliseconds, the atmosphere changed. Some sixth sense, or a highly improved sense of survival told him that the light was now green. He did not want to look, but he did. It was his death knell, he thought and rightly so.
The light was now a sickeningly lime green color, one that Halloween would be proud of.
Muscles tensed, knees together, he stepped out of the door into thin air and he was gone. Just another parachute jumper, making another jump again.
Only the guns, bombs and detonators strapped to his back told him he may never get the chance to fly again.
The war was still on and he was just another soldier…..
Aigis Nalian 