Fable: The Skydive
Writing Exercise #10
You may have noticed a pattern of getting a Fable the first Tuesday of each month! Here we are again.
If you have ideas for Prompts, Crunches, Sprints, Relays, Stretches, Fables, or other writing exercises in the future, please leave them in the comments! If you would like to write your own take for this exercise, please comment with a link so that I can see what you wrote and support your work, maybe even share your version with my subscribers. Please let me know if you have any thoughts, comments, or constructive criticisms as well!
Enjoy!
Fable: Caught On The Blind Side (#60)
A deer which was blind in one eye went to graze on the seashore, turning its good eye landwards, on the watch for the approach of hunters, and the injured eye to the sea, from which it did not expect any danger. But some men who came coasting inshore saw it and shot it down. As it was dying it thought: ‘Unlucky that I am! I was on my guard against the attack which I knew might come from the land, but the sea, from which I thought no danger threatened, has proved yet more deadly.’
Our expectations are often deceived. Things which we feared might do us hurt turn out to our advantage, and what we thought would save us proves our ruin.
“I’m not going to do it.” He said, the wind clawing at his face like a hungry beast.
“We’re already in the air buddy, there’s only one way down.”
“I’m never skydiving again.”
“Sure you’re not. We get that a lot.” There was a click, and a shove as the skydiving instructor hooked on to the man, and then leapt out of the plane.
There was a moment of weightlessness, sheer terror, that moment in a dream where you trip and fall, but it keeps going. He’s awake and the wind is rushing past his face, the blue sky and the sun staring down at the tropical paradise below.
Wow. Suddenly it all didn’t matter so much. The fear, the anxiety, the flight. The argument with his friends who persuaded him it would be fun. All of that, passed through him like wind through a screen—whipped away to hang eternally in the open air.
And almost as soon as it began, the instructor said, “Get ready, deploying ‘chute.”
There was a tug, a thwoomp as the rainbow colored parachute opened up above him; there was a click, and the instructor seemed to be getting farther away. He couldn’t hear the instructor shout.
The Harness. Never in all his nightmares did he expect the harness to be the thing that failed.
The tropical paradise was rushing towards him with alarming speed. In a moment of clarity—it all vanished. Suddenly it all didn’t matter so much.
“I’m never skydiving again.”
(250 words )
Talk to me!
Your feedback helps to improve my writing. I would really appreciate a comment on your thoughts on this writing exercise. Consider telling me your thoughts about:
Have you ever gone skydiving?
Do you ever have those dreams where you trip and fall but you wake up in bed?
If you were teleported instantly to a bar in a tropical paradise, what drink would you discover is in your hand?
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy! Come back next week for another writing exercise!
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Thank you and God bless!
2. I never trip in dreams but I regularly fall off cliffs or from other great heights. lol
1. Nope. Heights and I run in different circles.
2. Not exactly the same thing; a lot of times while I'm falling asleep, I'll have this sudden feeling of "tipping over". I instantly wake up and flail for a moment, before I realize I'm in bed.
3. The drink's not so important, but if its tropical, it HAS to be served in a coconut (a la Gilligan's Island).