Crisis of Middle Age

He first jumped a parachute at the age of 39.
Something then in a friendly company suddenly turned out that most of the interlocutors in their youth were engaged in the parachute section, who did one, and who - three jumps. I thought, “I dreamed of jumping with a parachute when I was a child. If not now, then when?”
I learned that there is an airport in the Egoryevsky district, which organizes jumps for those who want to do so on weekends. I came to this costume. This pleasure was worth four hundred rubles then.
I thought once and enough. But it did not happen. He was very scared this first time.
Here I am sitting in the plane on a hard metal bench. Under the feet is a reliable floor. You just have to go out nowhere.
Luke is open. And I see there far below the earth, lines of roads, machines - like ants, the forest - like grass, and people can not be seen at all.
And you have to get out of such a beautiful reliable plane just to this very nowhere.
The knees did not tremble. The fear was in the area of the stomach. It is unimaginable! Never previously tried. When he refused to fill his grandfather’s bed in the army, he was less afraid. In fact, it was far more dangerous to health.
And now, I look into that open lookout, and I know that I will refuse to jump now. No one will push me out.
Go back to the airport in the plane.
There are such cases.
Nothing special.
Money will not be returned to me. We were warned about it. Fuck them!
And here I am in this airplane almost decided that I will not jump, but remain sitting on this beautiful bench, grabbed in it with the fingers whitened from tension, and wonderfully so I will sit until the very landing, when the airplane, jumping on the cushions, will ride on the ground runway, and will turn, and the pilots will go out of the cabin to the salon, open my lounge, kick off the railway, miss forward, and the technician will give me a hand, and I will not accept this help, but I will jump out, crossing the railway, on such a wonderful ground, and I will be indifferent - what the pilots, instructors, parachutists say and think about me, because I will sit in the car and be comfortable, and no one will be able to get me here again
Except for myself.
Because I know that there, on the ground, I will swear to myself that I have not jumped. I will look into the sky, which was so close, and I did not take this opportunity to step into this sky.
I will come here again. But next time it will be harder to overcome the fear. Because the road back in the plane I will now wipe out.
That’s how I thought, fascinated looking into the open lounge, and waiting for the team of the issuer.
And in the first round he threw out a truck with a parachute to see where he would take it.
On the second – released a “shooting” parachutist, who is also a “primo”, but has already made several jumps.
I was trembling of fear all that time.
And only then he commanded, “First five to prepare!”
We stood up.
I went second.
He blinked his eyes to the back of the first, so that he could see nothing more, and fell right behind him.
But the instructor, holding his hand in my chest, held me.
He looked out first, his parachute opened, and only then said to me:
I went!
I ticked my hand toward the open hole behind which there was nothing, and asked:
There there?
He laughed and sneered.
In fact, we were instructed half a day before.
The first men came in and came in. There was no rise. Waiting for the wind to cease.
And from time to time the one, the other instructor gathered all, and told, what and how.
How to go out.
You need to press your hands to the chest, take a step, and compress your legs together.
How to open a parachute.
The dome should be flat and round.
And what to do if his stroke crosses.
In which cases to open a reserve.
How to open it.
How to control the situation during the descent. Not to collide with another parachutist.
How to run a parachute.
How to land.
How to collect a parachute.
They were repeated. But we all listened carefully.

One guy, I remember, asked the female instructor:
What if you forget something?
She shrugged her hand:
There is enough time. You will remember!
Would something suddenly happen?! to
She reassured me:
Nothing ever happens...

And now, in the plane, I asked:
There there?! to
The publisher laughed and sneered.
Breaking his mouth in a silent cry, melting his legs and hands, he fell out of the boat. The flow of air turned so that before my eyes incredibly quickly flashed the field of the airfield, the sky, the forest, the flying plane, again the forest and again the sky.
If I pressed my hands to my chest at the exit and pressed my legs together, I would fall exactly like a drop. And I was scattered. Here is the turn.
I was able to think, “Yoooo... How can I manage something...”
And then I felt the cotton of the opened parachute, and almost immediately the slopes of the suspension system crashed into the perineum.
It was not very comfortable. But it was a support. It was no longer scary.
The engine of the aircraft was removed.
The space that opened up to me was deaf.
I remembered the word “eye” in one of the books. That is, what goes into the eye. What you can look at. This eye was incredibly spacious. The sky was near and around me, and a little lower. It seemed even noticeable that the earth was round.
I turned my head to see more and remember everything.
Because I wasn’t going to climb a parachute into the plane again and feel my stomach shrinking from terrible fear.
I wanted to sing, or just scream. It is normal. Many are so.
Meanwhile, the earth was approaching.
Here I realized that I have long since been downstairs in the megaphone:
The second in the first five. The right side!
I was the second in the top five. And it was I had to pull the right control bean to unfold facing the wind for a softer landing.
In general, it is preferable that the primers always immediately turn face to face with the wind, so that they are less carried away. I may tell you about it later. And as he once wandered and did not listen to commands from the ground.
Now I pulled my right, turned to the wind.
The instructor cried again:
The second in the first five. feet to land.
It is I have to move my legs together, and slightly bend them in my knees.
I followed the team, and I looked down.
The earth is getting closer and faster! And even faster! and more!!
I only had time to think:
and fucking! She is fucking on my feet now!
And she really, she was fucking on her feet! (Hmm... do not replace “fuck” with “shoot” and “fuck” need to come up with what to replace to be as short and emotional)
I fell down. The dome didn’t have to be extinguished – it fell down by itself.
And here I lie on my back, spreading my arms and legs.
I am so good!
So well...
I thought they were looking at me from the plane. They watch before landing and after landing. And my current posture, when I lie down with my legs and hands spread out, means I need help. I jumped up and smoothed the plane with my hand. It should have been done immediately.
Then he assembled the parachute with a "cock", as taught in the instruction, and went to hand it over.
And I remembered here!
I remembered that I went out wrong. I turned around because of that.
After opening the parachute, he did not examine the dome.
That, descending under the dome, did not look - where are the other parachutists, and if there is a dangerous approach to them.
What I didn’t look down, I didn’t go down to another dome. (Al it was in the top five, but I should have seen it anyway.)
At first, I did not hear the command from the ground.
Everything was wrong, and it had to be changed.
In the next two months, he made 14 jumps. Somewhere on the sixth I noticed that there was no fear anymore, and the only thought was to do everything right – and out, and down, and landing. Then, he abandoned this case, but ten years later carried his son there and jumped with him for the company.
Go out on the stream and I can now.