Chin Strap

He was thinking before he jumped out the door of the plane that the chin strap was too big for his face.  He thought it was going to get in the way of his mouth as he tried to scream because he assumed he would be screaming.  Then in the back of his mind he also thought if he was going to die he would want at least to be able to scream and so it made him uncomfortable to be restricted this way.  AND he hated that he was having these thoughts when he really wanted to focus on the experience of sky-diving.  Thinking about why they put a hood over the head of the man about to be hanged and how if HE was going to be hanged and that if this was going to be his last seconds of seeing the world he would want them to last as long as possible.  Putting the hood over his head would effectively being saying "That's it!  Nothing left for you to see now!"  Or the man made to sit in the electric chair or lay down on the bed for lethal injection.  In that moment, KNOWING death was imminent you're basically saying "well legs, I guess that's it!  Not going to be doing anymore walking from here on out!  Your job is done."  So this chin strap!  This may be it for me.  I'm jumping out the plane and this strap is blocking my breathing.  And why am I thinking about this and not what I'm doing.  Am I going to be able to think about the scenery or the feeling of the wind rushing through my body as I drop to the earth?  I need to get in the moment and all I'm thinking about is the chin strap and lethal injection.  Who are these people that are just able to set aside everything that could go wrong and the million things that we all think and worry about on a day-to-day basis and just focus in the moment on the task at hand?  The hitter in a pressure filled ball game, his team down by a run in the ninth inning and needing a big hit; the heart surgeon preparing to crack the chest of an infant with a heart defect, standing literally between a BABY and certain death; even the passenger on a burning crashed airplane whose very survival depends on his ability to stand up and push people aside and be the ONE who gets away.  Where does it come from, that focus, that drive?  Do some of us have it and some of us not?  Can you get it if you don't have it and can you lose it if you do?  The strap dug into his neck and his lower lip.  He looked at the man standing behind him, the man that had walked him through the sky-diving procedures all morning, the safety checks, the amusing anecdotes about pant-shitting and flying false teeth, the predictions of how long it will feel like it lasts and then how short, and the assurances of how unlikely an accident was--and yet they always say "in the event of a water landing."  In the event that the plane LANDS in the WATER.  "In the unlikely event that your 'chute fails to open..."  The guy's smiling giving him the thumbs up.  He points to his chin trying to sign-language his discomfort.  He wants to fix it.  He wants it to be fixed.  He wants it to be perfect.  The guy - his name is Geoff (of Geoff's Jet Excursions) - is approaching him, smiling.  He's going to fix it.  But when Geoff gets to him he just turns him around and pushes, slightly but firmly enough to send him out the door.  He feels a jerk - a yank - and then black.