It’s Thorny Thursday, and here’s my contribution — a bit of a high flyer!

“I’m Jill,” she had told me. “I pack the parachutes.”

It had been my first meeting of the local parachute club. Derek had encouraged me to come to that meeting.

“You’re too timid, Jeff,” he had said.

“So jumping out of an airplane that’s functioning properly is brave?” I had asked. “It certainly doesn’t sound intelligent. Besides—”

“You’re not going to let that stop you,” Derek had said.

“Well, I—,” I had replied.

Derek had just laughed and clucked like a chicken.

And so I had attended the next meeting of the club. Jill was stacked—everything a woman should have in all the right places—but something about her was familiar. There was a brief reading of the minutes from the last meeting, a short discussion of upcoming activities, and then I had followed Jill and the other members into the airplane.

“Here’s your ’chute,” Jill had said.

I had just nodded as she helped me get it on.

“Pull this cord—it’s the main cord—after counting to five,” she had told me. “If by some chance that doesn’t work, pull this other cord—the backup.”

“Count to five, pull this cord and pull this other one if the main doesn’t work,” I had repeated.

Jill had grinned. I could see amusement in that smile and something else—but I wasn’t sure what that something was. I was too scared and too aware that she looked familiar.

“We’re over the jump area,” Derek had announced a short time later, smiling at me and winking at Jill.

He had jumped first, then the others except Jill. She had waited for me, taking hold of my hand. We had jumped together and for a few sickening moments we had plummeted toward Earth at a mind-numbing one hundred and twenty miles per hour. Then she had let go of my hand and pulled her main cord. Her ’chute had opened and she had floated away, her descent slowing.

I pulled my main cord. Nothing happened. I pulled the backup cord. Again nothing happened. Suddenly I realized what the unknown element I had seen in that grin was—hate.

My mind feverishly went through something I had heard. “Jill—Jill—was that her name?” I thought while facing certain death. “Yes—Barbara’s sister—Jill.” She hadn’t come to Barbara’s funeral. It had been closed casket. Barbara had jumped from an airplane without a chute. Suicide. We had broken up the week before.

“Jiiiiiiiiiillllllll!” I yelled in the air. “It wasn’t my fault!”

Just before I hit the ground, I could swear I heard Jill laugh.

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And greetings to fellow Thornies:

@DONN'S WYKKYD AMBITIONS

@Marco

@David Ellison

@Saumya Sharma

@Mallory