The Eleventh Hour

Before I die, I always dreamt of skydiving. Yet, minutes turned to hours, hours to days, and days to years—I still never get around pursuing that one desire I thought could complete me as a whole. Now, I’m a balding middle-aged man with grey hair and wrinkled face, who has spent his entire life shying away from everything, buried in the pitiful piles of life’s rubbish dramas, suddenly I wake up to find out my last breath won’t last more than an hour; if I had committed a fraction of a second and tried it, at least that adventure could spice the quiet story of my life, a small legacy worth mentioning in my eulogy, something I could leave behind to be remembered by. Sadly, the dark day we all fear is here now, leering into my weary eyes on the eleventh hour, the final flight for departure. Before I give in to the inevitable nightfall, today, on this eleventh hour, I’m going to live freely, free-falling from the sky.

The end is quickly closing on me, and that is quite unfortunate. I feel like I am dancing between a shark’s jaws. I am not scared of death, only dying without any purpose; that my friend is such a miserable and terrible feeling any person should ever feel on their last day on earth. When I die, I want to smile not cry; I already cried the day I came to this world. The tears I shed then should bathe all the fears that lie beyond.

Now, I am going to pack the one gear at my disposal, my courage. I am going to touch the shooting stars and glistening moon, and then jump off from the vast open sky. By the time I hit the ground, I won’t feel any pain, but I can at least say that I fulfilled my dream. When the sinister knight comes riding a horse, dressed in a white wardrobe, holding a razor-sharp sword, I will meet it clinging to my happy sword tightly, smiling fearlessly before I lay down my head on the dirty.

For realizing my fantasy, I can let my heart pulsate. Finally, I will take a deep breath and let go of everything, inhaling the breezy Autumn air, as I close my eyes before the darkness turns off the lights forever, whispering “Goodnight, and sleep tight,” into my deaf ears.