30 Seconds to the Ground — James W. Nelson

My one and only skydive was/is called a four-second-delay parachute jump. Not quite as dramatic-sounding as a skydive, but plenty dramatic when one is crawling out under that wing in ninety-knot wind, hanging on for a second or two, and then-yes, right-letting go. There's no choice. You "have" to let go because-once you're out there-I'm pretty sure there's no getting back into that plane, no matter how much you would want to. Anyway, your parachute ripcord is attached to the plane itself on about a twenty-foot lanyard. If everything is right your ripcord will be pulled automatically in about four seconds. In the meantime-after "letting go"-most first-timers black out until the shock of the chute opening wakes them up. (That's what happened to me. I remember waking up and seeing that chute OPEN!)In this short fictional story everything is "not" right. The twenty-foot lanyard trails out but does not pull the ripcord. The fictional character, Rod Skokum, from 3000 feet-where all first-timers begin-will reach the ground in about 30 seconds.