Other stories for this prompt

It had to be the bumblebee parachute. I wanted one with Hello Kitty on it but Al said no. Black and yellow clashed with the sky. That was important.

Good choice, given the photograph above. Man, I thought Lady Liberty's presence was so commanding that she'd always be the focal point. Not true. It's me and Al in our parachutes.

Yep. We landed on Liberty Island and there's a whole throng of well-wishers around us. Someone asks if someone watched that old David Copperfield special where he made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Nuh uh. That was a long time...

Wow. The Statue of Liberty. I've lived in New York my whole life, and have personally seen it one time, and it's on my I heart NY credit card, of course. I played the Statue of Liberty once in a 5th grade play about America. I was "Miss Libby" and I sang about inflation. "The Red White and Blues" my song was called. I was 11. I wasn't a very great singer, but my teacher had great faith in me, as did my mother. There's a VHS tape of it somewhere, I do know that. Only once, though, have I...

He could remember the first time he saw that statue. It was one of those things you simply never forgot, like a first kiss. He remembered the first time he saw that statue, smiling majestically down at him from its pedestal, Lady Liberty welcoming him to the country, letting his heart swell up with a strange, newfound pride. He supposed it was the moment he'd become American, even before the papers had been stamped and Ellis Island had given him and his father the okay. It was certainly the first moment he'd felt American.

He'd gripped the banister of the...

We are falling, steady. We are falling a little bit. We are falling into a mass dream, an illusion that is as good as reality for now. We are falling so slowly, so gently that it feels like we are floating. We are together and we are kidding ourselves. But it is noble and good and we are falling. What reality is greater than this? What is it we are here for? We are this: we are weight: we are what makes it possible to fall.

We are falling and it is enough.

“We were thrown overboard, casted onto the waters left to our demise! They captured us, tortured our very souls mercilessly with wicked demands! ”

“No, I saw you guys, you had parachutes, and falling in the water were totally your own fault.”

“But we were held hostage, left in a God-forsaken tower all tied up with (mostly) nothing to eat or drink! Only when rays of the forgotten sun poked through the crevices of the sturdy wooden door, were we forcefully fed with the remains of frogs and sour wine!”

“Oh, you mean the balcony? Isn’t access to the torch...

"Aim for the torch."

"I'm trying!"

"We're gonna miss it."

"I know! I said I'm trying!"

"Ok, forget the torch. Try to land on, uh, her shoulder or something."

"The wind's too strong."

"How about her feet? The balcony? The plaza? ...The field?"

"This isn't my fault. No matter what happens, this isn't my fault."

"We're going to end up in the ocean, aren't we?"

"Probably. No, wait! I could just... Hmm. Yep. We're gonna land in the ocean."

"I don't like the ocean. It's wet."

"Shut up and deal with it."

"Plus all the cash in my wallet is...