He blinked several times, trying unsuccessfully to stop his eyes from watering. Wind rushed past his ears, drowning out the sound of his own screams of terror as he fell. And fell. And fell. Water collected on his icy flesh as he passed through the clouds. Now he could see the earth far below him, causing his screams to start once more. He spread his limbs wide like he saw those sky-divers do on T.V. to slow down. Anything to give him just a few more seconds of life.

He stopped screaming; it hurt his throat to much. The sky was dark and the moon rose high in the sky. Below him the cities glowed and he thought for a moment, just a brief amount of time, that this view below him, this view that would soon grow larger and larger until it flattened him, was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Peace then seemed to steal over him. It scared him just how easily he found peace within himself and the night and the cold and the wind. He noticed that the earth was much closer now than it had been a minute ago, but that did not matter to a man at peace.

Now that he had stopped worrying about his impending doom, he found himself thinking of things that he thought were just silly to think about at that point in time. Such as forgetting to put the dog outside. Then he wondered if he landed in the middle of the woods somewhere and they didn't find him for days, what would happen to his dog? What if his dog got a new owner that he loved even more than him? What if he got an owner that beat him? He turned his mind away from such depressing thoughts.

He noticed that the earth was closer than ever. He could even see the headlights of cars passing each other on the highways. He knew his death was now close at hand. He thought to himself then if the world would be any different without him in it. Would it stop? Would it mourn? Or would it just pass him by like a person passing a dead ant? He liked to think he made a difference, if only a small one.

The ground was now rushing toward him at a deadly speed. In the last few seconds of his conscious thought, he asked himself just what decides the significance of a death? And the more he thought about it, the more he thought he knew the answer. The significance, he thought, does not come from the death itself, but from the amount of lives you influenced with yours. The significance comes from their memories of you, and what they will tell their children.

He smiled then, even with the pavement within feet of his face. Let your life be a story, and make it a good one.