#39

Blue, grey, purple clouds with rippled tops and smooth bottoms threatening to intrude. Creeping closer despite the wind. A man walks along the hill, carrying a big backpack, glancing around, searching for something, looking up and around, testing the air. When he is satisfied he sets the backpack down on the green hillside and pulls out a yellow mass. Colorful rope. A harness. He lays the parasail out and it quivers in the gusts of wind, a beast anxious with purpose. Strapped in, he tugs at it, encouraging it, and in a swift movement, pulls it alive. He skitters on his toes and dances, the muscles of his arms taut for the strain of the ropes. The yellow taunting a defiance to a menacing sky. A rogue gust crumples the chute from the side and it crashes to the ground in a heap. He spreads it out again carefully and it quivers, ready for the next try.