The raindrop that fell with a parachute

A RAINDROP that once lived on a cloud was very afraid of heights. “It makes no sense, as we will all fall on the ground one day”, the other raindrops told her to calm her down. In vain, however, as she couldn’t stomach it.

One nice autumn day, however, the cloud turned grey. Soon enough, the color changed further into black, and ferocious thunders came out of it. Our good raindrop froze out of her fear, as she realized the time for which the other teardrops had spoken to her about had come. She, then, thought of letting the others fall first, as they looked more courageous and a thick forest with tall trees and hard rocks was to be found just below the cloud. The fall would surely hurt. One after another, the raindrops standing right next to her plucked up courage and fell from the cloud. Yet she could only stare at them with wonder. When, at some point, the others took notice of her, one of them advised her: “As you ‘re quite clearly scared, why don’t you use a parachute?”

So, our good raindrop, who was so scared she could barely move her feet, searched all over the place for a parachute. When she finally found one, however, her fear was far from relieved. She kept making excuses, lying to the other raindrops about the instruction manual being too many pages to read on time.

A few minutes later, she saw the cloud heading towards the top of a snowy mountain. “Now is your time to save yourself! Jump!”, the other raindrops exclaimed and they all gave a big jump to save themselves from the crash. Our good raindrop then resigned herself to the idea that her time was over: she wore the parachute, plucked up as much courage as she could get, and gave a big jump.

A thousand meters above the ground, she made the first attempt to open the parachute. Much to her bad luck, however, the mechanism got stuck and the parachute wouldn’t open no matter how hard she tried. “It must be broken…”, she murmured to herself, and tried even harder, yet in vain. She, then, looked below, and saw a big, sharp rock standing right at the place where she would end up unless she changed something.

Halfway through, and about five hundred meters above the ground, she made a second attempt to open the parachute, which remained stuck. Helpless, she prayed and wished for a miracle.

And   then again at a hundred meters above the ground, she made the last attempt to open the parachute. “Is there no one that can help me?”, she whispered to herself, then closed her eyes so as not to see, certain that the moment she hit the rock would be her last before she dissolved.

When she opened them again, she realized she had instead fallen in a lake. She even found it hard to believe she was saved in such a way, as the last time she looked from above she only saw sharp rocks and pointy tress. She then swam to the surface of the water, where she saw an owl sitting on a tree branch.

“Your friends saved you, as they had the courage to fall before you”, she told her, and explained that the first raindrops formed a lake to save each other, and it was due to them that she was saved instead of the parachute.

“And now, how do I prove my courage back?”, the raindrop asked the owl, as she realized that lack of courage made no one successful, ever.

“It’s simple: you will wait for the Sun to come up”, he told her, then flew away. A couple of hours later, the Sun appeared, which turned all the raindrops into vapor and sent them back to the sky where they again formed a cloud. And so, the story goes…