It was a day of bright sunshine on snow, a day when I donned my thickest coat and warmest mittens to survive the heart-stopping cold.
The whole city gathered cheerfully to watch a large military parade. Everyone was down at the seafront, many ventured out on the ice. Children were throwing snowballs. People stomped their feet to keep warm, smiled with frost-bitten faces.
Then, time for what everyone was waiting for: The air show performed by a daring pilot in an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet. The aircraft thundered in. It danced above our heads for ten minutes or more, in and out of loops and dangerous-looking maneuvres. At times, it pointed its nose down and dived straight towards us with a threatening roar, then pulled up and showed us glowing jet exhausts, the noise increasing to a deafening thunder that had us covering our ears. Sometimes it blew past at an impossible speed, sometimes turned or rose so steeply that it seemed to almost come to a stop.
It was unbelievably impressive. And I was paralyzed with fear. This was exactly the nightmare that I often have. In that nightmare, I'm watching an aircraft circle above me, knowing that it will soon crash right where I'm standing, knowing that I have no chance of escape. And here I was, watching that very plane doing impossible maneuvres that surely would make it drop out of the sky. Watching an F/A-18 coming straight at me with terrifying speed. I remembered every video clip I had ever seen of fighter jets plowing straight into the ground, so fast the camera could barely keep up.
Time to face the fear, then. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there. But I wrapped my arms around myself, stood still and forced myself to watch. I can't say that I enjoyed it - but the adrenaline flooding my body surely spiced up the whole experience. I won't forget it.
I have not had the nightmare since then.
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