O:JA&L Flash Fiction
Sandeep Kumar
A Bride
There are dresses woven with lace, with pearls, with ribbons—and then there is the dress Sandy wears, stitched not just with silk but with salvation, sorrow, and the threads of a war that refuses to loosen its grip.
Her wedding gown, a whisper of white, is made from the very parachute that saved her groom’s life. A paradox in fabric—a relic of descent repurposed for a day of ascent. The hem drags like a ghost behind her as she steps into the chapel, the train billowing like the canopy that once unfurled above the French countryside, bearing Lieutenant James Foster safely from a sky on fire.
“Falling and rising, rising and falling,” she murmurs as she fingers the gown’s delicate seams, the weight of memory heavier than the silk itself.
James’ survival is an anecdote often recounted but never fully spoken—a story told in fragments, in half-swallowed syllables, in the way his eyes glaze over when the wind rushes against the glass. He had jumped from the flaming wreckage of his plane, plummeting through smoke, through silence, through sky. He had braced for oblivion, but the parachute yawned open, yanking him backward, cradling him in its fabric embrace. Below, the lavender fields stretched like an ocean, and for a fleeting moment, as he drifted downward, he thought himself safe.
But war is a cruel architect. His co-pilot, Tom, was still in the cockpit when it spiraled—metal shrieking, sky swallowing steel. When the plane hit the earth, it did not crash; it bloomed—flames unfurling like petals, black smoke curling like vines. The parachute that saved James became the shroud that marked his friend’s death.
Now, years later, that same silk, bleached and bright, is wrapped around Sandy’s frame. A dress of devotion, of irony, of obligation. A dress that bears both the weight of love and the specter of loss.
The reception hall hums with laughter, with the clinking of glasses, with the perfumed air of peonies and rosewater. And yet, beneath the chandeliers, beneath the smiles, there is something else—a quiet gravity, a presence unseen. James’ hand tightens around hers, his grip just shy of desperate. She wonders if he is bracing against the memory, the phantom pull of a parachute strap against his chest. She wonders if he is still dangling, still waiting to land.
Later, when the music fades and the guests depart, the dress—shed like a second skin—rests in a heap on the chair, the silk rippling in the moonlight. Sandy watches as James traces the fabric with trembling fingers, as if searching for the ghosts stitched between its seams.
She listens to his breath hitch, to the quiet unraveling of his resolve, to the tears he does not try to stop. And when he clutches her hand, she holds on—tighter, tighter, as if she, too, is a parachute, and he is still falling.
About the writer:
Sandeep Kumar Mishra is an artist, an author, a teacher and an editor. Last year his works have won or have been shortlisted for ‘Wells Story Prize-2024’, Poems for Human Rights-24, Decadent Serpent Prize-24, ‘Page Turner Award-2024’, ‘Pen Craft Book Award-2024’, ‘Royal Dragonfly Award-24’, ‘Westerwood Story Award-24, ‘Plough Poetry Prize-24′, Fish Poetry Prize-24′, ‘The Next Generation Story Award-24’, ‘Hamond House Literary Prize-24’ and ‘Eyelands Book Award-24’. Other awards include “2023 Commonwealth Story Prize,” “2021 International Book Awards,” and “52nd New Millennium Award-2021,”MPT Story Award-2022’ and ‘Newcastle Story Award-2022” and “Anasi Story Award-2022” and “Independent Press Award-2022” and “IAN Book Award 2022.
Image: Parachute Silk (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. 2025. Public domain via MidJourney AI.
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