He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last. BANG! The first gun went off, then followed by the rest. Time slowed down as Walter danced and swerved his body in an acrobatic way, dodging every bullet. The bullets whizzed past his head, almost giving him a new haircut…

“Why is this man dancing like a lunatic?” whispered a woman walking past. Walter looked up and saw his wife scurrying towards him like a beetle crawling out of a drain.

“WALTER,” she exclaimed, “People are staring!”

Walter’s wife had a disdainful look on her face as the couple continued down the street, past the pharmacy. He looked up and saw a gleaming white passenger plane in the sky…

“We’re going down!” blared the intercom from the speakers above. Walter looked around in his seat. He was surrounded by pandemonium; men and women were franticly trying to put face masks on while simultaneously trying to buckle their seatbelts. Walter had to think, but it was very difficult because of the constant alarm that was sounding and the people that were screaming for help. The whole of the plane was shaking with turbulence. Suddenly, the front of the plane tilted forward, and it was obvious to Walter that he needed to do something quickly. He sprung from his seat and knocked the face mask that was hanging from the ceiling above him out of the way. He ran up the aisle, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He reached the cockpit and wrenched the door open with strength he didn’t know he had.

Inside the cockpit Walter saw the pilot and his co-pilot sitting limp with the controls in their hands. Through the window, Walter could see the ground getting closer and closer by the second. He unbuckled the pilot and pushed him off the seat. He took over the controls and fiddled with the array of buttons. They were blinking uncontrollably in rhythm with the alarms that were still blaring in Walter’s ears. He grabbed the control throttle and yanked upwards. He knew he was successful in his attempts, as the land beneath him seemed to be shrinking.

Then, Walter turned to see a flight attendant rush into the cockpit. She was beautiful, though her hair was falling rakishly out of her bun, and her clothes were tattered and dirty. She looked Ingrid Bergman. She opened her mouth to thank him…

“Watch out for that fire hydrant!” shrieked a familiar voice. Walter looked up to see his wife with a scowl on her face. “You never seem to think, Walter! Do you ever even have anything going on in your head?”

Walter looked down, as he always did, too embarrassed to defend himself, letting his wife believe as many lowly thoughts about him as she would like.