Today’s writing prompt:
You discover that you can fly. No one else can fly, only you. What do you do? How do people treat you?
It was actually a case of necessity, the first time that I ever flew that is. I don’t mean flew like in an airplane or a helicopter or even a hot air balloon. I mean flying all on my own.
I’m not sure how it works. I just jump real hard and I don’t come down until I want to. At least that’s what it feels like to me. The first time I was standing at the edge of a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. I had earbuds in my ears. I was listening to Smells Like Teen Spirit. I heard something and I turned around. There was a big pickup truck bearing down on me. It was about to hit me. I couldn’t jump to either side so I jumped straight up. Only I didn’t come down right away.
I flew upwards kind of like superman. I realized I was getting kind of high up and I started to panic. So, I thought about coming down again and I started sinking gently toward the ground. I stopped myself about twenty feet off the ground. I just hovered there for a minute or so and slowly looked all around. There was nobody around for miles.
I eased myself slowly down to the ground. I read the screen of my phone. I read somewhere that if you can read something it is a sure sign that you are not dreaming. I’m not sure if that is true or not but I could read so I had passed that test anyway. It didn’t feel like I was dreaming. What if I really could fly. What would everybody say? Would the government come and lock me up like some kind of laboratory animal. I didn’t intend to find out.
No, I was going to keep this to myself for a while. I’d have to be real careful when I flew to make sure that no one saw me. But how could I be sure that I wasn’t just delusional? It didn’t seem like I was hallucinating. I needed to tell someone. Let them see me fly so they could reassure me that I wasn’t dreaming. Who did I trust enough to keep my secret?
I couldn’t trust my best friend Bill. He means well but he can’t keep a secret to save his life, or mine. I couldn’t trust my dad. He’d insist that we tell the authorities and I wasn’t willing to take that risk. I could show Friskie, my dog but that wouldn’t really help verify my sanity, would it?
I walked home. It was about a mile down the gravel road to the main highway and then a quarter of a mile more to my house. I must have been really preoccupied because I didn’t remember getting home and going to bed. I woke up the next morning unsure if I had really been able to fly or not.
I hurried through my shower and got dressed. I ate breakfast and headed out for school. I stopped for a minute in the back yard to see if I could still fly. I jumped about three feet high and hung there for a minute. Then I slowly settled down to the ground.
“Nice trick.” Matilda, my neighbor said. Matilda is eight and extremely smart. I was startled but I thought fast.
“Thanks. I’m still working on it. Don’t tell anyone, okay.” I knew she would keep the secret if she thought it was an illusion.
“Okay. But I want to be your assistant if you start doing magic shows.” Matilda said.
“Sure, but I’m not ready to do shows yet. I’ve got a lot of practicing to do first.” I smiled at her and we went around front to catch the bus.
I don’t know where I want to take this story. It has a lot of potential but I haven’t thought about it enough. I also need to wrap it up for tonight so I’ll just leave it there.
I’m not going to do the daily writing prompt for a while. No one wanted to join in and write their own story anyway and I have got to start planning my novel for NaNoWriMo. I may com back to it again after NaNoWriMo is behind me. Or, I may not.
Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.