This Isn’t About Football

Kicking Off (© 1973 United Feature Syndicate)

The current writing prompt is Kicking off. My response is below. I hope you’ll take a look at the others over at Writers Co-op. They range from thoughtfully instructive to historically fictional to tragically comical and just plain fanciful. What would you have written? The next prompt is:

License

What would you do with that? I hope you’ll give it a try. Your entry is due by Monday, March 7, 2022. Submission guidelines are easy: any genre, approximately 6-1,000 words. Send as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf attached to an email addressed to me at stranscht@sbcglobal.net. Please do join us. We are planning on publishing an anthology for which each author chooses two or three of their own favorite submissions.

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All You Have to Do

by S.T. Ranscht

It began as a joke, a harmless prank. Isn’t that what big brothers are for?

“It’s true, I promise you,” I told her, “but only special people can do it.” She was six and I was eleven — she had to believe me.

She took one of the rocks from her left hand and threw it at a sapling ten feet away. It bounced off the center of the skinny trunk.

I didn’t let on I was impressed. “Honest,” I said. “Do you want to learn how?”

She pulled back one corner of her mouth and looked at me sideways. “I asked Mommy, and she said no one can fly except in an airplane or a rocket.”

“She said that because she never even flew in her dreams. Sorry, kid, but our mom just isn’t quite special enough to soar like a Condor. Of course, you can spend your life on the ground if you want, and never even try, but then you won’t be any more special than Mom.”

As soon as I said it, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. She launched another rock and it hit exactly where the first one did. Then she turned on me.

“Mommy is too special. She’s the most special mommy in the whole world.”

I knelt in front of her. “You’re right, Sadie. She is. She probably just wants to keep you safe. Flying can be dangerous. It’s tricky to master and easy to get hurt doing it.”

“How? How can you get hurt?”

“You might get caught in an updraft and not be able to escape until it drops you someplace like the North Pole. Or China.”

She looked at me from beneath her scrunched eyebrows. “What’s an updraft?”

“It’s like riptide at the beach,” I said, knowing how much Dad’s warnings about that had scared her, “but it’s in the air and it sucks you up instead of down.”

Shrugging, she threw her last rock at the same spot. Bullseye. “And besides, if I went to China, I could call Mommy and Daddy and they would come and get me. I know their phone numbers, dummy.”

“Well, peabrain, you wouldn’t be able to call if you got caught in the top of a Giant Sequoia or sucked into a jet engine, would you?”

Her shoulders slumped. “No.”

“Okay.” I held her shoulders so we were face to face. “If you want to learn how to fly, I can teach you.”

“How?”

“There’s lots of ways,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers. “Some people just wiggle their toes and they rise up off the ground,” I could see her toes wiggling inside her sneakers. “Or maybe you’ll need to run downhill, spread your arms, and catch the wind.”

Sadie looked around. “We don’t have many hills around here.”

“My friend Doug says if you stand at the edge of something tall like a cliff or a skyscraper and throw yourself at the ground, all you have to do is miss.” I figured what was the harm? Sadie wouldn’t read Hitchhiker’s Guide for at least five more years.

Wrinkling her nose and shaking her head, Sadie said, “I don’t think that would work for me. I’m really good at throwing. I never miss.”

She got quiet. I could tell she was thinking. I stood up.

She looked up at me and narrowed her eyes. “Show me how you fly.”

I was ready for this. “I can’t show you yet because only flyers are allowed to see other people fly. If they let non-flyers see them, they can never fly again.”

“Then how am I s’posta—“

I held up one finger. “I can tell you, and once you learn how, we can fly anywhere, anytime you want.”

She made an exasperated little noise and said, “Okay. Tell me how you fly.”

“It’s easy. I stand with my knees bent just a little, and my arms ready to reach for the sky. Like this.” I posed like I was gonna take a free throw in basketball. “Then I pick up one foot — not too high — and KICK it down, hard, to the ground. Then I take off.”

Sadie stood like I was standing, except her little butt was sticking out. I had to work really hard not to laugh. “Okay, lift one foot…”

“Which one?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter. Whichever one you want.”

She did.

“Now, KICK it down. Hard!”

She did.

She looked at me. “It didn’t work.”

“It’s okay. Nobody gets it the first time. Show me how you stand again.” Real serious like, I walked around her, looking her up and down. “I think I see your problem. Straighten you back a little, your butt is sticking out too far.”

She did just what I told her to do.

“Now lift your foot…”

She used the same foot as before.

“Now KICK down!”

She did, and of course, she was still standing on the ground. She immediately went into her pose again. Gotta give the kid points for determination.

“I’m gonna try the other foot this time.” She picked it up before I could say to.

“Good idea. Now KICK!”

She closed her eyes and KICKED.

“Gosh, Sadie, I’m really sorry. I thought this would work. I thought you were ready. Tough luck, kid.” I started back for the house.

“Wait! I almost had it, I know I did, but I think I wasn’t standing straight enough. Watch me, okay? One more time. Just one more. Pleeeease?”

How could I say no?

She took her stance. “How do I look? Is my butt sticking out?”

“No,” I said, “you look good. Go ahead, lift a foot.” She chose her second choice again. “Now…”

She kicked down. Hard.

And she shot into the air like she had springs on her feet and wings on her arms!

“Sadie!” I shrieked, “You’re flying!” This was impossible, but there she was, wheeling and tumbling like one of those crazy pigeons.

She bounced a little when she came down way over by a bunch of oak trees, but she landed on her feet. Then it looked like she was picking something up.

When she kicked off again, she rose as high as the tops of the trees before she turned and flew straight toward me.

Flying in a circle above me she yelled, “Now show me how you take off.”

I took my stance, lifted a foot, kicked down hard, and took off — running!

Sadie was right behind me, pelting me with acorns, and calling, “You liar. You can’t fly!”

I shouted back over my shoulder, “Nobody can fly, Sadie. Not even you.”

What can I say? I was eleven, she was six. She had to believe me.

She dropped out of the air, right on top of me. Lying on the ground, we were both all right, but she jumped up, angry.

“You tricked me,” she said. “You’re a non-flyer and you made me fly in front of you and now I’ll never be able to fly again.” And she ran off to the house, crying, “Mommyyyyy!”

It began as a joke. A harmless prank. But as far as I know, Sadie never flew again.

Even I was beginning to believe me.

Home Again

Glad you could join us for the next welcomed episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: Katia Dickenson

Joseph landed in the field where Fen’s troops had assembled what seemed to Elliot like an age ago. Queen Lilian waited for them.

“Welcome home,” she smiled. “I trust your flight was uneventful, Joseph?” Continue reading “Home Again”

Sliding On the Sky

Glad you could join us for the next avian episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: halex

“Thank you,” Elliot’s pride battled with the enormity of what he’d just heard, and wisely surrendered to humility. “I will do my best — faithfully — to deserve this Name.”

First Combat Master Vladimir the Just bowed his head to Elliot the Faithful. “May your Name inspire all who meet you to trust that you will serve them well.”

The celebration of a new Naming was a raucous, thirsty affair. Elliot was certain every creature in attendance must have congratulated him in person — some many times — with a toast for success and a shot of aged nectar.

Continue reading “Sliding On the Sky”

Pierce Steps Up

Glad you could join us for the next skeptical episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Photo credit: wildscenes.com

A subdued splash announced Pierce’s arrival.

“The Queen’s buzzy little nephew said you needed help.” A bath had washed away the sour odor of Elliot’s indiscretion, but not the disappointment of the missed mission to Bog.

“Pierce! Yes, we’ve found Vernon, but he’s wounded and sick and he can’t make it back to the Hive on his own. Would you please take him back with you?”

He eyed Elliot. “How sick?”

Continue reading “Pierce Steps Up”

Pierce

Glad you could join us for the next disgruntled episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to  the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: orchardparkway.files

In his dream, Elliot reclined on a bed of rose petals in a field of jasmine. He could feel Cassandra’s kisses on his lips.

He woke on the floor of the bower in Fen to find her wiping the last of his regurgitated breakfast from his mouth. The scent of jasmine drifted in and gagged him. Rolling onto his side coughing more violently than the ancient wasp, he caught a flashing glint of brown surrounded by feathers in the doorway.

Shifting impatiently from foot to foot, Pierce, the hawk who’d brought them back, preened a chunk of glistening, ocher something from his shoulder, and fixed a smoldering one-eyed stare on Elliot.

Continue reading “Pierce”

Second Breakfast on the Wing

Glad you could join us for the next high-flying episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: Christina Lihani

With a skyward lurch, Elliot’s breakfast threatened to return for lunch. Only the soft comfort of Cassandra pressed against his side kept him from taking his chances and diving for the safety he’d left behind when he climbed onto the hawk’s back.

“Don’t you just love flying?” she asked, her eyestalks waving gently in the slipstream.

Trying to make eye contact put his gut into a spin. He focused on the horizon, the only fixed object in the world, and confessed, “I love you more.”

“Everything is so clear up here,” she effused. “The ground just rolls away and takes every bit of trouble with it.”

He didn’t want to contradict her, but he was sure he’d brought some of the trouble with him, and it was about to erupt.

“Look at that, Elliot, my love — we’re soaring with the majestic Travelers!”

He looked. The sky and earth blurred just before they went black.

To be continued. . .

Previously, on Elliot’s Adventures . . . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Next time . . .

Frantic Food

Glad you could join us for the next fiendish episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: Mike Shaw

“Wait! Wait!” Elliot screamed.

The bird belonging to the beak above him jerked back in alarm. “What?! What?!”

“Please,” Elliot begged, “please let me go! Surely you can’t have rescued me from that spinning siren just to eat me? Please! I implore you, have mercy!”

Continue reading “Frantic Food”

Remembering the Rainbow Rocket Man

pete-conrad-3
Charles “Pete” Conrad (1930-1999), the astronaut who said, “If you can’t be good, be colorful.”

Early 1980 

I sat between two women who had missed the same flight to San Francisco I had missed, and had also rushed to grab seats on this one.

One of them said, “Pete Conrad is on this flight. He was standing in the ticket line right in front of me, and I really wanted to talk to him, but I chickened out.”

Scanning the cabin, the other one asked, “Where?”

“Right now, he’s in that bathroom,” the first answered, pointing ahead, “but his seat is right across the aisle.”

An astronaut who had walked on the moon?! My heart thumped faster at just the thought. “Okay,” I announced, “when he comes out, we’re going to meet him.”

Moments later, he walked down the aisle. All three of us stood up, and I held out my hand. “Mr. Conrad,” I said, “It’s an honor to meet you. Could I ask you something?”

He shook my hand, and looking at me with eyes that were somehow deeper, vaster, fuller than any I’d ever seen, he said, “Sure.”

“What amazed you most about being on the moon?”

He hesitated only a second before answering.

The colors. It would have to be all the colors. Pete Conrad, third man on the moon

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People who knew him agree they never saw him like this; he should be smiling.   (Photo credit for the sunglass reflection: Astronaut Alan Bean/NASA)

Song Lyric Sunday

Hercules

Helen Espinosa’s theme this week for Song Lyric Sunday is Your Favorite Song Featured in a Movie.

This was tough because I love musicals — America’s only contribution to theatrical genres. I could choose from hundreds, thousands of extraordinary songs. Inspirational?

Continue reading “Song Lyric Sunday”