originally posted to O'Connor's previous journal on September 8th, 2006 at 1:02pm and cross-posted to 
libraryofwinds
Prompt: #17 - Fly
Word Count: 282
Rating: G
----------
He had to laugh at the look of wonder on her face as he carried her up the ladder. After she got a good look inside the cockpit, the three-year-old turned that wide-eyed gaze on him.
"Unc'Charlie? Can I fly?" she had asked so sweetly. How could he refuse? So, with a chuckle, he gave her a gentle squeeze and climbed in. He settled her on his lap and pointed out all the controls.
Tiny hands wrapped around the flight-stick and he showed her how it worked: pull back to go up, push forward to go down, and left and right to turn. She took it all in and tried her best to move the stick as her imagination took them into the sky. She pointed out all the sights as they 'flew' over them, and even waved to the birds as they soared overhead.
He told her all the right things to say, from take-off to landing. The conversations with the 'Control Tower' evolved from the standard requests for clearance into long, involved discourses on the weather and other various topics that entered into the young girls head. It was all relevant in her world, and he never tired to tell her otherwise. In fact, in some twisted way her logic made sense to him, as he recalled his own youth and what it was like to play pilot.
The only difference was that his fighter jet had been a cardboard box he had cut up to resemble an aircraft, whereas she sat in the real thing.
Despite that, the experience was the same and he vowed to always cultivate that wonderment and freedom of flying within the young girl's heart.
libraryofwindsPrompt: #17 - Fly
Word Count: 282
Rating: G
----------
He had to laugh at the look of wonder on her face as he carried her up the ladder. After she got a good look inside the cockpit, the three-year-old turned that wide-eyed gaze on him.
"Unc'Charlie? Can I fly?" she had asked so sweetly. How could he refuse? So, with a chuckle, he gave her a gentle squeeze and climbed in. He settled her on his lap and pointed out all the controls.
Tiny hands wrapped around the flight-stick and he showed her how it worked: pull back to go up, push forward to go down, and left and right to turn. She took it all in and tried her best to move the stick as her imagination took them into the sky. She pointed out all the sights as they 'flew' over them, and even waved to the birds as they soared overhead.
He told her all the right things to say, from take-off to landing. The conversations with the 'Control Tower' evolved from the standard requests for clearance into long, involved discourses on the weather and other various topics that entered into the young girls head. It was all relevant in her world, and he never tired to tell her otherwise. In fact, in some twisted way her logic made sense to him, as he recalled his own youth and what it was like to play pilot.
The only difference was that his fighter jet had been a cardboard box he had cut up to resemble an aircraft, whereas she sat in the real thing.
Despite that, the experience was the same and he vowed to always cultivate that wonderment and freedom of flying within the young girl's heart.
- Current Mood:
happy
It was a milk-run, really, the trip he was making back to his home planet. It wasn't like the sector of space was over-run with Terons. Far from it, actually, as the moon around Lossia was firmly inside Clesian space.
So it was a surprise, then, when his instrument panel went haywire, almost like he had passed through an ion cloud or hit some unseen sensor-net. He was half-way between Ariah and Lossia when it happened. His fighter lost all power, leaving him gliding on the force of his forward-momentum and the systems failure prevented him from sending out a distress call of any sort. He sat there, blinking at his control panel, trying to suss out what had just happened. It wasn't as if his fighter was in need of repair. Leawyn's iron-will had made sure that each fighter in her squadron was up to spec on everything.
He was at a total loss as to what was going on.
And then, as he sat dead in the water, he was broad-sided by something invisible. The impact was enough to jar his teeth, but not hard enough to injure him in anyway. "What the hell...?" he muttered, looking out the canopy, trying to see something, anything.
"Well, that just knocked me off course," he said aloud, noting the position of the stars around him. No sooner were the words out of his mouth that power suddenly surged back into his fighter and his engines engaged at full-throttle. He couldn't get his hands on the stick in time and he was pushed back into the pilot's couch violently.
His hypersonic drive engaged and the force of the acceleration made him black out...
***
When he came to, he was hanging before a planet that he didn't recognize. His systems had burned themselves out, but he still had use of the comm system.
"How blissfully ironic," he muttered, flipping the comm switch to broadcast on all frequencies. "This is Derek Masterson requesting assistance..."
It took an hour before someone picked him up and towed him to the planet. It took another thirty minutes before he was docked some place out of the way and on his way to see if his meager supply of cash would pay for the courtesy.
Then I have to figure out where in all hell I am and how to get back. Folks'll be going nuts if they don't hear from me...
He sighed as the realization that he could be here for a good, long while hit him. He suspected he needed relacement parts and he wasn't sure he could get them here, nor was he hopeful that he would ever figure out where in the 'verse he was...
This is going to be interesting, to say the least...
So it was a surprise, then, when his instrument panel went haywire, almost like he had passed through an ion cloud or hit some unseen sensor-net. He was half-way between Ariah and Lossia when it happened. His fighter lost all power, leaving him gliding on the force of his forward-momentum and the systems failure prevented him from sending out a distress call of any sort. He sat there, blinking at his control panel, trying to suss out what had just happened. It wasn't as if his fighter was in need of repair. Leawyn's iron-will had made sure that each fighter in her squadron was up to spec on everything.
He was at a total loss as to what was going on.
And then, as he sat dead in the water, he was broad-sided by something invisible. The impact was enough to jar his teeth, but not hard enough to injure him in anyway. "What the hell...?" he muttered, looking out the canopy, trying to see something, anything.
"Well, that just knocked me off course," he said aloud, noting the position of the stars around him. No sooner were the words out of his mouth that power suddenly surged back into his fighter and his engines engaged at full-throttle. He couldn't get his hands on the stick in time and he was pushed back into the pilot's couch violently.
His hypersonic drive engaged and the force of the acceleration made him black out...
***
When he came to, he was hanging before a planet that he didn't recognize. His systems had burned themselves out, but he still had use of the comm system.
"How blissfully ironic," he muttered, flipping the comm switch to broadcast on all frequencies. "This is Derek Masterson requesting assistance..."
It took an hour before someone picked him up and towed him to the planet. It took another thirty minutes before he was docked some place out of the way and on his way to see if his meager supply of cash would pay for the courtesy.
Then I have to figure out where in all hell I am and how to get back. Folks'll be going nuts if they don't hear from me...
He sighed as the realization that he could be here for a good, long while hit him. He suspected he needed relacement parts and he wasn't sure he could get them here, nor was he hopeful that he would ever figure out where in the 'verse he was...
This is going to be interesting, to say the least...
- Current Mood:
annoyed
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