Monday, December 3, 2018

Letter Home - Flash fiction


Coney Island Dreams by Subway Doodle
Letter Home
By Emmett Hall


Hi Mom and Dad,

This letter will take a while to transit to you once it’s been beamed.  I’ll get it off soonest.  I’ve had what started out as the most horrifying experience.  Remember, I’ve written before the gravity here is less than half of ours at home.

Consequently, I’ve gotten a bit sloppy with my being careful of heights.  I've fallen off my sled three times.  This is about the last time.

Let me give you a time-tick.  This is my fourth year studying the life on E2324.  E2324, the native life refers to as Earth. The most communicative species are the humans (I sent you some pics). Yet, not the most intelligent group, and somewhat dangerous at times.  The Dolphins are the smartest, even as fond of the humans as they are they won’t talk to the humans in any of their dozens of languages.  It also took me a couple years to get through to the Dolphins enough for them to trust me.  Oh, the Dolphins are a fish like an animal, by the way (more pics). 

Anyway, I don’t do much with the Oceans.  You know we blue coats soak up a lot of water and don’t swim worth a hoot.  Hoot is a term I heard the humans use to refer to minimum accomplishments not worth mentioning.   Their water is thicker than ours.  I dropped into the Loch Ness, it’s a big puddle,  to see if I could find this monster they talked about and had to bottom walk out.  But I digress. 

Back on point, I was traversing to the North Polar station, it’s right next to the Fortress of Solitude – never mind, you wouldn’t get that – when I was somewhere near a place, they call Chicago, and I hit a flying animal.  I shouldn’t have been flying so low, but I had radar masking on. 

I felt terrible.  It was a huge animal and bent the wing edge over the air intake obstructing air to the left engine.   I switched to hover and went out to clear the poor thing off.  I walked out over the sled wing.  When I got close, I slipped on, I won’t say what precisely, but some of the animal.  I couldn’t catch myself even with my tail.  Over I went. 

It wasn’t all that far only a couple thousand feet.  But I didn’t land well, even after relaxing into soft-mode.  Here’s what happened.

I vaguely remember hearing, “Jake!”

“What.  Why you yelling at me.”

“You dropped one.  You idiot.”

“No, I didn’t.” 

“Yes, you did.  You overloaded your wagon. It’s right here.”

I felt myself being picked up and cradled under an arm.  I peeked a look.  Jake was atypical of the younger set of human males.  Long black shaggy hair that was trying to get a foothold on his face without much success like when we go through first stage growth and our patches fill in.

Whoever it was that picked me up grabbed me by the horn and extended me out to Jake.

“Little heavier than the usual stuffs you’ve got over there.”

The human Jake took me and tossed me on top of a pile of ‘stuffs’ on the wagon. I freaked for a second.  I thought it was a cart of dead Trustians.  Then my head started to clear and seeing I was the only one on the planet that couldn’t be the case.  It was a cart full of colorful reproductions of Earth animals real and imagined. 

Jake stopped at the back of a small building and unloaded us onto a bunch of shelves.  I got a corner seat and thought I’d watch awhile.  The front of the building was open with a counter.  Under us was a bunch of backboards with netted hoops.  I was wondering what it was all about until Jake started yelling out the front.

“Right here, three simple hoops and walk away with the critter of your choice.”

Several teenagers came up and gave Jake some monetary remuneration, and he gave them each three orange rubber balls which they threw at the hoops.  After a few seconds, they went away.

Next, what I took to be a father-daughter combination, stopped at the counter and the Dad gave Jake some money too.  He swooshed all three shots, and the little girl pointed at me.  Jake pulled me down and handed me to the little girl.

“That’s a pretty one, Honey,” the father told her.  I felt pretty good about that.   

She wasn’t much taller than me and had a bear hug on my neck.  I’ll have to explain some of these terms when I get home.  Needless to say, a tight grip.  They took me all over the place.  On the lap of the little girl, I was spun, twirled and sprayed on at the log run and so on.  I have to say I can’t remember when I had ever had so much fun.

Finally, I decided I needed to get away eventually and plotted to be ready.  It came on the Loop-to-loop.   I found my chance.  We were upside down, I wiggled just enough for her to lose her grip and the dropped straight down to the foundation of the ride.  I must have hit a bolt or something.  I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for the divot in the middle of the top of my head to popup. 

I rolled under the framing into the bushes and made my way out of the park.  I’ll have to admit I had a bit of regret when I slipped across the street and looked back at the park.  It was a great experience, but I don’t think I’d care to do it again.  I slipped back into the alley across the street and waited for dark when I called my sled down to pick me up. 

It still flew okay so I waited until I got back to the station to repair the flying animal damage. 

That’s it.  Just had to tell you about my day. 

Love,


Bluedon

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