Tag: Roll Call

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Writing: Floating

150-word Roll Call for Enid Writers Club November meeting. We had a FIVE-way tie for the winner!

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

My first trip to the International Space Station would be my last. Not because I wasn’t qualified or because I was planning to retire. No. This would be my last mission because I had failed to securely fasten the tether that anchored me to the station, and for the past thirty minutes, I had been drifting away. The station, now no more than a dot in the distance, would soon pass beyond the horizon of Earth, and I would float in this blackness forever.

“Robert? Colonel, this is ground control; we are working to….”

Click.

I turned off my communications link. I had approximately thirty-two minutes before I was out of oxygen. No matter what they were working to do, it would not change my fate. I choose to enter the Greater Silence while listening in this lesser one. Perhaps I may hear the door between the two snicking open.

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“Jumping from a Plane”

Enid Writer’s Club April Roll Call. Must be 150 words or less. The prompt: “Jumping from a plane.”

The engine coughed, then died. No option. Quickly shouldering on the parachute, I made ready.

God knows how I would miss this plane. She had been good to me through so many dog fights, even having survived the Red Barron, but not today. Nothing more than a faulty engine and a soon-to-be-fired mechanic.

Racing to the rear of the plane and sliding open the door, I gently kissed the fuselage. “I’ll never forget you,” I said and jumped.

When I landed, my disapproving wife was standing there.

“Harold! You’re an embarrassment,” she said, hands on hips.

“That may be,” I responded, whisking my white silk scarf over my shoulder, “but I’ve got three more quarters.”

The kids standing outside the Piggly Wiggly waiting their turn on the kiddie plane groaned as I inserted my coin and waited for those magical words.

“Barron Killer Nine, you are cleared for takeoff….”

149 words

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