Freestyler By D.I. Jolly

After three days of sitting in the back of a car while his parents made boring conversation about the ever-changing landscape, Harry Washington, age 8 and a half, started to wonder what his mom’s hair would look like in zero gravity. He’d recently started learning about science stuff at school and he found the idea of floating to be most excellent. To him, it was just one step away from flying which was where his real passion lay. He also secretly like to think that because his hands didn’t touch the ground they were actually flying. Being 8 and a half he wasn’t fully aware of how the human body worked and he also didn’t care. The idea made him happy. As did thinking about what his mom’s hair would look like in zero gravity. He imagined it would be a bit like being underwater only softer. He thought for a moment about his father, but since he was bald, he went back to his mom’s hair. The idea then led him down the usual path of floating, then flying, then flying next to the car and as his attention turned to stare blankly out the window, he found himself wondering what it was about the truck that seemed strange.

The truck driver, whose name was also Henry, had been thinking about his ex-girlfriend, who had not only broken up with him a few days before but suddenly and seemingly without warning. She had then blocked his number and removed him from all social media, leaving him alone, confused and deeply hurt with no hope of explanation. His mind then did what so many minds do in situations like that, and tried desperately to find an explanation based on the information he had. Each time getting to a conclusion that was neither satisfying or in any way verifiable. So Older Henry just got angrier and more distracted until the moment he lost sight of what he was doing and slammed his truck into the side of a family mini-van, killing everyone inside and throwing himself through the windscreen.

Rebecca Cunningham had decided she needed to break up with her boyfriend because she couldn’t stand how he left for weeks on end for work. She loved him, and wanted to trust him, but her own wandering spirit made it harder and harder for her to do that. As the weeks went by, she’d find herself more and more frustrated and frantic coming up with new and terrible fantasies of the things her now ex-boyfriend did on the road. Until she just couldn’t take it anymore and ended the relationship abruptly. Then when she got a phone call from a hospital on the far side of the country telling her that her ex-boyfriend had been in a serious accident but hadn’t been killed, her frantic sadness was replaced by a strange guilty calm. While she unconsciously knew that she was in part to blame for the accident she was more taken by the idea that if he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t drive, and if he couldn’t drive, he couldn’t leave her ever again. The frantic sex orgy fantasies disappeared and she boarded the next plane to get to his bedside as soon as she could.

When Henry Washington, age no longer applicable, opened his eyes he felt a warm safe feeling filling his soul, for he was then only soul, and when he looked down at the world and realised that he was flying, he felt even better.

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