New Overactive. Enjoy. Zelda’s thoughts returned to Earth. One day I’m going to grow up and go to school and be an astronaut, she thought. I’m going to travel through space…just like I am now. I’m going to fly faster and further than Granddaddy. I’m going to be as pretty as Mom, flying faster than anyone else. Having learned the alphabet from Sesame Street, she watched the letters form words and words explaining themselves in ideas which would register briefly and be forgotten just as fast. Zelda saw the engine (not a motor, Leon had told her, an engine) suspended by chains above an old Ford pickup from the 1950’s. She could identify some of the parts and provide an explanation of some of their function…but the words were not there. She would ask Grandaddy next time he tore up a truck. She could hear Grandma Gloria complaining about engine parts lying around in the yard. “I’m glad we live a long way from the road,” Gloria had shouted from the kitchen window. “People see all this crap in the yard, they’re gonna talk!” “Yeah,” he snapped back, “they’ll want me to fix their vehicles!” Gloria hated housework with zeal and was not afraid to let them know about it. She stood in front of the kitchen table, arms crossed indignantly. “You big baby. Why’d you leave the towel behind the door?” “I don’t know.” “Where’s Aurora?” “I don’t know that either.” Flustered, she asked him, “Well what the hell do you know?” “Go look in my workshop,” Leon told his wife. “The big one or the little one?” “The little one.” Hearing this, Gloria hoisted Zelda onto her hip and walked to the smaller of two barns. Unlike Leon’s hangar, the smaller, tin-roofed shed was the place smaller items were stored or repaired. Due to smaller size, it appeared cluttered with a variety of odds and ends and junk not worthless enough to throw out. Gloria’s mouth formed an astonished ‘o’ at the sight of her old Schwinn bicycle amidst the junk of her husband’s workshop. Blisters of rust which once bubbled like tumors through pale red paint had been sanded away. Bright yellow paint had replaced old red and unpainted metal parts gleamed new from recent attention. Leon, a few steps behind Gloria, transferred Zelda into his arms. “I thought I would surprise you later, but now seemed like as good a time as any.” Zelda smiled, remembering her grandmother’s soft, over-the-shoulder grin as she took to the dirt road leading to the mailbox. Leon pushed Zelda on the tire-swing as they waited for Gloria to come back. Five minutes passed and Gloria came back into view. She tossed the mail to Leon, who ungracefully picked up what he had not caught while simultaneously dodging the tire-swing. She drove the bike around the house a couple of times and parked it next to her car.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 22:03:20 +0000
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