Their Finest Hour

A lot of my friends, you know, they grew up without their Dads around, or they got sat down one day in the living room for that 'your father isn't going to be living here anymore but it's not your fault' conversation.

I always envied those kids.

I mean, I know they say having a father figure is important to childhood development or whatever, but fuck if I wouldn't have been better off if Bruce had been somewhere else that whole time.

I remember the day Bruce got drunk and threw the bottle at Mom, and I remember running at him shoulder-first like he was one of those rigs football linemen practice with. I remember the look on his doughy, sweaty, red face.

Bruce must have figured he had a choice: just go, or beat down his wife's kid. I chased the car two miles, making sure he stayed gone.

SF Drabble #465 "Atmosphere"

Hraff stepped out into the air and spread his wingtips wide, leaned into a slow bank down and away, painted ever-widening imaginary circles across the mesa below during a leisurely descent from the aerie.

"He's healing well," observed Jorge.

"He's still not sure of himself," Perry answered, worry in her voice. "He used to dive  almost the whole way straight down before pulling out of it, and now... now it's like he's afraid he might shear his wings off."

"You're wrong," Jorge said. "You're projecting."

"I'm not—"

"Look at him. Watch him. He's just enjoying being in the sky again."

Zombie Drabble #431 "Family Trip"

Dad had to work Sunday, never made it home, never called, we just never saw him again.

Mom packed up the car, tossed us in the backseat without worrying about our seatbelts for once, and wouldn't answer any questions about what was happening or where we were going. Mommy needs quiet right now, really quiet, all right?

She drove fast, and we recognized the way to grandma and grandpa's house, but we didn't get off the highway, we just kept going. I was half asleep when my brother, face pressed against the window, whispered, "I think that's a for-real zombie."

SF Drabble #464 "Virgin Mary Apoapsis"

"Rockets are boys' business." My mother was succinct and matter-of-fact about her assumptions, and steered me towards more suitable endeavors. She confiscated my Time with Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins on the cover, she rooted out the Bradbury from my bookshelf, she replaced my astronaut action figure with a plastic Barbie bust for practicing makeup and hair.

But Nana, she didn't see the problem. Nana's house was flowers and plastic couch-covers and religious icons, but when I was over for the weekend it turned into the launch pad at Kennedy.

She's down there, somewhere, right now, on that blue ball.