One of my favourite sites to visit each day, of late, is 365 Tomorrows. This is Sci-fi Flash Fiction at it's finest. A big thanks to my friend Martin for the link. :)
Anyway, I wanted to have a wee bash at FF myself so here's the next writing experiment from me. :)
Flying with Yes or No
Georgie stood atop the outcrop of rock that overlooked the valley below and wondered if it was actually worth going ahead with the idea.
Did she really think she could do it? Was it worth the effort, the time, the stress?
She couldn't exactly answer those questions with immediate confidence so she waited for the tiny little zing deep inside her gut to help her make the decision.
Yes!
No!
Yes!
No!
Each time she asked the question and then followed it with one of these options. Each time she waited until she felt, rather than heard, the answer deep inside her.
This was how she always made her directional choices in life. It was how she finally decided to take up gliding all those years ago. She had been very young, barely 15, but the thought of flight had held her fascination since she was a small child. Her parents had been against the idea because gliding was considered a "mans" sport, but her gut told her to go for it because in the end, she just wanted to know if she was really capable of flying like birds.
That life-changing decision eventually led to her becoming a fully qualified commercial pilot and that had in time, led to her heading up the Airline Pilot Training Program out of the airport she could see, down to her right, in the valley. It was lauded world-wide as one of the best programs available and every qualified pilot who had trained under her governance had maintained a perfect incident free report card. She was pretty proud of that.
She only half watched the apparently tiny planes departing and arriving, being, as they were, at a distance from her, but right now, she was more concerned with whether she should go on with the proposal sent to her by NASA, The National Aeronautics & Space Administration in the USA.
Test flying new planes was one of her joys. To feel the nervous shudder of new alloy and glass under her finger tips as she caressed virgin aircraft into the blue beyond thrilled her like no other sensation. It was a dance with death that filled her with more than enough life several times over. She loved that thrill like a drug.
Still, this was an awe-inspiring proposition all the same. She imagined flying for NASA in their sleek and shiny high-altitude jets, assisting a crack team of engineers, scientists and aeronautical experts, testing some of the latest space technology that would eventually, change lives for decades to come. It seemed like a very satisfying thing to do.
Yes.
The zing was definitely there. She smiled and whispered a grateful thanks to her god and turned to leave her rocky outcrop finally content that she was a woman who could, quite possibly, change the course of history.
end.
© M. Pitman 2006
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