A Big Mess

Something woke me from a deep sleep. It was a groan. No, a moan, more of a grinding, throbbing, pulsing, what is that sound?

Now I’m thoroughly awake. What is making that noise?

I wander through the house. Through the bedroom to the living room then the kitchen. Now the bathroom to the hallway. I wander upstairs. Still that weird noise coming from somewhere.

I checked the basement, where sitting in the middle of the dirt floor sat Joey. He was fiddling with some contraption that seemed to have a bike at the middle of it, the pedals furiously wobbling around.

“Joey, what in heaven’s name?”

“Hey mom, I’ve almost got it done. Whad’ya think?” He sat back on his haunches, grinning from ear to ear.

“And this is?” I could barely see with the one bulb overhead.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks. It’s my spaceship, and I’m using my old bike. So if I get to pedaling fast enough, I can leave earth and get to the first star I see…” he yammered on about stars, gravity, atmosphere and by the time he was done I had sat down on the steps, shivering in my thin cotton pjs.

“Oh Joey, you do realize this is a fool’s errand, right? I don’t think it’ll work. So let’s get back to bed. It’s late.”

“Have a little faith, mom, just a few more tweaks and I’ll have it done. Just a few more minutes. Honest.” He picked up the allen wrench, gave me a big grin.

“Fine, you have a half hour. NO more. Hear?”

He banged away at his ‘space ship’. I went back to bed and finally to sleep.

He was gone in the morning. And he left a big mess.

W/C 297