The young, innocent voices of children echo through the old wooden house. An old, wrinkled male is slouched in an over-sized rocking chair, cradling his motionless form back and forth. The clap of footsteps growing closer awakens the old man, whom abruptly looks up with a gasp.
"Jeez gramps! It smells like a dirty hospital in here!" A young blond boy rushes into the living room with the old man rests, his bright blue eyes beaming up at the old man with an innocence that could go unparalleled.
"Hey old man, I found a big spider in the backyard. I was playin' with it and it got away and Johnny tried to grab it but it bit him on the hand. You shoulda seen it gramps, it was the funniest thing you'da ever saw, I swear it."
The old man lowers his wise gaze to the young boy, and pats the thigh of his bony leg. "Take a seat Jimmy, I wanna tell you a little story."
Jimmy stares up at his grandfather, and his eyes widen a little bit. "Is it a good one? Or is it one of them dumb stories about how you had to walk to school with five pairs of socks because you had no shoes. Because I swear if you could get that many socks you could at least get a pair of sh-"
"Sonny, now I tell ya' once I won't tell ya' twice. Git' up here on my lap and lemme tell you a story."
The boy pouts. "Awh shucks gramp', you put it that way I guess I ain't got no choice now do I." His high-pitched voice is one of wisdom.
The boy climbs onto the rocking chair, and uncomfortably sits upon his grandfather's bony lap. "Lets hear it old man, if ya didn't forget all the good parts."
Grandpa shifts his chompers around in his mouth just like he does before telling every story, and then he goes.
"Back when I was a pilot in the air-force during World War Two.."
Soaring through the air, a handsome young man pilots an F2A Buffalo fighter plane. The young man's blond hair ripples from the strong winds through the open cockpit, as he skillfully maneuvers the plane through some solo-formations.
"Awh s**t Bill, quit flying the damn thing like that. Wouldn't wanna lose that damn hat now would ya?" The voice raspy over the radio.
Bill switches the radio transmitter, "I would lose this plane before I lose my hat damnit, you know that."
He levels the plane out once again, and with one hand slips the green and white trucker hat tighter to his cranium. His name is printed in white cursive across the front of his hat, and just under his name, 'Yours Truly' is printed onto it.
"Hey Bill, I'm comin' in over yer head, so watch my bank, will ya?"
Bill can hear the engine roaring behind him, and he watches as the nose Bobby's plane runs overhead. Bobby, the show-off he is twists the plane over so he is flying upside down. Bobby yells something that gets lost in the winds of the sky, and Bill looks up to yell back.
His hat flips right off of his head, and Bill jerks violently around in the belts of the plane. "God damnit, S**t, f**k, awh god damnit." Just about every curse word during that time is silenced by the loud rumbling motor of the airplane.
He hears Bobby laughing on the radio. "Awh s**t Bill, there goes yer hat! Better catch it." The laughing resumes.
Bill does just that. He noses the plane upwards, nearly clipping the wing of Bob's plane. Bob is forced to spiral out of the way, and loses control of the plane.
"Bill you dumb son of a b***h! What the fu-". The rest of Bobby's rant is cut short when the man hits the eject button, and launches into the far distance. Bill completely ignores it. He noses in on his hat. Realizing it is nearly impossible to grab the hat from the plane, since the force will just blow it elsewhere, he does the next plausible thing.
Tilting the plane just at the right angle, he readies his hand over the eject cable. Knowing his judgment could not be any better, he tugs on the cord. The seat compresses, and then is launched from the plane. Everything goes according to plan, except when Bill completely misses the distance of the hat. He veers completely toward the right, watching the hat flip around during its slow descent. His eyes go wide realizing he is not at all in proper formation for an eject. The man jerks around in the seat just like before, trying to level it out.
He lets out a yell which is drowned out, as the seat begins to violently flip through the air. He grows dizzy, and when it catches just the right amount of wind, the parachute rips open, and he begins a more gradual descent toward the ground. Bill can only watch in complete horror as his hat, only a tiny dot far off in the distance falls further, and further from ever resting upon his head again.
Jimmy stares up at his grandfather. "Gramps, with all due respect that was the dumbest story I ever heard."
"Now boy, why would you say that?"
Jimmy sits there in his grandfather's lap, staring up at him with wide blue eyes. He blinks, and silently his own eyes look upwards. They stare at the brim of a green, and white hat sitting right upon Jimmy's little head. A hat with the words Bill printed right on the top, and just under it. Just like the hat always was, and always will be. 'Yours truly.'
"Grandpa, I think next time you make up a stupid story you should put your glasses on, and check your lap before somebody sits in it."
![[send message]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/mail.png){kind=small}
![[befriend]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/friend.png){kind=small}
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Flag Writing