Free Fall Friday is a time when me and my peers, cautious slow writers, can loosen up, forget our “silly, slow, edit-as-you go,” and just let her rip! We set a timer of ten or fifteen minutes, to write before we hit the ground.
For today’s pieces, my peers said, “Blog it” and “This is one of your better ones.”
Writing Prompt- train wreck
My mother-in-law came to visit. We had two boys, age six and eight. The wife was dear, but she had grown up under her mother’s thumb, and my own mother was similar. So neither of us could protest effectively when she said, in her dominating way, that she would stay with us for some weeks.
In human affairs, we just don’t know in advance that things may go sideways. I guess that phrase comes from boating, when the boat goes sideways. Another metaphor would be to say that my mother-in-law was a train coming down the track, headed towards we who had innocently spread our red checked picnic cloth across those same tracks.
Back when we were courting, I didn’t mind that my fiancé was a shrinking mouse, and she didn’t mind that I had all the humour of a wet mop. Love means overlooking such things, and forgiving one for having sick parents. That sort of sickness, that we were still grasping, was another thing we had in common.
How can you see, truly see, a mother-in-law? Well, for one thing, she wouldn’t allow the dog inside. Now, Spot had a doghouse that I had built just for fun. Only fun, because our roof was the dog’s roof. My mother and father had said, “Not while you are living under my roof…!” and now it was a mother-in-law living under our roof, and somehow it had become her roof, at least where Spot was concerned.
The dear wife couldn’t protest this spotless situation, and the kids began playing outside more, where the dog was, and I had let it go: to keep the peace, and because the dog was only an animal, who would forget and move back in when the witch was gone.
Did I say witch? Yes, because I could see her better, the train was getting closer. You cannot wish a train back with the power of your eyes, not once you have seen it closer.
Now I get why there are so many mother-in-law jokes told by men. My dear wife would never say, in a rage, “I am going to stay at my mother’s place!” She would rage of course, we had a normal marriage, but we would always make up, always stay at home, never getting onto that hellhound train.
Gradually the train wreck approached. My boys seemed to still have energy and play but… I noticed… their laughter, their very sense of humour had diminished. Strange. The train wreck was here, and I had to order my mother-in-law out like a dog. The wife forgave me, she liked seeing my hidden steel: Schrödinger steel, for it only appeared for our boys.
… …
Writing Prompt-in a mind adrift
My mind. The thing that sets us apart from artificial intelligences. The mind that can plan a trajectory to Saturn, and imagine the far side of the moon. And imagine the kids on moon-base playing kangaroo. And drawing hopscotch lines in the fine micodust.
Yet, there is no compulsion to use what god gave me. On tired days, confronted by the challenge of projects and complex enterprises and chores lined up like a rocking assembly line… then sometimes I slip in the clutch.
In a mind adrift I am not living up to my accursed potential, but neither am I stressed and guilty. No need for drugs and substances when I have a clutch pedal at easy hand. Then again, I know an anxious lady who can’t sleep without her crutch, can’t fly in a plane without a substance—not from fear of flying, no, but from fear of her own mind. How sad, to lack discipline.
Like Rome, discipline isn’t built in a day. It starts with daring to set an intention, daring to face the world. And if I face it? Like Sisyphus? Then like Odysseus I have earned the right to set my mind adrift. The world will still be there, under the stars.
… …
Joke: My wife always says, “I”m going home to mother’s!” One day we were fighting and I raged, “Go to the Devil!” She did.
Creativity: In Free Fall, racing our motor with the clutch in, we access our artistic side, writing our way into our piece with surprising results. I had never heard of “Schrödinger steel,” I just suddenly made it up. I’m pleased.
Vocabulary:
When I was stationed in West Germany, we all sought pocket knives made of “Solingen steel,” the best.
In quantum physics, in a thought experiment, “Schroniinger’s Cat” was a quantum wave form, ready to collapse into a solid cat, inside a covered box that contained a randomly releasable (YN) poison. The cat was both alive and dead until an observer opened the box. Then, said Doctor Schrödinger, it would be in one state or the other… Truly, no one understands quantum mechanics.
… …
… …
Sean Crawford
During a brisk and sunny minus 20 degrees centigrade,
February
2025
