Contest #134 winner 🏆

137 comments

Contemporary Fantasy Fiction

She’ll come down when she’s ready.

My mother used to say when you reach the hovering age, it’s important to take your time. Don’t feel as though you need to keep yourself on the ground if your body wants to do something else.

I hit the hovering age at thirteen. The first time I slammed the door in my father’s face, I looked down, and I was three inches off the ground. Always felt useless to me. Not to be able to fly--just hover. So I stopped right away. I didn’t have any interest in being an impractical person. My first boyfriend told me it was a superpower. Some superpower. Outside a haunted house, what good is it? I unslammed my bedroom door that day and my father looked right at me--floating there.

I suppose you think you’re special now, huh?

I didn’t think that.

I didn’t think that at all.

My mother reached the hovering age later than me, but that was a time of suppression. She was promised off to a man she didn’t love, and two minutes before she was set to walk down the aisle, up she went. Only two inches, but it was enough to convince her fiance that she was possessed by a demon, and he took off for parts unknown. A month later she met my father, and he seemed like someone who could handle two inches off the ground if it was presented to him, but it never was again. You hover until you stop. Sometimes it’s in your control, and sometimes you wish you could go back up again, but you can’t.

She always wanted to go back up--just to see the world from a slightly higher vantage point. Mom was five foot three, which I knew she didn’t feel was very respectable. In her mind, she was taller. Deep in the recesses of her psyche, she was tall and blonde and looked like the women at the picture show who were rescued by cowboys and sought after by fine gentlemen in period dramas based on books I was supposed to read in school.

When we closed the coffin on her, she was two and a half inches up off the lining and I thought--

She gained half an inch.

That was all.

My confession to you is this--

I didn’t want a daughter, because I knew.

I knew that sons don’t hover and daughters do, and when I met Oh Henry, I told him that anything goes so long as we never have a daughter.

And dammit, didn’t we have a daughter.

I knew this wasn’t a skipping generation kinda skill, but Oh Henry was a man who had his feet on the ground. I thought that meant maybe the hovering would stay at a minimum if not non-existent. Quite the opposite, in fact. She was younger than me and went higher. My little Jessy Bell. Two-years-old and seven inches high. Oh Henry asked if he should tug on her little polka square dress to bring her back down, but I said what my mother said--

She’ll come down when she’s ready.

But my little girl never seemed to want to come down.

Instead she’d float all around the house. She’d float in the tub while I was giving her a bath. She’d float up past her high chair while I was feeding her fried peaches. She’d levitate at the playground sending all the other kids screaming into the nearby woods. Parts unknown. Just like jumpy grooms and people who don’t understand that a little space between your shoes and the ground isn’t the scariest thing in the world.

Life can offer you way bigger scares than that.

Jessy Bell would hover just up past the swing set and will herself back and forth while I tried to convince her that to sit in a swing can be lovely all by itself. Even at two-years-old, she wouldn’t be brought down. I’d hand her apple slices cut in the shapes of Sesame Street characters and as she was chomping on Grover, I gave her my word that she could stay up as long as she wanted no matter what that meant.

Would the news show up and do a feature on her?

Would the local paper print lies about her being radioactive?

Would a network exec promise her a sitcom that would be poorly written and would her mother be played by the woman who played the wacky detective on Clue Me In?

I put her on the seesaw with me and she saw me get choked up, because I could have prevented all this. I could have taken myself down to the burgundy bedroom carpet when I was thirteen and onto the kitchen linoleum and the green green grass outside on the lawn. I could have tap danced my way to the nearest city and worked as a waitress at a steak restaurant where the special was never salmon and rent an apartment in a building with thin walls and noisy neighbors and never married and never had a daughter and never watched her work her way up faster and higher than I ever could.

She hit the hovering age and just kept going. Past the age I started and stopped and then further on beyond her grandmother’s beginning and end. She had sixteen daughters of her own and each one of them began hovering earlier and earlier. The youngest one was born hovering causing the doctor to have to find a ladder to pull her down from the ceiling.

By then, I was long gone.

Not dead, but living with Oh Henry in a houseboat on Lake Lionel. Every day, I would wake up and try my best to glide across the water. Some days a splash, some a swim. Nobody ever told me that once you choose a gravitational pull, it’s hard to pull back on the science.

It doesn’t stop me from trying though.

Oh Henry scrambles his toast and toasts his eggs every day hoping he’ll hear the sound of a woman he loves walking on water.

He doesn’t know what that sounds like just yet, but one day, he will.

One day I’ll remember the thing about me I tried hardest to forget.

February 25, 2022 07:36

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137 comments

Ophelia Baker
23:37 Mar 04, 2022

Probably the most original thing I’ve read in a while; a VERY MUCH DESERVED WIN. Congrats!

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Story Time
23:47 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you Ophelia!

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Crows_ Garden
22:52 Mar 04, 2022

I've always loved the idea of telekinesis and levitation. Your story's take on the prompt is awesome. I love it. Especially the fact that it's stronger in the future children. That's wonderful. Truly an amazing story. I'll keep an eye out for your future stories!^^

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Story Time
23:03 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you so much.

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Fortunatus Eze
21:23 Mar 04, 2022

Really enjoyed it, You deserve the win

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Story Time
22:02 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you so much.

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Jose Gonzalez
20:46 Mar 04, 2022

Very creative well written story. I like it these women can levitate higher and higher at an earlier age. The symbolism here, I enjoyed it.

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Story Time
21:03 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you very much, Jose.

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McCampbell Molly
20:18 Mar 04, 2022

Cute story. Can't imagine having 16 daughters and I am a fantasy writer. Although it is easy to relate to the fact that our children keep getting better than us.

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Story Time
20:19 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you very much.

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Michele Duess
19:19 Mar 04, 2022

Great story. I'm left hoping the main character does walk on water one day. Congrats on the win!

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Story Time
19:32 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you Michele!

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18:54 Mar 04, 2022

Such a fascinating take on the prompt! There is a small town feel that brings so much to your story. Congrats on the win :)

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Story Time
18:56 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you Katelin!

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Zelda C. Thorne
18:46 Mar 04, 2022

Loved it! I might just read it again 👏 Thanks for this and congratulations 😀

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Story Time
18:48 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you Rachel!

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Taj Isly
18:27 Mar 04, 2022

Beautifully written and the story is so simple yet explore some deep emotions related to identity and the sens of belonging:) Love it !

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Story Time
18:30 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you Sabrina!

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Karen Kinley
18:02 Mar 04, 2022

Creative take on the prompt! Such an easy, interesting read. I found myself going back and rereading sections. High praise from me indeed! Too many great lines to point out. I am a new fan of yours. WELL DONE! And congrats!

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Story Time
18:31 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you, Karen!

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Sue Hunter
17:55 Mar 04, 2022

A well-done story that I really enjoyed reading! Congrats on your win!

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Story Time
18:31 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you Sue!

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N Navsky
17:43 Mar 04, 2022

Original subject and a whisper of the unknown. Good luck!

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Story Time
18:31 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you so much.

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Shea West
16:49 Mar 04, 2022

I'm so damn pumped this one won Kevin!!!! You've been in a flow the past few weeks that have had me just wanting more, and there was this feeling that something was bound to win. Congratulations my friend! It's a privilege to read your writing.

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Story Time
17:05 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you Shea <3

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16:28 Mar 04, 2022

CONGRATULATIONS! :) Another stellar win. Well deserved!

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K. Antonio
16:30 Mar 04, 2022

OMG! YUS KEVIN, CONGRATS! Nice to see a veteran win this week! I'm so happy for ya.

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Story Time
17:06 Mar 04, 2022

Thank you Maestro! <3

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L.M. Lydon
01:54 Mar 03, 2022

I like the very matter of fact tone the narrator has for what is such an unusual skill. The turn at the end, where she tries to recover what was lost, is great. The last three sentence in particular are very strong!

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Story Time
02:55 Mar 03, 2022

Thank you!

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Cassandra Chi
00:14 Mar 03, 2022

What a refreshing reading. Thank you, Kevin, for giving me something to hover about in my dreams tonight.

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Story Time
02:55 Mar 03, 2022

Thank you, Cassandra!

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Sharon Hancock
02:08 Mar 02, 2022

Awesome! I love your voice and your interpretation of the prompt. Very clever.😊

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Story Time
02:56 Mar 03, 2022

Thank you, Sharon!

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Kristi Gott
20:40 Dec 24, 2023

This is such a fun story! I love it because of the light tone and the originality. Great!

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Mila Van Niekerk
17:49 Jan 14, 2023

I am SO confuzzled by this... in a good way, really. Had me hooked from the beginning. The language was vivid and I could see things clearly before me... I just... don't get it? Does it reference an already existing (published) fictional world I don't know of? (Basically I'm asking if this is fanfiction 💀) Is this a world entirely of your own? Would you be able to maybe just explain some of it? As in... who is Oh Henry (super cool name.. I think?) Why does only this family have a hoovering age? Not the whole world? Idk, just a little vague...

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12:17 Aug 11, 2022

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