And Now, For My Next Trick
Flash fiction, 400 words. For Iron Age's Nov. 15 prompt, "The Leap."
The rumors were right, the vortex was real. John was glad for the cameras. Less so, then, for the nets and rescue equipment placed so prominently below.
The wind caught him and he went up, hovering a hundred feet off the ground, in a pillar of empty space. The documentary staff gasped and the audience – hopeful and ghoulish alike – shrieked and clapped.
John Markham, 26, aka Daredevil J, was known for this stuff. Death-defying leaps, skyscraper climbs, tunnels of flame. He was on the circuit, and people watched. Not as many as had watched his dad, but the times, they change.
“The Vortex, ladies and gentlemen!” The announcer crowed like he’d been the one to invent it and he was the one whose body was dangling over the steep Pacific escarpment.
This was the part where Daredevil J began his fast-talking routine, digging his rivals and awing his audience with his nonchalance.
But John didn’t say anything. He wanted to. He wanted to crow louder than the announcer and whoop fit to drown out the lookie-loos.
On another day, in another event, he would have done. But the vortex was different. He wasn’t here to crow. He was here to act. He knew the vortex would catch him because he’d seen it, done it, before. In another time, in another place.
He knew the vortex was here because he’d seen himself flying in it. His spy hole had been another vortex, thirteen years ago, at the top of a gentle hill in Virginia, a day before disaster. The vortices were like two sides of a roaring mirror whose silvered backboard was space and time.
He’d seen himself, so he knew he’d be watching.
The Vortex was loud. Some might hear him, but he didn’t care. Only one thing mattered. He imagined how he must look. What had he seen that time? The left side, the side with his hair part. He turned to his left. He shouted, loud as he could, simple words, important words.
“Tell Dad the rope is frayed. He gets to look at it or he doesn’t go on, you hear me?”
There was a rogue “What’d’e say?” but most in the crowd hadn’t heard.
He turned toward the camera crew, suddenly sheepish. His dad stood with his mom behind them, watching as he always did, proud and nervous.
John Markham, 13, had heard.