Congratulations !
You have been awarded points.
Thank you for !
- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Fairy Tales & Fantasy
- Subject: Love / Romance / Dating
- Published: 11/01/2022
I don’t know why I have to go do a story on a guy that just about everybody has seen on: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or the Evening News. You have seen it, I know you have. It is old News, not new News. It gets boring. I mean all he ever does is start to walk, float gently up into the air, and then meander around the sky for his “walk”. Then he floats back down to the ground. End of Story.
Nothing interesting ever happens. He doesn’t hear any messages from some kind of beings, he doesn’t have any miracle powers to cure disease, or dispense forgiveness. He isn’t attached to any spiritual belief system, or (as far as we know) to any Aliens. He is just an ordinary guy that finds himself floating in the air when he goes for a walk.
A one trick pony.
And I have to interview him. His first Interview…at least since he was released from the horrible train of experiments that Scientists trying to figure out why he floats, and when, made the poor man endure for more than a year. Now that was a story. That last day when he tried to “walk up into the sky”. They had to send a helicopter up to get him at 11,000 feet. He was cold, and suffering from hypoxia…but other than that…just fine. Well, if you can consider walking yourself into outer space to get away from the Media and Scientists…as being- "just fine.”
Since then, he does his “walking” in a huge private reserve set aside for him by the Government. Sure, sometimes outsiders get a glimpse of him as he toddles along above the tree line…or higher. But the best you can get out of him then is a little wave. Then…he is gone. And now, well, I get to Interview him. Why he chose me…I have no idea.
My name is Melissa. Most of you know me by my Stage Name: “Chatty Kathy.” I started on Instagram, moved to Tik Tok, and then…finally…landed on YouTube. I have a little bit more than a million subscribers. No where near the top of the charts, but still pretty respectable.I don’t make tons of money, just a low six figures (before taxes). But I do get to live my own life, travel a bit for meet ups with other “Creators” and “Influencers.” I am much more in the Creator group than the Influencer group. I don’t change people’s minds, but I do have interesting content.
What I am really good at is thumbnails and titles. Yep. I can get people to click on my postings. The Content is a bit above average too. That’s mainly because not only am I pretty (and believe me that helps) but I am smart. Like wicked smart. Like got my Ph.D at sixteen Smart. And not in some basket weaving “Soft Science” field, or the Humanities. Nope. My Ph.D was in Physics.
Specifically my Doctorate in Quantum Field Theory - more specifically on why Time is “smooth” and not discrete. One moment always follows the next moment, and never the other way around. In Space, two things next to each other don’t have to be related at all. In Time, well each moment is related to the next…and you can’t stop and stare at a moment in Time, everything has moved.
Maybe that is why he chose me for this Interview. He wants my brain, my opinion. My hypothesis on what is happening when he goes for his walk. I have no idea what is happening on his walks. I read all the Papers on him, the experiments they tried, and all the environments they put him in. His Genetic makeup gives no clues, hints, or paths to follow. His DNA is the most studied on the History of the Planet…and yet it didn’t reveal anything about why…or how…he can simply walk up into the sky.
I don’t know what I could write about that would be interesting. I mean once you get past the shock of seeing a perfectly normal (HA!) twenty six year old man start gently floating up into the air beside you…what else is there to talk about. The Videos themselves bore people after just fifteen seconds. Yep. Fifteen seconds of watching him “float on air” and most people tune out. How in the world am I going to make him more interesting?
He paid for the flight, and my Hotel…and a pretty hefty check to boot, so here I am, about to meet the man who floats in the sky.
*****
“Hello…you must be “Chatty Kathy.”
“Well, online I am, in private, or to my friends I am Melissa.”
“Than I shall call you Melissa. And then we will chat and see if you live up to your name online.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud. He was cute in a kind of “boy next door that your Mother would love” way. It was pretty obvious that he kept himself neat and clean. It as just as obvious that he was not into Fashion, Fads, or Trends. He was wearing a shirt that went out of style some time last Century. He had on socks that couldn’t decide between staying up …or falling down. He had on a pair of shorts that were so baggy they qualified as parachute pants. He had a quick smile, some freckles lightly sprinkled about a nose that was about as Irish as it could be.
He had a soft way of speaking, gentle brown eyes with flecks of gold in them, and eyebrows that would have made Einstein proud. He looked, at one and the same time- as young as I was (26) and as old as Time. It was a real example of cognitive dissonance. How can anyone look old and out of touch, and yet posses an aura of centuries long gone? He managed it with aplomb.
I already knew …in just those first few moments of meeting him…there was much more than just floating in the sky going on. The Academic in me was thrilled. The girl in me was putting on her make up in my mind. I wanted him to like me. That made me laugh, because I thought I was to old to get a “Crush” on anybody. I had done the relationship Rodeo since I was thirteen…and that was one Merry Go Round I never wanted to ride again. Yet, here I was…smitten.
He noticed.
“Why are you chuckling to yourself?”
I blushed.
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
He smiled, and stepped up in the air a few inches…so that he was floating beside me.
“Trust me, I believe a lot of things now.”
I laughed and blurted out the Truth.
“I was laughing because I have a bit of a crush on you.”
He turned a pleasant rose color -which set his freckles off in a very cute way.
“Oh, well…that’s nice.”
“Nice?”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
That sent him another few feet off the ground into the air. He was laughing out loud. I had to reach up and hold him with one hand to keep him from climbing any higher in the sky.
And that…well..is when it happened.
He stopped laughing. He pulled me closer to him and said the most confusing thing to me:
“What are you?”
I looked at his eyes (I could have crawled right in them…they were so wide and welcoming!) and saw only confusion and surprise.
“I…I …I don’t know what you mean.”
He gently pointed down.
I gasped.
We were both walking along…six feet or more off of the ground. He was still holding my hand…we looked like a normal couple in love…out for a stroll. Well, except for the six feet off the ground bit.
Then he said:
“Wait, let’s try something. Let go of my hand.”
To be honest, I didn’t want to let go of his hand. Not at all. But not out of fear…but comfort. I liked holding his hand. It felt…right.
Reluctantly…I let go of his hand. Nothing happened. I just floated next to him. Two of us…just standing dumbfounded a bit more than ten feet from the ground below us.
I heard him say softly:
“Oh, my.”
My reply was a bit more strongly stated.
“What the F….?!”
He took my hand again. That seemed to make it alright somehow. We walked and talked for hours. Sometimes we were so close to the ground, a passerby wouldn’t have noticed we weren’t touching the ground. Other times, we were so high in the air, that the trees looked like they came from a kids train set at Christmas.
I never ended up posting a Video. In fact, I stopped posting at all. I was done with the whole Celebrity thing. I wanted nothing more than my privacy and his hand in mine.
Of course it didn’t take long before someone caught drone footage of the two of us ambling about the “Private Preserve.” He helped guide me through the next six months. Six rough months of prying, probing, invasion of both privacy and decency. He had been through the Media Circus and Scientific gauntlet before…so it was a bit easier on me…but not much.
In the end, they had to let us go back to the preserve. With a bit more security. My genes turned out to be as unremarkable as his. I didn’t get any message from God, Aliens, AI’s or any of the other usual suspects. Nor could I work any miracles. People touched me all the time (he said it is annoying but they mean well) expecting to get a cure, a spiritual insight, or a miracle. They got nothing except a quick slap on their hand and a stern warning to back off.
On one of our daily walks, floats, or whatever, I asked him what he thought it meant…us being able to walk in the sky.
“I dunno. I used to think it was a sign. That I was chosen to be someone special, or at least do something special. Then I realized that I don’t have any powers or miraculous things that I can do. I can just walk up into the air. That’s all.”
I laughed and squeezed his hand.
“Yeah, that’s all I can do do. Is walk up into thin air.”
We laughed and laughed as we bobbed between fifteen and fifty feet up in the air.
He kept talking.
“I think we are some kind of hint. You know, if you can get bored watching us walk along in the air…then you have lost that sense of mystery, of wonder, of…how strange and wonderful life is. I think that might be it.”
I thought about what he said. Then I added my own thoughts.
“I wonder if we were meant to find each other, to prove that True Love can achieve anything.”
He stopped and kissed me. And believe me, I would have floated off the ground with that one, even if I couldn’t fly. When we broke apart…he held me for a long time. Then he said:
“Yeah, Love can really sweep you of your feet.”
The nearby drone caught our laughter was we continued on.
Cloud Nine.(Kevin Hughes)
I don’t know why I have to go do a story on a guy that just about everybody has seen on: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or the Evening News. You have seen it, I know you have. It is old News, not new News. It gets boring. I mean all he ever does is start to walk, float gently up into the air, and then meander around the sky for his “walk”. Then he floats back down to the ground. End of Story.
Nothing interesting ever happens. He doesn’t hear any messages from some kind of beings, he doesn’t have any miracle powers to cure disease, or dispense forgiveness. He isn’t attached to any spiritual belief system, or (as far as we know) to any Aliens. He is just an ordinary guy that finds himself floating in the air when he goes for a walk.
A one trick pony.
And I have to interview him. His first Interview…at least since he was released from the horrible train of experiments that Scientists trying to figure out why he floats, and when, made the poor man endure for more than a year. Now that was a story. That last day when he tried to “walk up into the sky”. They had to send a helicopter up to get him at 11,000 feet. He was cold, and suffering from hypoxia…but other than that…just fine. Well, if you can consider walking yourself into outer space to get away from the Media and Scientists…as being- "just fine.”
Since then, he does his “walking” in a huge private reserve set aside for him by the Government. Sure, sometimes outsiders get a glimpse of him as he toddles along above the tree line…or higher. But the best you can get out of him then is a little wave. Then…he is gone. And now, well, I get to Interview him. Why he chose me…I have no idea.
My name is Melissa. Most of you know me by my Stage Name: “Chatty Kathy.” I started on Instagram, moved to Tik Tok, and then…finally…landed on YouTube. I have a little bit more than a million subscribers. No where near the top of the charts, but still pretty respectable.I don’t make tons of money, just a low six figures (before taxes). But I do get to live my own life, travel a bit for meet ups with other “Creators” and “Influencers.” I am much more in the Creator group than the Influencer group. I don’t change people’s minds, but I do have interesting content.
What I am really good at is thumbnails and titles. Yep. I can get people to click on my postings. The Content is a bit above average too. That’s mainly because not only am I pretty (and believe me that helps) but I am smart. Like wicked smart. Like got my Ph.D at sixteen Smart. And not in some basket weaving “Soft Science” field, or the Humanities. Nope. My Ph.D was in Physics.
Specifically my Doctorate in Quantum Field Theory - more specifically on why Time is “smooth” and not discrete. One moment always follows the next moment, and never the other way around. In Space, two things next to each other don’t have to be related at all. In Time, well each moment is related to the next…and you can’t stop and stare at a moment in Time, everything has moved.
Maybe that is why he chose me for this Interview. He wants my brain, my opinion. My hypothesis on what is happening when he goes for his walk. I have no idea what is happening on his walks. I read all the Papers on him, the experiments they tried, and all the environments they put him in. His Genetic makeup gives no clues, hints, or paths to follow. His DNA is the most studied on the History of the Planet…and yet it didn’t reveal anything about why…or how…he can simply walk up into the sky.
I don’t know what I could write about that would be interesting. I mean once you get past the shock of seeing a perfectly normal (HA!) twenty six year old man start gently floating up into the air beside you…what else is there to talk about. The Videos themselves bore people after just fifteen seconds. Yep. Fifteen seconds of watching him “float on air” and most people tune out. How in the world am I going to make him more interesting?
He paid for the flight, and my Hotel…and a pretty hefty check to boot, so here I am, about to meet the man who floats in the sky.
*****
“Hello…you must be “Chatty Kathy.”
“Well, online I am, in private, or to my friends I am Melissa.”
“Than I shall call you Melissa. And then we will chat and see if you live up to your name online.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud. He was cute in a kind of “boy next door that your Mother would love” way. It was pretty obvious that he kept himself neat and clean. It as just as obvious that he was not into Fashion, Fads, or Trends. He was wearing a shirt that went out of style some time last Century. He had on socks that couldn’t decide between staying up …or falling down. He had on a pair of shorts that were so baggy they qualified as parachute pants. He had a quick smile, some freckles lightly sprinkled about a nose that was about as Irish as it could be.
He had a soft way of speaking, gentle brown eyes with flecks of gold in them, and eyebrows that would have made Einstein proud. He looked, at one and the same time- as young as I was (26) and as old as Time. It was a real example of cognitive dissonance. How can anyone look old and out of touch, and yet posses an aura of centuries long gone? He managed it with aplomb.
I already knew …in just those first few moments of meeting him…there was much more than just floating in the sky going on. The Academic in me was thrilled. The girl in me was putting on her make up in my mind. I wanted him to like me. That made me laugh, because I thought I was to old to get a “Crush” on anybody. I had done the relationship Rodeo since I was thirteen…and that was one Merry Go Round I never wanted to ride again. Yet, here I was…smitten.
He noticed.
“Why are you chuckling to yourself?”
I blushed.
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
He smiled, and stepped up in the air a few inches…so that he was floating beside me.
“Trust me, I believe a lot of things now.”
I laughed and blurted out the Truth.
“I was laughing because I have a bit of a crush on you.”
He turned a pleasant rose color -which set his freckles off in a very cute way.
“Oh, well…that’s nice.”
“Nice?”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
That sent him another few feet off the ground into the air. He was laughing out loud. I had to reach up and hold him with one hand to keep him from climbing any higher in the sky.
And that…well..is when it happened.
He stopped laughing. He pulled me closer to him and said the most confusing thing to me:
“What are you?”
I looked at his eyes (I could have crawled right in them…they were so wide and welcoming!) and saw only confusion and surprise.
“I…I …I don’t know what you mean.”
He gently pointed down.
I gasped.
We were both walking along…six feet or more off of the ground. He was still holding my hand…we looked like a normal couple in love…out for a stroll. Well, except for the six feet off the ground bit.
Then he said:
“Wait, let’s try something. Let go of my hand.”
To be honest, I didn’t want to let go of his hand. Not at all. But not out of fear…but comfort. I liked holding his hand. It felt…right.
Reluctantly…I let go of his hand. Nothing happened. I just floated next to him. Two of us…just standing dumbfounded a bit more than ten feet from the ground below us.
I heard him say softly:
“Oh, my.”
My reply was a bit more strongly stated.
“What the F….?!”
He took my hand again. That seemed to make it alright somehow. We walked and talked for hours. Sometimes we were so close to the ground, a passerby wouldn’t have noticed we weren’t touching the ground. Other times, we were so high in the air, that the trees looked like they came from a kids train set at Christmas.
I never ended up posting a Video. In fact, I stopped posting at all. I was done with the whole Celebrity thing. I wanted nothing more than my privacy and his hand in mine.
Of course it didn’t take long before someone caught drone footage of the two of us ambling about the “Private Preserve.” He helped guide me through the next six months. Six rough months of prying, probing, invasion of both privacy and decency. He had been through the Media Circus and Scientific gauntlet before…so it was a bit easier on me…but not much.
In the end, they had to let us go back to the preserve. With a bit more security. My genes turned out to be as unremarkable as his. I didn’t get any message from God, Aliens, AI’s or any of the other usual suspects. Nor could I work any miracles. People touched me all the time (he said it is annoying but they mean well) expecting to get a cure, a spiritual insight, or a miracle. They got nothing except a quick slap on their hand and a stern warning to back off.
On one of our daily walks, floats, or whatever, I asked him what he thought it meant…us being able to walk in the sky.
“I dunno. I used to think it was a sign. That I was chosen to be someone special, or at least do something special. Then I realized that I don’t have any powers or miraculous things that I can do. I can just walk up into the air. That’s all.”
I laughed and squeezed his hand.
“Yeah, that’s all I can do do. Is walk up into thin air.”
We laughed and laughed as we bobbed between fifteen and fifty feet up in the air.
He kept talking.
“I think we are some kind of hint. You know, if you can get bored watching us walk along in the air…then you have lost that sense of mystery, of wonder, of…how strange and wonderful life is. I think that might be it.”
I thought about what he said. Then I added my own thoughts.
“I wonder if we were meant to find each other, to prove that True Love can achieve anything.”
He stopped and kissed me. And believe me, I would have floated off the ground with that one, even if I couldn’t fly. When we broke apart…he held me for a long time. Then he said:
“Yeah, Love can really sweep you of your feet.”
The nearby drone caught our laughter was we continued on.
Noel Silberberg
11/05/2022This is the type of story that quitely reminds you of what a miracle just being can be.
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Kevin Hughes
11/05/2022Aloha Noel,
Thank you, and you are a very astute Reader; as that was exactly the point of the story! Good on you!
Smiles, Kevin
COMMENTS (1)