Fickle Minded

Flash Fiction

Jo loves kite flying and he is flying one right now. His kite is bright red and cheerful. Jo is a very skillful boy and he knows all the tricks needed to fly a kite high.

Dramatizing happily, he tells his friends, ‘Look at my kite…soaring high, up above the sky’. All the boys burst out laughing and Theo animatedly sings ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ while an out-of-tune chorus follows him.

These kids are full of fun at the moment. Life is beautiful for them.

The kite flies high. Wind is also playing with it; taking it high and low, twisting and tickling it.

A kite has a wonderful life. Everyone looks at it with awe when it glides and dances along with the wind and the kid holding the string also feels it. A kite is joyous by nature. It brings smile on the face that looks at it. It has only one purpose in life and that is to fly high in the free sky.

Jo knows nothing but one thing that kite flying on a holiday is his life’s purpose. He didn’t even know how to spell the word purpose correctly, his English dictation test is a non-living proof of this fact, but he knew this feeling very well.

It is something to do with passion and excitement and playing well and concentration. These big words are also a problem for him, especially to remember the spellings. Jo knows the feeling and not the spelling of such words, how silly and smart of him to be so.

Jo shouts, ‘I am flying…see I am flying… o twinkle twinkle little star oye, here I come oye’.

A sound of real, innocent, pure somewhat like the rustling of the leaves, laughter filled that lucky area.

Pleasure is all around here. It is a vanilla cake sweet moment.

Slowly the winds begin to get crazier; Jo understands immediately that now is the time to fight and stay alive. All the kites are ready for the battle. Who is their enemy? Not an outsider, they are against each other. Jo tells his kite, ‘Come on… fight hard… it’s an order!’

*

The bright red kite gets tangled up with the black one which is Mat’s kite. ‘It’s a knot!’ said a kid (who exactly spoke, we don’t know, anyway something more important is going on up above in the sky).

It’s the nature of the strings to get tangled, form knots and then break away.

Jo warns Mat and Mat challenges him. The mad winds knew it, Jo and Mat knew it, and the kites knew it- one will be defeated and it’ll fall.

That lucky area is now filled with exclamations, some funny, some ridiculous.

And without any final announcement it happened. Jo feels it, the string is now loose in his hand, and he looks at Mat for a millisecond. All of them stare upwards. His bright red kite is gliding away with the winds.

To his surprise, it is not alone as now the black kite is also gliding away.

Jo and Mat, half-glad, scream excitedly. Walking towards each other; their little gang members encircle them. Whatever the two say, the other boys find it entertaining.

The kites are gone, says their experience in kite flying. Like mirror images of each other, Jo and Mat begin the debate.

Possession is powerful, it can make enemies (but in this case, just for a while).

Let us leave the kids alone, they’ll be alright soon.

Life is very funny and very fickle minded. It jumps from one emotion to the other. But then this is how life is by nature. The interesting thing is that kites don’t copy life, kites always remain in one state and that is the happy state.

So look where the bright red kite is going. Colour is beautiful and this is a truth. One will naturally follow the colourful kite.

Oh! The way it matches with the dance winds do, is heavenly. It seems this kite wants to reach a selected place. It is driving for itself. But the trees are near now, will it get to rest on a tree?

No! It lands safely in a garden. Who lives here? Someone is pruning the plants there. It is Mr. James. The kite fell in Mr. James little garden.

Don’t know what will happen now. Mr. James is very old. See he walks with a limp and can’t see properly. Oh, he picked up the kite. He is checking it. Is he trying to read the kite? Maybe he thinks it is a newspaper or something.

Anyway, he’ll know what he is holding when he wears his reading glasses. Surely there is nothing to read in a kite.

He sits on the lawn chair, but without washing his hands? He is a clean freak and there is some dirt on his hands.

What is he trying to find in this kite? Perhaps he likes the material of the kite. He is rubbing his hands against the kite. And now he smells it. The kite must have been prepared using a high quality paper.

*

Mr. James is caught in a reverie. His eyes are looking bigger. Where ever he is, it is a good and happy place. There is a grin on his face. He suddenly looks peaceful.

A bicycle passes outside his gate and rings the cycle-bell. God knows why the bicycle rider did so, surely not to wake-up Mr. James. But see, he breaks out of his daydream. He looks around and gets up. His expression changed, though it isn’t that clear due to the wrinkles. He looks at the sky and then at the kite.

Moving towards the house leisurely, he bends slowly to keep the kite on the top staircase. Then he returns to work in the garden.

Even the flowers and the bushes and the leaves he was pruning could tell that Mr. James is still pondering about something.

After five or so minutes, Mr. James gets up, fixed on the spot, shares with his garden, ‘I know all the tricks to fly a kite high…up above the sky’.

He is now beaming, now humming something, it is not clear. But then it is the nature of the aged people, they have a smiling face, they answer in a mystical style (unclear to others) and they always chew the songs they enjoyed in their life.

Freedom from life

Or finding freedom in life,

What a joyous ride,

Especially if you are a kite.

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