Flash Fiction
mother’s hair every Thursday afternoon in the beauty shop in the back of her house. Mary Pat has long since passed away, and my mother’s hairdo no longer reaches up quite as close to heaven, but she still goes to the beauty parlor every Thursday afternoon.) She stood alone when she first came outside, but eventually went back inside and woke my father. She persuaded him to come out and look at the sky with the rest of us. It was hot and muggy and the air stood as still as we did as we stared through it. I stood up on the swing and watched the moon. “What have I told you about standing on the swings like that,” my mother said. She worried that I would topple the whole thing over because my father had not anchored the swing set into the ground with anything. For my mother, even with big goings-on in the sky, the rules here on earth hadn’t changed. “I think I can see them,” I said. My brother gave me that look—the look that older brothers have given younger brothers throughout history. Well, maybe not the look that Cain gave Abel right before he picked up the shovel, but certainly the look that says, “You did not just say that.” It’s the look my brother gives me now when I tell him that, yes, I really do believe that Bono cares about Africa even if he wears really expensive sunglasses. It was July 20, 1969 in Lakeville, Florida, and Apollo 11 had just landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong had taken his first steps and spoken his nowfamous line, only it wasn’t history yet; it was just the moment—and we had all just watched it happen live on TV. Well, my dad had slept through it, but that’s another story. I had never seen Walter Cronkite seem at a loss for words, but then Walter Cronkite had never seen a man walk on the moon before. After Neil Armstrong stood on the moon for a couple of minutes, my brother and I were the first ones into the backyard. I was sure I would be able to see something on the face of the moon that would let me know that we— notice I say we—were up there. *** Just a week earlier, my brother and I had stood right there in our backyard and witnessed the rocket launch. We watched the rocket carve its way Atticus Review│Get Lit: Round 1
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