“Don’t We All Wish Our Attention Span Was Still Short Enough To Only Know Love?/Fall(ing/en)” (a Flash Fiction piece, 434 words)

You know what’s tough? Trying to give your baby confidence over a phone line; especially when you live in the middle of a forest and her little voice doesn’t always translate well through the wire, with all of the excitement she has when she’s telling you things like her learning how to ride a bike without training wheels.

And it made me cry. The story goes—for me—that I learned to ride a bike without training wheels at all. I picked up a bicycle of one of the other kids in the neighborhood, hopped on, and took off around the square courtyard. We had eight plots like this on the main street, and within about an hour, I’d run them all. No falls, scrapes, dents, bruises, dings. By the time I did crash on a bike, I was racing around a circle, in a time trial that we adventurous kids used to have during my coming up. Somehow the speed I was pushing ended up with my left foot slipping off of the pedal; lodging in between the frame and front tire, and me flipping. Still, no bruises, no blood; I was invincible.

So I’m talking to one of the greatest gifts God ever made just for me. I can hear the fear in her voice; the second guessing about her actually being able to pull this off, riding without training wheels. And I told her what was given to me by no one in particular. Maybe my father told…