Jess was only ten when the first pods washed up on the shore. She'd been standing with her toes dug into the sand, letting the cold Atlantic Ocean swirl around her ankles, daring herself to venture ... [+]
Dave Bachmann is a retired teacher who taught language arts to special needs students in Arizona for 39 years. He now resides in California, writing poems and short stories for children and grown-ups. "A Coaster Connection for Gramps and Granddaughter" is in Short Circuit #16, Short Édition's quarterly review.
I am on a roller coaster which is click clacking up a steep incline. Lily, my eight-year-old granddaughter, is sitting next to me.
"This is boring," she laments, gazing languidly over the side of our coaster.
"It gets better," I assure her. "See the apex up ahead?"
"What's an apex?"
"The top. That's where we start to go down."
Lily shrugs. This is her first roller coaster ride, and so far, she is not impressed.
As the coaster continues its painfully slow ascent, I try to distract Lily by pointing out the shrinking people watching from below.
"They're not actually shrinking, Gramps