Flash fic: Wheels

Wheels

Lake wasn’t sure if it was his new skates or all those vitamins, but either way, he’d finally, in his eighty-eighth year, made it around the Great Skate roller rink fifteen times without falling. The skates were terrific: black leather, bright orange stop, and they fit like gloves. Of course, it could be senility. Weren’t old men supposed to be afraid of breaking hips, or worse, looking like fools?

Teenage girls blew him kisses and laughed as they flew by. He smiled back, gliding off the polished wood and onto the carpet for a breather.

A girl in white skates with pink poms skated over.

“Cool. Wanna get a Coke?”

Damnation. Life never ceased to surprise.

*

One of several attempts for Boxing With Pencils. I fail at word limits. 

If you're so inclined, look them up. Like Lily's Friday Prediction, they offer three words, and you must write a story in under a hundred and put it in the comments. The words for this challenge were: senility, carpet, damnation.

This piece is dedicated to my grandpa, who is 92. He stopped skating years ago, but he took us every Sunday when I was a kid. He had his own black leather skates, and he taught me to skate with a pillow tied to my butt with rope. He could skate forwards and back and was the most graceful man on the floor. 

And if you're wondering, I can still Shoot the Duck. *g*