PHOTO PROMPT © Alicia Jamtaas
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Downtown passersby were aghast as they watched a man wave goodbye to the woman with one leg dangling out of the second-floor window.
“Do something! She’ll fall.”
Instead of responding to an emergency, the man in the baseball cap smiled. “No, she can’t fall. You see she’s…”
Sirens approaching from the east told the gathering crowd that someone had called 911.
The man yelled up at her, “You’re going to have to prove it.”
“But we’re not supposed to show off,” she replied.
“Too late for that.” Then he beckoned her to come out all the way.
She flew.
This is my February 3rd entry to the Rochelle Wisoff-Fields photo writing challenge. The idea is to use the accompanying photo as a prompt to write a story of 100 words or less. Mine is 99.
I couldn’t think of what to write when I looked at the photo very early this morning, so I did other things for a while. The idea of someone sitting in such a precarious position while someone else is casually waving to her seemed a tough one. So I came up the thought that these can’t be ordinary people. Unfortunately, they were a little too casual about their abilities.
To read other stories inspired by the prompt, go to inlinkz
To find a list of my published fiction works, visit the Fiction Publications on my blog Powered by Robots.
poweredbyrobots.com 
Not sure what all the fuss is about. The window isn’t all that high, and the woman is sitting comfortably on the sill. Her posture is not all that precarious, and she is close enough to the vertical support to hold onto it. Much more suspense has been portrayed in various films with windows and ledges many stories and hundreds of feet above ground level, with little or no support beyond careful balancing.
Nonetheless, James’s drabble delivers a delightful denouement with a flyaway scene that is neither too obvious or predictable nor entirely unexpected — at least, not for anyone who remembers the film “The Boy Who Could Fly”. I found it nicely whimsical.
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You’re a lot more analytical than I am and thanks.
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Ah flying… Hope it doesn’t end with SPLAT!
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Regrettably, flyers often must learn what toddlers learn while walking: sometimes fall down go “boom”.
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Of course, the ending is where the questions begin – aliens? Superheroes? Good or bad? Nice possibilities.
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Aliens and superheroes are just modern additions to a coterie of more ancient mythological critters. The three most likely candidates that occur to me as potential flyers who might refer to a traditional social inhibition about hiding their abilities are faeries, witches, and vampires.
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Oops! Forgot about angels in my list of ancient superhuman critters.
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Lot’s of possibilities in there, PL.
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Only so much I can do with 100 words. Thanks, Iain.
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We seem to be on the same wavelength this morning.
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So it would appear. Great minds think alike. Thanks.
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“She flew.” That changes everything. The end. Nicely done. 🙂
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Thanks, Bill.
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Another fun story!
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Thanks, Dawn.
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ah! Lovely!!! Now, will he fly after her, or let her be?
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Oh, she’ll land in short order because they’ll have to explain to the police what all the commotion was about. 😉
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LOL
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Great ending 🙂
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Thank you.
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Well, that last line certainly put an abrupt end to the story :). Of course, my curiosity wants to know how long she flew before she fell!
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I loosely based the concept on a Zenna Henderson novella that was turned into a made-for-TV movie called “The People.” Here’s the summary of the movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069072/
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You are right, they’re not ordinary people!
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Indeed.
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i hope she caught her just in time. 🙂
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Actually, she can fly so it’s all good.
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The cat’s, or is that bird’s, out of the bag now. Would like to be there to see it happen.
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Somehow an acrobat comes to mind at the end of your story. I see only good things happening.
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Me too. Thanks.
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