Getting 'Real'

It started as a normal day.

Okay, yes. You’re right. We don’t have those in our house.

Consider it satire.

Let me start again.

The day began . . .

Mom had made her usual breakfast of champions. My favourite: hotcakes, sausages, eggs . . . and onions. Okay, it’s a personal ‘haute cuisine’ thing.

Cause I’m such a classy person.

Ahem . . .

Sally had been mostly absent during the meal; staring into space. Not an unusual thing. For her.

I’m pretty sure she had a good reason today, though. Mom doesn’t allow electronics at the table and Sally had just gotten a new Roller Coaster game for her DS. I’m pretty sure she was playing it in her head.

Okay, let’s not talk about Sally’s head.

Moving on . . .

Mom and I were actually enjoying the peace and quiet. Sally had been razzing Mom all week because she wanted a ‘Playstation VR’, which was, to her, the greatest virtual-reality/life-changing system ever! But, to quote Mom, was: “So far out of the realm of possibility that it wasn’t even a faint blip on the Hubble Telescope.”

But you who know Sally, also know that she doesn’t take such a frivolous word as ‘no’ seriously. In fact, the introduction of that one tiny word had been known to morph into discussions that encompassed topics from the dawn of creation to the end of days.

Mom had finally relented so far as to buy Sally the aforementioned Roller Coaster game.

For a short time, she'd been appeased.

Breakfast ended. I’d drawn the short straw, so Mom and I started the clean-up.

Sally drifted off.

As I was wiping the table a few minutes later, I saw my sister head out the front door. She had her bike helmet on. And a roll of duct tape in one hand and her DS in the other.

I really didn’t think anything of it. It is Sally we’re talking about.

Silly me.

I was putting the last of the dishes away. Mom turned, our glass milk jug in her hands. “Honey, you’re taller than me. Could you put this up there?” She nodded her head toward the upper cupboard over the fridge. “Then I don’t have to get the stool.”

“Sure.”

Such normal, natural talk.

Sigh.

Just as Mom reached out to pass me the jug, something in the window caught her eye.

I spun around and our passing/reaching ended in the shattering of said jug on the linoleum.

Neither of us noticed because I had glimpsed what so distracted Mom.

A body falling past the window.

Large body.

Roughly ‘Sally’ sized.

We jumped over the shattered mess that had formerly been our sparkling-clean source of all things milky and headed for the door.

Mom is older than me, but her aged limbs . . . okay, she’s thirty-six . . . passed me like a shot.

By the time I’d cleared the door and joined her at the prostrate figure lying in our formerly pristine flower bed, Mom had already knelt down.

Of course, it was Sally. I mean, who else would it be?

Still wearing her bike helmet, but with something added to the front.

With the duct tape.

Mom reached out and grabbed the ‘something’ and pulled it off with one great jerk; handing it to me.

I looked down. Sally’s DS. With roller coaster game still running.

Sally’s blue eyes looked up at us. “You’ve got to try this!” she gasped out. She raised herself up on one elbow. “My own virtual reality! I think I’m on to something!”

Mom shook her head and she and I stood up. I dropped Sally’s DS beside her and the two of us headed for the door.

“Hey! Don’t you want to hear about it?! I mean, leaping from the rooftop in reality as well as in the . . .”

I closed the door. Hard.

And considered locking it.

“She’ll only find some other way in,” Mom said. 

This story is fiction, although I'm sure most of you have a for-real 'Sally' in your life!
Today is a word challenge.

Karen of Baking in a Tornado takes from the repository of words supplied by her slaves good friends, shuffles them, and then gives back to those same . . . erm . . . people.

To do with as they see fit.

The result is the Use Your Words challenge!

This month, my words, satire ~ breakfast of champions ~ morph ~ haute ~ tape ~ virtual reality, came from my friend, Jenniy of Climaxed. What fun! Thank you, Jenniy.

Now go and see what the others have done with the challenge!

Baking In A Tornado

The Bergham Chronicles

The Blogging 911

Cognitive Script

Climaxed