Trash
Prompt: Trash
Author: InsolentScrawl
Note: This is the sequel to last week’s prompt ‘Wings’
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“Jake, could you take this out to garbage?” Beth asked, pulling large chunks of Styrofoam out of a box. The foam in the form of six inch cubes needed to go. It was spring cleaning, and by golly she’d get the house cleaned out if it killed her. First, she had to get through the boxes in the closet - the ones she’d been avoiding for several months.
“Huh?” asked ten-year-old Jake as he rounded the corner and stared at her blankly. It seemed to Beth than young boys had that look perfected - that special blend of ‘duh’ and repulsion at having to do anything that resembled work. “What did you need, Mom?”
“Take these out to the trash,” Beth replied, pointing to the foam.
She should have expected the gasp of delight. Ever since the boys had decided to build the spaceship, life had become a scary adventure in weirdness. And that particular exclamation of excitement filled her with a scary sort of dread.
“But mom, this would make a great addition to the satellite communications system,” he said with a frightening amount of awe mingled with excitement. “Technically, this would be the foundation of the antennae.”
Two things struck Beth. One, he was so much a mechanical geek like his father it was scary; and second, she was getting really, really tired of his use of ‘Technically’ at the start of every fifth session.
This sort of reaction from ten-year-old Jake had become common in the past few months, ever since Beth and her oldest daughter Charlotte had convinced Jake and his eight-year-old brother Paul that a magnetic shift was going to destroy the gravitational field of the Earth (as witnessed by the slowing of toilets flushing). The boys, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to build a spaceship to launch family and friends into space. So far, the passenger manifest had reached fifty.
“Jake,” Beth sighed. Then blowing out a resigned breath, she muttered, “Fine. I just don’t want to see it again.”
She was also scared to go into the garage where the boys currently housed the pieces and parts of the spaceship. Although, it seemed natural to cringe when he whooped in delight.
Settling into her recliner, Beth had to chuckle at the antics of her sons. If nothing else, they could be amazingly creative. It would be interesting to see what they managed to create over the course of the next year or two. The boys found many excuses to putter at their ‘workbench’ in the garage. Often enough, Beth was dragged in to review some interesting gadget they’d built (often out of duct tape and a stray piece of wood).
The only reason to pause occurred about ten minutes later, when Jake sauntered past her, whistling softly to himself. “By the way, Mom,” Jake said, “we’ve decided to use the engine of your car to power the rockets.”
Raising her eyebrows, she eyed the boy mischievously and countered, “Actually, you might want to use Dad’s. He’s got a V-10 on his, made for hauling. You can get farther.”
“Hmmm…” Jake replied. “You may have a point.”
As he disappeared out the back door to play in the yard, Beth just shook her head. It was never boring.