Feeling Gravity's Pull

Ryan painstakingly drew the entire solar system with colored chalk on his driveway so that he could skateboard and pretend to travel amongst the stars. The slick sound of oiled ball bearings rolling together propelled him on his never ending figure eight journey through the galaxy. Crouching low to glide in an effortless curve around Saturn's rings to Jupiter's moons. Letting gravity pull him down the driveway and then a few quick kicks for power and back around again. Never breaking the pattern, gaze never straying from the pavement. Watching the planets rush past in a brain-detached trance.

The peaceful calm of obssesive repetition was occasionally broken by a sudden loss of balance. It was in the split second of the fall that Ryan would be jolted back to consciousness. Brought back to Earth. Senses alive and ringing. Frightening and exhilarating rush of being out of control.

Then the smack of the concrete. A skinned knee. A bruised elbow. These were the telltale scars of the skateboard astronaut and he wore them proudly.

Each scab would later serve as a reminder of those dazed yet insightful moments on his back in the driveway. Limbs bent at awkward angles. Overturned skateboard in the grass, wheels spinning. His brain scrambling to reorient him in the world. Looking up in awe at the blinding blue sky filling his vision.

Wide eyed in wonder, it was in these moments that Ryan had found a way to escape the Earth's gravitational pull.