8 November 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2915: space, man

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews

“OK, so, my Papa agrees with your dad about why we need to ask for permission, so, we really gotta focus to get them to understand our ideas so they can help us out.”

Nine-year-old George Ludlow was talking with nine-year-old Milton Trent while sitting in the Trent backyard on a log in the shade.

“So, the first thing we gotta do, and Grayson can help us because nobody can resist a proper blueprint, is make sure we have our plans together for when we move back up to the Veteran's Lodge,” he continued.

“Well, we're going to have a lot of time on that, probably, because now that Bayard Creek is loose it seems to be carving out its old valley,” Milton said. “Pop-Pop has some workers up there, and they are telling him Lofton County is wasting its time with winter coming trying to stop it, but the county being what it is, it's probably going to waste its time until the whole thing with that and the cotton balls and asbestos at the high school until it goes bankrupt.”

“Kinda hard to compete against moving water like that,” George said. “I saw this video once where a river was trickling through a sand bank to go to the ocean, and it was like eight minutes between a trickle and surf's up.”

“Well, at least if the ocean makes it up to a half-mile near our houses, we can get a running start into the water for our surfboards,” Milton said. “It's gotta be easier to surf with a running start.”

“Yeah, but we gotta focus because we got bigger plans when we get back up there,” George said. “Ain't nothing bigger than getting into space, man.”

“Yeah, we could be sailing on sunbeams by the time they figure all that out,” Milton said. “We just gotta focus.”

“The first thing, if we can't get back up to the Veteran's Lodge is, we gotta find out who owns these fields because we need somewhere to build a spaceport,” George said. “I know that my cousins the Hamiltons are thinking about buying the one between them and where we live now, and Cousin Harry and Cousin Ironwood are going to ask Papa if he wants in. The problem is, they want to do boring stuff that the field is already doing, like growing stuff, but if we can just get enough of it so Grayson can build our spaceport, we could be good.”

“Well, I mean, even considering both of us needing to go, how much room do you need to launch a two-man Lego rocket?” Milton said. “I mean, it's a rocket, so it goes straight up. We don't need a lot of parking space, and so, we just need to have maybe two parking spaces so alien rockets can land too.”

“Well, maybe three,” George said, “because like humans, I'm sure there are a few aliens who are like drivers Papa said can't park a bug where a battleship goes.”

“Yeah, there's definitely that,” Milton said. “Last time I was at Big Discounts for Your Loft, somebody had parked in two parking spaces, and there was so much smoke coming out of that thing – I mean, at least they had the windows open. I don't know what they are making the insides of cars out of, though – smelled like skunk and burned grass combined. Dad literally picked me up and carried me off the scene and said we'd come back for the car later.”

“Can't use whatever that was for a furniture choice for our rocket," said George, “but they were all kinds of messed up, so we can't count their bad parking against them there.”

“Yeah, but I'm just saying: maybe we need three extra spots in case of emergency,” Milton said.

“Yeah, and we need to always keep a few full buckets of water over there in case of fire,” George said. “But it's like I said: we gotta focus so when we do get our chance either here or at the Veteran's Lodge, we're gonna have the perfect plan and when we go for permission, they just gotta give it and help us out. Papa used to fly helicopters, and Capt. Miyamoto was a Navy pilot, and your dad used to build on all that kind of stuff.”

“Yeah, Dad is that one Army guy that is always surprising his Air Force buddies with all the stuff he knows,” Milton said, “and he knows a lot of Air Force folks.”

“Oh, see, this is why we shoulda asked a long time ago!” George said. “Your dad is right – if we ask, we can get access to everything we need!”

“Wait a minute,” Milton said. “Didn't Rev. Stone say something about that from the book of James – 'we have not, because we ask not?'”

“Whoa,” George said. “Wait a minute … we gotta think about all this … we just went from space to understanding stuff in heaven, man.”

“We really do gotta focus, George,” Milton said. “We haven't even gone anywhere yet, and we've gone everywhere. We gotta stop getting grounded on dumb stuff and focus.”

“Yeah, I need to go get the nest of eggs I'm trying to hatch real quick out of the oven before I forget and Grandma turns that on,” George said.

“Yeah, because folks get really crazy about unexpected bird,” Milton said. “That's why my cousin Tom is living with Pop-Pop – my Uncle Major had a whole PTSD episode over deep-fried frozen chicken.”

“Yeah, definitely need to not have that happen,” George said. “Just gotta get this nest back up in the tree, but it's an easy climb from the shorter tree to the roof to the taller tree, and I got the ladder on the ground where I can reach down and pull it up if I really need it.”

“Everything goes better when we focus,” Milton said.

“Yep,” George said.