The best source for dating advice is your mother. If, of course, you want to marry your mother.
Star Jockey Wants Star Gal
Star wranglers looking for love
FLASH ROGERS, STAR JOCKEY, DRAGGED HIS FEET into his cabin and switched off local gravity. He shed his ridiculous fringe vest and chaps, allowing them to float away as he maneuvered across the room. When he reached his couch, he rolled onto his back, pointed his remote toward the cabin control panel and toggled the gravity switch. He fell into his La-Z-Lounge Bed for a perfect three-point landing.
Just as he punched up his floating vid screen, his mother’s lips and chin filled the display. He no longer bothered to tell her how to zoom out. Nor did he doubt that her first words would be, “How’s the grandchild hunt going?”
She leaned toward her camera so that her uvula filled the screen. “You don’t even have to get married. I’ll be glad to pay for child support.”
His mother’s lips and chin filled the display. Flash no longer bothered to tell her how to zoom out. Nor did he doubt that her first words would be, “How’s the grandchild hunt going?”
Why change the script? He listed the same old litany of loneliness he’d trotted out before: “I spend twelve hours a day at the virtual controls of a star liner, drag my feet, not to mention my ass home at the end of the day, unable to focus, much less think. How can a star jockey find love in those conditions?”
Her apartment wall took over the display. She was obviously leaning over, looking for the camera lens. “For Chrissake, Flash, you’re the pilot of a Wild West themed intergalactic cruiser with three dozen bars. Just put on your dress blues, walk downstairs and order a drink.”
from a story idea by Lily Tiller
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Wry noir author Phillip T. Stephens wrote Cigerets, Guns & Beer, Raising Hell, the Indie Book Award winning Seeing Jesus, and the children’s book parody Furious George. Follow him at Phillip T Stephens.
