Pam & the Pilot
Flash Fiction Celebrating Healing, Family, and Generations.
A submission for Iron Age Media’s prompt: The Inspector.
Pam put pen to paper and penned her perceptions when off the job.
Parenting, and its perks were a vibrant, lived experience in Pam’s mind.
A gross thud, the tremor of footsteps, and the prying apart of Pam’s office door led to nervousness, but also consolation.
A production of parents panicked to Pam. “Pain!” she screamed, peeling back a palmful of pulsing pustule.
Pam knew peoples, parts, and pieces, and so was able to fix and clean the profusion.
This continued for 40 years. Pelages, Pastries, and Plimsolls: all were gifts that were granted to Pam upon retirement.
Presented back to Pam on a morning post retirement, was a framed portrait of the past patrons whom she palpated.
The first in particular was a pilot in his prime. Passion and Patriot both were words that could describe him.
Pam thought of him as a pillar. Pattern recognition was like owning a pack of peanuts, but all your friends happen to be allergic. Not even Pam would be able to share in that exchange.
The pilot followed Pam early on, holding doors open for her, and telling her stories of how she reminded him of sunsets and mythical characters from soliloquies.
Peptalks are a periapt for the pleading poignant. Pam thought she did not need them though, for she was neither a perfectionist, nor a procrastinator.
The truth is Pam was a plain progeny prefaced by family, whether they be her own, or others.
Years later, painstaking sorrow begets proferts and pastures. Pam knew she had big shoes to fill when the Pilot went away. Holding only medicine as a skill, Pam prior to her job, proposed that she painted the picture of a clean bill of health for every family she could get in contact with.
She did this, and more. Proving in profit, peace and persistence that hard work did indeed pay off. The Pilot was enthused with his role as panoply to both Pam and his country. He was a pressure point through which Pam relaxed and realized the goals of any who knew happiness.
Promising as the venture is, Pam would miss the idol of her pause.
Perniciousness seldom found a home in the heart of Pam, but when she heard of the Pilot’s pearl seeking past the mortal coil, planting unto paradise as only spotless pearls could, Pam felt anger as well as sadness.
Pam need only remember the pin that held it all together. In the future, her experiences would be poached by the youth whom played pranks and prizes with the stories of the elderly. The story of the Pilot would undoubtedly be treated as a prize, for both her past, and their future.