Space Athlete

Space Athlete: performs stunts in and around space stations, shuttles, solar wind gliders, satellite networks, orbital telescope arrays, surface exploration and sampling craft, and manned landing vehicles.



Can actually make needed repairs while performing entertaining tricks and dangerous acrobatic maneuvers. One little slip, and off you go into eternal outer space, with no hope of being rescued.





So read my personal ad, trying to find work.



An unemployed space athlete is not a pretty sight. We languish, wishing we could land a "floater", our term for "job", because we do a lot of floating as we make repairs and entertain spectators.



What nobody knows is that, between jobs, we also practice Eastern-style levitation exercises, just to stay loosened up for the next gig.

The problem is, now I've levitated too high, and, to make matter worse, no matter how hard I try, I cannot come down.




I was in my backyard, and it was really dark, so I dared to do some outdoor levitating. I rose rapidly, I'm sure no one saw me. But then I got stuck, and I'm using my wireless laptop, which I luckily had with me, to publish this post.



I figure if someone, an initiated riser, knows how to solve this problem, they can post a comment, or email me. I'm just hanging around, suspended against my will. Please, if you know the technique I need to implement, to override this default lofting, share that information with me.



About an hour ago, I was spotted by the police as I hovered sleepily near the top of the pine tree in my backyard. Gunshots abruptly snapped me back into a wide-awake state and a surly mood. They were firing at me.

Apparently, a human who can defy gravity is an anarchist who defies any other law he damn well pleases, according to these officers. Again with the gunshots. But I couldn't will myself down, I don't know why.

I seemed to be doomed to an eternal hover mode. Some mental mechanism has jammed. Morning will come eventually, soon in fact, and then everyone will be able to see me up here. This is not good. I'll probably lose my space athlete license: "reckless exposure of secret maneuvers" the report will state.

When I got far enough away from the cops, by swooshing horizontally to a spot behind a fussy clump of tall trees in the woods in back of my neighbor's bungalow, I upchucked my lunch all over a tree trunk, I was that upset.



Getting shot at is a very unpleasant experience, especially if you're on a guilt trip about your levitation skills being discovered by local policemen. I was hoping they didn't assume correctly that I lived in the house I was hovering above.



Of course, I'll deny it was me that was floating, if I ever come down and they interrogate me. I hate to lie, in fact, I almost never tell untruth, but in this case, what choice do I really have?

It sucks being trapped in a levitative dysfunction. There are no coffee shops, record stores, or bars up here. They're all down there, far below me.



This bites.





:^(