A Boy with a Truck -- Flash Fiction

image from everydayfamily.com

"Gran, whatcha doin'?"  Michael asked as he climbed onto the bed.

"Folding laundry. What are you doing?"

"Nothing." The three-year-old held out a small, battered red truck.

"Where'd you get that?" she asked, checking the tag in a T-shirt.

"Grandpa." He tried to see the tag, too.

She turned the shirt so he could see. "XL, that's Grandpa's shirt."

"Michael starts with M," he said.

"Right. But XL is the size. Grandpa starts with G."

"G?"

"XL stands for extra large."

Michael took his truck and ran to the living room where his Grandpa watched the news. He stopped in front of the TV.

"Boy, you'd make a better door than window," his grandfather said.

"Extra, extra," someone sang as the announcer shouted "Welcome to Sports Extra." Video of people swimming flashed in the background and the sports-caster said "One hundred days until the 2016 Summer Olympics. Michael Phelps and our own Missy Franklin are in Colorado Springs training."

"Michael? Like me?" the child asked.

His Grandfather nodded. "But bigger."

"What are Olympics?" One knee down, travelling in a half-crawl, Michael pushed his truck across the floor.

"It's for athletes who excel at their sport. There'll be wrestling and basketball and running and jumping."

"Extra large?" Michael asked. Sure that his Grandpa watched him, he ran fast and jumped as high as he could.

"That's pretty good. You just might get to go to the Olympics in sixteen years or so. When you're a lot bigger. Go ask Gran if she wants some ice cream."

"Can I take Red?"

"Red?"

Michael held up the little truck.

Half an hour later the three of them and Red were outside the ice cream shop. They had to wait and let Michael watch a convoy of trucks. Big white trucks with the iconic red logo of a Colorado electric company on the doors.

"Xcel Energy trucks, headed for Kansas," the grandfather said. "They're expecting bad weather."

"Extra large," Michael said, entranced by the passing trucks.

Michael's grandmother looked up at the clear blue sky and watched a man in shorts enter the ice cream shop. "It must be Spring. Tornadoes on the prairie and we're expecting snow."

"Not until Saturday." Grandpa laughed and scooped Michael up.

Inside the shop a teenager behind the counter asked "What'll it be, little man?"

From the vantage point of his grandfather's arms Michael had the ice cream man say the names of each of the possibilities.

Finally he said, "Chocolate. XL, please."