Challenge #02103-E279: Miracle Madman
"I believe I can flyyyy!"
"How did you get up there?!" -- OohLookShiny
"It's very simple," said Jarrin The Mad. "You just forget about gravity for a while. Remembering it again is the tricky part. You have to remember in little bits."
Nurse Rhyko squinted at him as he drifted towards a chair. "How the heck can anyone remember gravity in little bits?"
"Have we met? said Jarrin The Mad. "They call me Jarrin The Mad. I can remember five impossible things before breakfast."
Which, it might be noted, Nurse Rhyko had been sent to deliver. She watched the process as Jarrin The Mad gradually descended like a down feather without a puff of air to support it. He was one of the least-harmless residents of the greater asylum, and was thus allowed more than many who dwelt there. If anyone found themselves suddenly in that place would assume they were in a small and modestly-decorated flat.
The bars in the window and the paper slippers were the only give-away that anything other than the floating man was out of the ordinary.
Jarrin The Mad landed with a solid thump. The last inch, he claimed, always gave him trouble. "It's the smallest parts," he said, adding cream to his morning porridge. "The last few pounds in a diet. The last few steps of a project. The little chains of words that make or break a wonderful idea. It's always the smallest measurements that are the most significant. The tiny links in a chain of events that leads..." He started to drift away from his chair, and made himself plop back down. "See? It's easy to forget when philosophy enters the picture."
Nurse Rhyko waited, observing his general manner and making sure he took his medication, as well as counting the utensils and containers on the way out. She had done so on the way in, too; as was procedure. "Haven't they tried to find out how you do it?" she asked.
"Many times," he said. "They can't find any reason within science. They come now and then with new instruments to strap to me or point at me while I... forget... They haven't found any means for me to be doing this."
If they could, it would be a breakthrough. A miracle.
Nurse Rhyko counted the utensils again before she left with the news that music therapy would begin in half an hour. She went on with her days and never forgot about gravity like Jerrin The Mad did. If she could, she would likely join him in residence within a small and modestly-decorated flat.
If a group of people could, they could reach the very stars.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Bialasiewicz]
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Literally reach the stars? I wonder if forgetting they need to breathe or operate in a very narrow band of amenable conditions would work too :D
More like towing along a personal survival system as they go, but you get the idea.