A Piedmont Lantern Story
The trouble started, as it often did, with Jimmy Matthew Cartwright decidin’ the day was too perfect to waste on caution.
It was one of those April afternoons where the sky pulled on you like it wanted company. Blue as fresh paint, clouds driftin’ slow and lazy, and a wind just strong enough to make promises. Perfect kite weather, accordin’ to Jimmy Matthew, who claimed to know a thing or two about wind despite his never havin’ been asked for his ‘wisdom‘.
Jim Leroy stood beside him in the open field near Dugger Mountain Road and squinted upward.
“That wind don’t feel friendly.”
Jimmy Matthew waved him off while unrollin’ a kite made of red paper, two splintery sticks, and more glue than structural integrity.
“Wind is like people,” Jimmy said. “If you act confident, it will follow along.”
Jim Leroy frowned. “That ain’t been my experience.”
Jimmy sent the kite up with a mighty run, hollerin’ encouragement like the thing could hear him. The kite caught the breeze and leapt skyward, eager and obedient at first. Jimmy held the string and grinned like a man who believed, once again, that today was the day he would be proven right.
The kite climbed.
And climbed.
And then it climbed some more.
“Well,” Jim Leroy said carefully, “that does look promisin’.”
Jimmy Matthew squinted. “It’s just enthusiastic.”
They let out more string. Then more. The spool grew thin and empty, and the kite pulled like it had found religion.
By now, folks had begun to notice. Old Mr. Sanford stopped his truck and leaned out the window.
“That kite supposed to do that?”
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said. “It’s exercising.”
The wind gusted, and the kite surged higher, the string vibratin’ like a banjo wire.
“Jimmy,” Jim Leroy said, “I think that kite is tryin’ to get away from us.”
Jimmy laughed. “Nonsense. It is tethered.”
At that precise moment, the spool slipped from his hand.
The string whipped through Jimmy’s fingers with such speed that it removed both layers of dignity and a small amount of skin. The spool shot skyward, smackin’ the kite just enough to lodge it firmly in the highest branches of the biggest pine tree in the county.
The kite didn’t fall.
It settled in.
They stood there starin’ up as the wind teased the trapped kite, flappin’ it like a taunt.
“Well,” Jimmy finally said, “that’s just a shame.”
Jim Leroy crossed his arms. “That’s what happens when ambition gets outrun by gravity.”
Jimmy considered several solutions in quick succession. None of them involved givin’ up.
He threw rocks.
He climbed the lower branches.
He attempted persuasion.
“Come on now,” he called, “you have had your fun.”
The kite responded by flappin’ harder.
Next came the ladder borrowed without permission. It reached nowhere near high enough. Then the rope, which accomplished nothin’ but tanglin’ further.
By late afternoon, the tree had claimed the kite as its own.
A small crowd gathered.
Mrs. Perkins suggested they come back with a saw.
Mr. Sanford said the saw would only make things worse.
One boy suggested burnin’ the tree down.
That boy was escorted home immediately.
Jimmy Matthew sat in the grass, watchin’ his kite wave overhead like a victory flag planted by defeat itself.
“You know,” he said softly, “that kite has seen more of the world than I have.”
Jim Leroy sat beside him.
“Look at it this way. Folks’ll be talkin’ about this one for a good while.”
Jimmy nodded. “I reckon so.”
And, talk they did.
For weeks afterward, the red kite fluttered from that pine like a reminder. Drivers slowed. Children pointed. Someone named it. Another person blamed it for a drop in property value.
Eventually, a storm came through and carried it away to whatever place stubborn kites go when they are done teachin’ lessons.
Jimmy Matthew never flew a kite that high again.
But every time the wind picked up, he glanced skyward, as if checkin’ to make sure nothin’ else had decided to escape his supervision.
Because sometimes the trouble with April is not that things go wrong.
It is that they go exactly as far as they possibly can.
And refuse to come back down.
olbigjim 