Javelin

by Mike Mayak

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the September 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were: A Mystery, at an Olympic Stadium involving a Crystal Ball. Here’s what I came up with. —-mike

As a rule a guy lying on the ground with a javelin sticking out of his chest is pretty indisputably dead. And this was in the middle of the stadium of the College Of The Eastern Oklahoma Panhandle. Complicating matters, the field with it’s rows of bleachers on each side of the grass was being used as an overflow venue for events of the 2044 Summer Olympics. So there was bound to be a swarm of officials, security and reporters swarming all over the place and we would learn nothing. Besides, the College wanted the whole thing cleared up, if not actually covered up by morning.

We had consulted Madame Rutherford and her crystal ball and she’d seen the javelin plunging into the guy’s chest, she said “at a crazy angle.”

I was staring at the wild pattern of blood around the body when it hit me…

I called the officials over.

“You see those gloves he’s wearing?” I asked, pointing at the dead man. “Those are the special gloves worn by someone operating one of those jet hang gliders those dumb kids are flying these days. So this guy was probably flying over the stadium when something made him release his grip. Maybe a remote-controlled electric shock. He fell down and impaled himself on the javelin propped up here in the grass in the middle of the field. It’s amazing the thing didn’t break when it fell over with him on it.”

“But who would…” one of the officials started to ask.

“When we find that jet glider,” I said turning away from the grisly scene on the ground. “We’ll find out everything.”

—end—