Mister Domenikos’ Wheel

by Mike Mayak

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the October 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were: A Comedy, involving a Spare Tire, set at a Space Station. Here’s what I came up with. —mike

Dante Granello was ten. What his parents jokingly called “a dangerous age.”

Dante’s Dad taught at the University down on Jovanni III, the planet the Jovanni Space Station orbited. They actually lived on the Station because Dante’s Mom was the Station’s Gravitic Engineer. His parents were usually busy when he got out of class so Dante hung out in Mr. Domenikos’ workroom on the lower level of the station. He knew the whole crew of the station would look after him but he liked being with Mr. Domenikos, even though rambling around the big occupied wheels that made up the levels of the Station was fun too.

Mr. Domenikos was the station’s main Engineer and de facto handyman. He was old, almost fifty, and he was regaling Dante with stories about the old stuff (“Don’t call it junk”) he had laying around the workroom.

“Like that tire you’re sitting on,” Mr. Domenikos said. “Dates back almost two-hundred years to the late 20^th Century. Perfectly preserved, too.”

Dante leaned over and examined the tire he was sitting on. All he knew was it was rubbery and comfortable.

“Ever have to use it?” Dante asked. Mr. Domenikos had been explaining what a spare tire was earlier.

“Not without an Auto-Car,” he said.

“Got an Auto-Car up here?” Dante asked.

“Naaaaah!” Mr. Domenikos said. “None of them down on the planet either. Just those modern hover thingies.”

“Well, maybe we could take this for a ride anyway.” Dante said hopefully, as he patted the tire.

“A ride?” Mr. Domenikos asked. Then they both started to grin.

It started out okay. Dante and Mr. Domenikos bounced the tire around the workroom and then Mr. Domenikos started making engine noises and the two of them rolled the wheel out into the corridor and started rolling it along the slight curve of the wall. The wheel was half as tall as Dante and he started making it bounce as it rolled along, seeing if he could make it bounce as high as his head. That was when the wheel made it up to nearer the ceiling and Dante remembered something he’d heard about the gravity being less up there.

He was remembering the corridors were about four meters high as Mr. Domenikos let out a yell and the tire bounced up and rolled on the ceiling for a moment before angling down and rolling down the wall, across the floor and up to the ceiling again.

When it rolled back down, Dante made a lunge for it and instead he and the tire bounced off each other and the tire bounced on down the curve of the corridor out of sight.

“At least it’s on the floor again,” Mr. Domenikos said as Dante jumped up and started chasing the tire around the bend.

There was a crash.

Dante and Mister Domenikos collided with a technician wheeling a cart full of platters down the hall. They managed to extricate themselves from the jumble of platters, cart and technician even as he was jabbering about barely being missed by “some old bouncing wheel thingie…”

They chased after it again as the tire barely missed going up the stairway but instead shot right into the gravity chute.

“Out into space,” Dante said.

“Nope,” Mr. Domenikos said. “That chute goes up to the top level. Elevator. C’mon!”

A few moments and one high-powered ride later Dante and Mister Domenikos exited the elevator just in time to see the tire bounce through the open door of the gym. They ran after it, almost colliding with one of the station crew who had jumped out of the tires way.

The crew members were scrimmaging on the basketball court when the tire rolled and bounced into the middle of them. One of the players gave it a kick and the tire bounced off the wall, rocketed over the players, bounced off the empty bleachers and headed to the domed ceiling.

Mr. Domenikos shrugged.

“I was experimenting with a new air pressure formula with the atmosphere of Jovanni III’s Moon and some other stuff. Used it on the tire.”

“You can work on it.” Dante said.

The two of them looked up at the tire as it seemingly lay there on the ceiling, like they were looking at it upside-down.

And for years a framed printout of the picture Dante took of the tire there above the gym would hang in Mr. Domenikos’ office.

—end—