Missionary Kid: Champion Kite

“Kite” (detail)

By Vic Midyett

[Originally published on September 7, 2016. The original stock image of a kite has been replaced with the painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett, and Vic has made a few minor changes.]

I was about 10 years old, maybe 12. Every summer the kids where we were living in India bought or made kites and flew them in the summer breezes. Any given day or time you could see hundreds of kites in the air.
    The Indians did something that I haven’t heard of anywhere else. Most kite makers there also sold a string with very fine crushed glass glued onto the string. The reason for this was a game kids played where, with skill, they would wrap their kite’s string around another kid’s kite’s string, and jerk down suddenly in hopes of cutting the other kid’s string and setting his kite loose. This brought bragging rights.

    I developed really good skills teasing and dodging other kite fliers who were trying to cut my string. But most of the time I had no idea where the other flier was.
    Finally, I decided I might be skilled enough at kite flying to buy my own glass string (which cost more) and go on the offensive myself. I also bought an inconspicuous-looking little orange kite, so as not to appear a threat.
    Over a week or so I became lethal, cutting other kids’ strings and causing them to lose their kites. My pride during this period grew to a high, until other kids stopped flying their kites anywhere near mine. It dawned on me that they simply couldn’t afford to buy any more kites or the glass string. I became quite sad and felt bad for them and what I had done.
    My little orange kite had lasted during the entire time. Most kites broke or tore within a couple of days. But this one stayed in great shape and seemed indestructible. It was only about a foot wide – really small – but I had managed to cut the string on kites three times its size.

One late afternoon, in the fading sunlight, I saw no other kites in the air but decided to fly mine just for the fun of it. I let it go. Up it went in the gentle breeze as pretty as you please. It flew steady and true, with total confidence and balance. I thought to myself, Wow! What a wonderful kite. I just love this kite!
    I reached the end of my 100 yards of string and watched my kite soaring gracefully in perfect conditions. I had other rolls of string and got the idea to tie more on to see how high my little kite could go. I kept tying more on until I had none left.
    My kite was so far up I could barely make it out. It was flying resolutely and true to the purpose for which it had been born, defiant against the force in its face that was trying to push it backwards.
    I lay down on the ground and looked up at it and wondered what I would do next. I had never flown a kite this high before. I imagined my little orange kite looking down at me. Then I imagined it looking around at how high it had managed to fly, and how it was able to see much farther than it had ever seen before – perhaps wondering, What lies way over there?
    Then I imagined it looking down and saying to me, “I have served you well, young master. Have I not? Would you set me free to fly wherever I would go?”
    I tried to dismiss this thought, but to no avail. A couple of tears creased my cheeks, because I knew what I had to do. I must let it go. I felt like it was a self-imposed sentence of justice for cutting so many other kids’ strings. I was still feeling terrible about that.
    As soon as I acknowledged this to myself, I felt honorable again – still sad, but feeling really good inside. I looked down at the last inches of string around my hand and slowly unwound it. I looked up at my tiny friend, still in captivity, and I smiled and set it free.
    “See ya, buddy, and thanks so very much for the lesson. I’ll never forget you.”

“Kite,” by Shirley Deane/Midyett (8" x 10")

[Postscript (2018): This story is powerful in my memories and close to my heart. It had a profound effect on my life position. It taught me the life lesson that competition can be very healthy until it becomes a person’s only focus and turns into destructiveness, spitefulness, and just plain meanness with a “win at any cost” attitude.]

Copyright © 2018 by Vic Midyett