10 September 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2856: put it in reverse!
“So, George, I hear there's too much smarts out here. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Yeah, Papa, I do, and thanks for coming in here where it's safe to just be a normal little boy. Sometimes I just can't be out there -- I gotta put it in reverse!”
Capt. R.E. Ludlow had gone to see why nine-year-old George Ludlow was hiding out from the massive crayon and Lego exposition of applied mathematics that his brothers ten-year-old Andrew, six-year-old Grayson, and five-year-old Lil' Robert were still doing on the living room floor. Andrew and Grayson were teaching Lil' Robert about how to solve for X and why that had to be done, and it had been going on for an hour.
“So, I get that Andrew is just super-smart and wants to do stuff like learn algebra at ten years old, and I get that Eleanor is eleven and can already do all that, and I get that Edwina and Amanda and Rob are just curious and kinda want to learn, and that all you need to do is tell Grayson is that he can build with it. But Glendella is the only one who gets it: sometimes you just want to just be.”
“You and she have been through the most severe situations,” Capt. Ludlow said gently. “I get it, although because I was an Army officer for 33 years before adopting all y'all, I rarely sit still even now, because there is always something else I can do for yours and Grandma's future, just like I was always looking out for my units.”
“But this is the thing – it's like if you trust God, you let Him do the stuff He said He will, and you stop trying to do it,” George said. “I was really listening to Rev. Obsidian Stone on Sunday when he said he comes from people who were never allowed to rest except at night when no one could see and work – he said it is bad to be enslaved, and it is bad to do it to yourself, working yourself down for stuff God already says you have.
“So the thing is, Papa, is, I trust you and Grandma, a lot, so I can learn algebra and all that later. I mean, I'm going to be a lawyer so I do have to get to all that, but, I'm nine. I don't have to learn how to solve for X and all that right now. I just want to run around and play until I get tired, eat good food, do the stuff I need to do to help the family – I agree with Andrew and Eleanor about why we do our chores and work in the soda company as we can – and just be.”
Capt. Ludlow considered this and smiled.
“You are super-smart too, George,” he said. “You got a lot from Rev. Stone's sermon that most adults wouldn't.”
George considered this.
“Yeah, but, I want to be smart for me, not to be doing all this other stuff and crowding up my brain with stuff I don't need to know yet.”
Capt. Ludlow considered this.
“You remind me of my second-eldest brother Edgar,” he said. “Your Uncle Edgar had the same ability for applied mathematics that your brothers have, and everyone expected that he would follow my dad and my big brother Edwin Jr. into architecture. Nope. He wanted to be an artist, and took that same ability to create mosaics and murals. Eventually, Dad and Edwin caught up to what was going on with him, and so they commissioned him to do art on the buildings they were building. He also did many fabulous paintings, and he liked miniatures best of all, not because they sold, but because that was his time to just be, and record how he felt.”
“See, Uncle Edgar got it!” George said.
Capt. Ludlow smiled.
“Edwina gets it too,” he said, “when she is sitting outside gardening, or, in this house in Tinyville, is upstairs just watching the world go by.”
“Yeah, I can get along with her when she is doing that,” George said. “There's also working on the jigsaw puzzle next door at the Lees' house – I love that.”
“Cousin Harry and Cousin Maggie have both told me that you can put together a 1,000-piece puzzle by yourself in about an hour,” Capt. Ludlow said. “That's a different way of using the same kind of ability you see in your brothers.”
“But it's fun, though,” George said, “like Uncle Edgar and his painting, and Edwina and her gardening. It's not something someone needs to grade you on and decide if you're smart.”
“Well, schooling doesn't cover everything,” Capt. Ludlow said. “God already decided you were smart, so that's that.”
“Yeah, but, nobody ever said that before,” George said, and started crying. “I was called dumb every day in foster care by somebody!”
“They were all liars,” Capt. Ludlow said as he came and picked up his grandson. “God already made you smart, and that's that.”
George boo-hooed for a while, and another part of his heart started to heal. After he calmed down, his grandfather handed him a fresh set of color pencils and a drawing pad, and opened the door so that George could see his brothers still doing what they were doing. George drew them, and indeed, Capt. Ludlow saw in his grandson the budding ability of George's great-uncle Edgar.
“Not that he cares about the details that Edgar did even as a child when he drew,” Capt. Ludlow said to his wife Thalia, “but that he has that kind of underlying mindset. George is an artist by inclination.”
“We already knew he was smart, but now we know how,” Mrs. Ludlow said. “I have an idea.”
“Wait, Grandma – seriously? There's websites you can go to so you can design your own puzzles and stuff?” George said.
“Yep, and there's software,” Mrs. Ludlow said.
“Look, this is how I'mma pay for law school and put everybody through college!” George said. “I already am out here taking good pictures with Eleanor's camera, so yeah, we are all about to eat, and y'all are going to be able to retire at like 45 years old because I got this!”
“And just like that, George was no longer afraid to be smart,” Capt. Ludlow purred that night as he wrapped his wife up in his arms in bed before they went to sleep. “That was a great idea you had. The Lees are definitely going to need a bigger puzzle room, though.”
“It was just so cute how Cousin Harry was just feeding into it,” Mrs. Ludlow said, “talking about how to photograph landscapes and trees and how the Blue Ridge in autumn is just gonna be perfect, and then Gracie Trent got into the act because Velma her sister is always photographing stuff she wants to paint and then Vertran saying, 'why don't you and Velma collab, George, because she's always doing great paintings and y'all can split the money on art puzzles!' George suddenly found all this support to be smart in the way he is smart, and it wasn't a problem!”
“I couldn't bring myself to break his heart and tell him how much the stuff he is now planning to do is not normal little boy stuff,” Capt. Ludlow said, “but somehow I think that is going to be OK, too, because he can now find out what is normal for him.”