Baking Pancakes (in Russian)

Mark digs the tips of his thumb and index finger into the nearly-dry earth beneath him, excavates a thin ellipse of andesite, holds it up and wipes its face clean with his free hand, inspecting its freckled surface.  His eyelids close slightly; his expression is the one a person wears when considering the value of something rare and unfamiliar.  He leans back at the waist, legs forward, glutes taut, back straight, together with the ground's horizontal plane, forming the acute angle of maximum leverage.  Mark side-arms the ellipse at the perfect 20 degrees to the water's surface.  The disk, rapidly rotating, creates enough resistance against the lakes surface tension to kiss softly and then reascend...descend...kiss...reascend in a sinusoidal curve of ever-diminishing amplitude, dimpling the lake's mirror with a series of logarithmically spaced dinner plates with constantly decreasing radii.  Each one ripples outward from its epicenter, finds resistance against its neighbor's outward travel, achieves equilibrium, and then calm - the mirror reforms.

Reviews

[Wendy Seames Garner]

Short and very well written, not sure about the title - you were trying to surprise people?

[Jack Isaac]

hey,this is a really good write --length, perfect --choice of words, perfect. Could easily go into a magazine! Although some readers may be distracted with the phrase "glutes taut" --not me though! Nice write.