The Last Skater Boi
In the chrome-plated sprawl of Neo-Angeles, 2087, where hovercars hummed through regulated skyways and pedestrians moved in perfect formation along designated walkpaths, there existed a ghost—a legend that children whispered about in the shadows of towering corporate spires. They called him Skater Boi, the last of his kind, the final keeper of an ancient art that had once ruled the streets.
Zephyr—for that was his true name, though few remembered it—carved through the sterile urban maze on wheels that sang against concrete. His board was no ordinary plank of wood and metal; it was a relic from the Before Times, crafted from the last sacred maple and blessed with quantum bearings that bent physics to his will. When he rode, the world blurred at the edges, reality becoming fluid as water, allowing him to slip between dimensions of possibility.
The last surviving member of the Order of Rolling Thunder, Zephyr possessed abilities that defied the sanitized logic of the future. He could grind along the edges of time itself, kickflip through parallel realities, and ollie over the barriers that separated dream from waking. His movements were poetry written in motion, each trick a prayer to the gods of momentum and gravity.
In the depths of the abandoned subway tunnels, far beneath the surveillance grid of the Surface, he would meet with the Whisperers—children who had heard the legends and sought him out with desperate hope in their eyes. They came bearing offerings: hand-drawn sketches of impossible tricks, vintage wheels scavenged from museum pieces, and most precious of all, their unwavering belief.
"He can fly without wings," they would murmur to each other, voices barely audible above the electric hum of the city's heartbeat. "He dances with shadows and makes the ground sing."
The secret society that formed around him operated in hushed tones and coded messages. A chalk mark on an alley wall, a specific arrangement of discarded energy cells, the way someone held their hands while walking—all were signals in the elaborate network that protected their deity. They knew that to speak his name aloud in the wrong place was to invite the attention of the Authority, who had long ago declared skating a dangerous deviation from social order.
Yet to the children of the sterile future, Skater Boi represented everything their world had lost. He was rebellion made manifest, freedom given form. When corporate drones worked their regulated shifts and citizens followed their predetermined paths, he alone chose his own direction. His very existence was an act of defiance against a world that had forgotten how to play.
On rare nights, when the moon hung low and the surveillance satellites cycled into maintenance mode, Zephyr would emerge into the open streets. Children would press their faces against reinforced windows, watching in awe as he transformed the rigid geometry of their world into a playground. Concrete became canvas, handrails became possibilities, and stairs became launching pads into wonder.
The legend grew with each passing year. Some said he had lived for centuries, that he was the embodiment of every skater who had ever pushed off with their back foot and trusted in forward motion. Others whispered that he was the future itself, showing them what they could become if they remembered how to roll.
In a world of straight lines and right angles, Skater Boi carved curves through reality, leaving behind a wake of inspiration that no amount of regulation could ever fully erase. He was the last of his kind, but in every child who dreamed of wheels beneath their feet, the spirit of the Order lived on, waiting for the day when the streets would sing with rolling thunder once again.
NEAL LLOYD
