Flash Fic Challenge: Rose Tinted Lenses

 Rose Tinted Lenses

 Tap. Tap. Tap.

Alex flattened themself behind the ancient rollercoaster. Six feet away, everyone was going about their usual business, up and down the road, in and out of shops, chatting to friends, without ever glancing in Alex’s direction.

Three feet away, thin black tentacles tapped on the first boards, soft as dripping water, relentless as clockwork, and coming ever closer.

Alex edged sideways, their eyes darting to find somewhere safe.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A new set of tapping came from behind them, and Alex’s breath came faster, even as a whisper crawled across their skin.

“Silly human, you could have been safe. You should have followed the crowd. You should have worn your contact lenses.”

Alex wanted to shout back that they didn’t have contact lenses, that they had never worn contact lenses, that they didn’t need them. Shouting would give away their location though. They bit down on their lip instead.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A tentacle came down within inches of Alex’s shoe and they flinched. One elbow clattered noisily against the rollercoaster.

Six feet away, nobody took any notice. It was as if none of the people could see or hear anything out of the ordinary.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Alex broke and ran for the crowd. Surely they could get away from all of this, lose these - these tapping things - in the everyday world.

A tentacle curled lazily around their ankles, and they crashed to the ground right next to the road. Alex stretched out a frantic hand, begging for help, begging for someone to stop, to see what was happening. Pink-tinged eyes looked blankly through them, feet stepped over them as they thrashed, placid voices discussed the weather over their head.

Tentacles tapped up Alex’s body, pinning them tighter in place.

“No one will help you,” the whisper drummed. “They are all good people, nice people, obediently wearing their contact lenses. They can’t see you, no matter what you do.”

A tentacle wrapped around Alex’s throat. Three more bound their mouth shut. They tried to writhe, but even their hair was pinned down, immobile. Instead, they screwed their eyes shut.

“Oh, silly human, that won’t help you. But don’t worry, we’re going to be so kind to you. We’re going to give you lenses that you can’t take out, and you won’t see us ever again. You’ll just remember. Isn’t that nice of us.”

The tentacles were tap, tap, tapping on their eyelids now, thinner than ever, twining around their eyelashes and forcing their eyes open.

The last thing that Alex saw clearly was a rose-tinted lense approaching their eye, held by yet another tentacle.

#

It was a normal day. The weather was pleasant and the shops were crowded. And somewhere, just out of sight, Alex could hear water dripping.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

 

Flash Fic Challenge: Strike Night

 Strike Night

 

It all started when I'd just made assistant stage manager for our local theatre. That means I was responsible for begging, borrowing, making or otherwise finding all the props for each of the plays, looking after them while they were in our care, getting them on and off stage at the right time, and getting them back to their owners afterwards. It was the last day of this play, which meant three performances followed by set strike (and strike goes until we're finished removing everything even if it means we're still going at two in the morning)

Because it runs so late, the theatre company puts in a takeaway order with one of the local restaurants, so that the backstage crew can eat. It’s the task of the most junior crew member to collect the food before the restaurant closes. That night, the task fell to me. I hastily shoved various props into places they wouldn’t get damaged and ran down to the Mexican restaurant.

Inside, the server laughed when she saw me, and handed over the bag of food for the theatre without quibbling. “Here, you go, princess,” she said. “All as ordered.”

I nodded, took the bag, and hurried back to the theatre. It was shaping up to be a very long strike, and everyone was hungry. I didn’t remember until I was handing out meals that I’d shoved the prop tiara into my hair to keep it safely out of the way while my hands were occupied hauling furniture. No wonder the server had laughed.

I guess not many women get to meet their future wife in paint-stained jeans, a ratty t-shirt, and a glittering princess tiara. But me, I’ve always been the exception to that kind of rule. This time was no different.

 

Flash Fic Challenge: Zamboni

 Zamboni

Ice doesn’t remember what’s been drawn on it, but I do. Most of my job consists of taking the zamboni over the rink’s surface to remove all the sigils that the local ice mages leave behind.

Most of the mages are decent enough, they’re just exhausted after they’ve done whatever they’re doing, and unable to do more than the minimal cleanup that ensures they get to keep using the skating rink rather than wait for a pond to freeze over. If it ever does. Global warming’s hitting that sector hard.

But there is always one jerk in any bunch, and my local one left enough discarded junk (including a plastic toy horse just big enough to wreck things if the zamboni went over it) alongside the sigils that I was seriously considering getting him banned. At least his sigils weren’t anything special, just a load of good luck and swift travel crud that most mages grow out of before they were halfway through their apprenticeships.

Heck, even I knew they were crud and I wasn’t even formally trained, I just eavesdropped on the real mages getting lessons.

What I didn’t expect was for said jerk to have failed to remove the magic in the sigils as well as his trash. So when I brought the zamboni in and golden magic settled on us rather than the caster? Yeah, that was a surprise. Cleaning’s been quicker and easier ever since though, so I’m not repining.

Though that zamboni only works for me now. Who’d have thought getting magicked would give a machine opinions?