Flash Fic Challenge: The Stage is Set (With a Cruet)

 The Stage is Set (With a Cruet)

Some bright spark had decided to put on a comic book themed retelling of Romeo and Juliet, complete with twirling capes and jokes so bad they were a crime against language.

Stage hand Mark winced as the actors bounced all over the outdoor stage, claiming that possession of the electronic cruet set that was passing rapidly between characters warranted arresting them (because it was a case of a salt and battery, groan).

"An electronic cruet? How shocking!" declared a wide eyed ingenue.

And then everyone declared they were going undercover to party, capes and all, the curtain came down, and that was his cue to dash on with the set change.

The play proceeded apace, until Freddie (playing Mercutio) turned out not to be acting stabbed, but actually stabbed, and Mark had to hastily drag a real, unconscious, bleeding body off the stage during set change, and call an ambulance.

Because the show must go on, and there was no need for the audience to know - right?

Flash Fic Challenge: Hammer and Tongs (and Bucket)

 Hammer and Tongs (and Bucket)

(This is set in my Olson College universe. Enjoy)

The gym was supposed to be empty at this time. Or at least, empty except for me and my cleaning equipment.

Instead, there were a couple of young adults going at each other with blunted practice weapons and rather sharper words. (Judging by the tone, anyway. It wasn't a language I spoke.) This is a college though, and I've been working as a cleaner here for years, so I know how to deal with young fools, most of the time.

I'd say the pair were going at each other hammer and tongs, but given the weaponry involved, it was more like oversized hammer and shortswords.

They didn't notice me enter.

The water in my bucket bounced hopefully at me. (Water likes me, it knows I'm a water creature at heart, which is useful for cleaning, but for anything bigger than a bucketful or so it's more like a friendly wave in passing than an active help.) I glanced at the water, so that it was still clean, and flicked my fingers. "Go for it."

The water leapt out of the bucket, into the air, and came down on the youngsters' heads.

They spluttered. And finally noticed that I was there. The slightly shorter and slimmer one bowed an apology, and elbowed the other, who copied him.

Then they left, and finally, the gym was empty. The water rolled around on the floor, and I jabbed a finger at the bucket until it reluctantly hopped back in, and let me start mopping.

Flash Fic Challenge: One of Those Days

 One of Those Days

I was only there to pick up a new set of pizza pans. Someone - naming no names - had managed to put a horn through my old set. (Such things are inevitable when one of your housemates is a minotaur)

See, the car park closest to the shop with the good, cheap, pizza pans also has the local landing area for folks with wings, or with flying transport of one kind and another, so it wasn't that uncommon to see low flying objects there. You learn to look out above you as well as around you, after a while.

What was not common or expected was for a vampire in bat form to crash land on my pizza pans.

Heigh ho. It was clearly going to be one of those days.

Flash Fic Challenge: Digging Deeper

 Digging Deeper

I was the first to arrive at the dig, but the other two students weren't far behind. A boy and another girl.

I grinned and waved. "Hi, I'm Eva, nice to meet you."

They introduced themselves in turn as Tom and Jane, and we all went to see what the archeologists in charge wanted us to do. Jane and I ended up on sifting and sorting, while Tom took pictures of the finds with the old film camera that the head archeologist insisted on (no batteries required!).

Tom offered me the camera, but I just shook my head. "You're better. Cameras hate me."

It was hot, of course, during the day, but cold at night. This was the desert, after all. The dig is here because things hang around for longer out here. The work was worth it though, and we did find things for Tom to photograph - bits of pottery mostly.

It wasn't until the last day when the camera caught up with me. Tom and Jane grabbed me between them, grinning for the camera to "use up the last bit of film". I grinned too - I'd had a good run at this dig at least, and there would be another one soon.

Things hang around longer in the desert, me included, and at least this time I'd be gone before the photos had been developed and they realised I didn't show up at all in them.

Flash Fic Challenge: Surfing the Net

 Surfing the Net

There was what looked like a small surfboard wedged into the bars of the kids' merry-go-round. A man's body lay beside it, face down.

Where had he come from? Nobody knows. Where was he going? Nobody knows.

Only an investigator, slowly circling like a crocodile, considering the scene from all angles.

The man spluttered in a breath, and rolled over with a groan, revealing a pale but otherwise ordinary face.

The investigator froze. The man was supposed to be dead!

The man saw the surfboard, swore softly, and turned to scowl at the investigator. "Family prank," he snapped. "I'm not dead, I just look it when I'm asleep, and they think it's funny to set up fake mystery scenes."

The investigator considered that. It sounded true enough, and without evidence, there was no way to prove it wasn't. "And the surfboard?"

The man gave a small, bitter, sharp-toothed smile. "I'm in I.T. It's a pun on surfing the 'net."

"We would like a statement from you all the same. For our records, of course."

"Of course," the man echoed flatly, and heaved himself to his feet. "Come on then, let's get it over with."

 

Flash Fic Challenge: Waterlogged Notes

 

Notes on the Jane Smith case:

Yes, the client was tied to the railway track

No, we cannot remove the relevant tie from the track and submit it as evidence. Photos will have to do.

Yes, the train did technically go over her.

No, she was not harmed in the process (irritation to the point of foul language does not count)

Yes, she escaped on her own.

No, the train was not derailed by her methods.

Yes, the client is a naiad (whoever thought that someone who can turn into water could be tied up without recourse is a fool)

No, we probably shouldn't mention that to the court (unless directly asked and unable to evade)

Flash Fic Challenge: Dog, Dog, Goose

 Dog, Dog, Goose

I'm the top of a pile of books

Sitting on a stall.

Looking for a buyer.

Sitting very tall.

I'm fond of my first owner,

Who read me, through and through,

But now will pass me on,

If they can find-- Hey! Shoo!

A goose has grabbed my cover.

I'm trailing in the dust.

I'll make you let me go!

I'll do whatever I must!

I snap and clap my pages

Until the beak lets go.

And then I get a short reprieve.

It's quiet down-- Oh No!

A dog has caught me by the spine.

It's running through the Fair.

I really want my reader back.

Oh where, oh where, oh where?

A tether reels in the running dog.

I'm back in human hands.

I shudder all my pages

And wonder where I'll land.

Flash Fic Challenge: Lost and Found

Lost and Found

 

The school sat in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Faded posters still clung to a few of the walls. A handful of never-claimed items still lay in the old lost property box. Some said that on moonlit nights, you could still hear children's voices echoing inside.

Sam had never been one of them, and on this cold wet night, having missed the last bus out of the village, the abandoned school seemed his best bet for shelter.

He found an unlocked window that could be prised open, and climbed inside. It was dry, and cold and bare. Sam closed the window behind him, settled on the ground, and leaned back against the wall.

A draft ruffled a loose piece of paper, leaving it to flap tiredly from the last staple holding it to the wall. The wind whined a little about the corners of the building, and hitched, just a little, like a muffled sob.

Just the wind. Sam sighed, shifted on the hard concrete, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, there was a little child standing beside him, crying in the soft, hopeless, exhausted way of someone who has been crying for a long time and sees no way out of their situation.

Sam groaned, stiff and cold and tired, and mumbled, still half asleep, "What do you want?"

"I want my Okky," the child sniffed. "One of the big boys stole him and I never got him back."

"And you want me to help look?"

The child stared at Sam, mouth open, tears dying on their cheek. "You.... want to help me? You're not ... leaving?"

"Not right now, anyway." He heaved himself to his feet, and held out a hand. "Where did you last see .... Okky, was it?

The child took it, icy fingers clinging to his warm ones, and he shivered. "This way." They led him to the staff office and pointed through the doorway to a box. "I'm not allowed in. Only grown ups are."

"Well," Sam said. "I guess that's me." He let go of that cold, cold hand, and walked though the doorway and over to the lost property box. There, on the top, grey with dust, was a small stuffed octopus. He held it up for the child to see, and the small face lit up.

"Well then." He carried it out of the staff office and offered it to the child.

Small hands clasped the toy, hugging it tightly, and then the child - faded into nothing.

Not even the wind remained.

Flash Fic Challenge: Medicinal Compounds

 Medicinal Compounds

The asteroid mining stations were always pleased when the Pink Pie Tin docked at one of them with her regular load of medicines and other supplies. Not only was it a pleasure to know that they weren't going to run short of anything, as well as to see a new, if familiar face in the ship's captain, but the ship's unofficial cargo load included news and tall tales. Information and entertainment in one, and the captain always told them well.

On this occasion, though, the tale telling (a tall one, surely no one could fly by flapping their ears, even in asteroid-level gravity) was interrupted by two youngsters making a dash for the port, one dragging the other by the hand, and both looking over their shoulders in a way that suggested pursuit.

"They say," the dragger panted, "that you'll let people ship out with you - for a price."

The captain only looked amused. "They told you true. What's your price?"

"We want," the one being dragged whispered, still looking fearfully over one shoulder, "to escape. We... can tell a tale you won't believe. But not here."

"We'll discuss it on board then." The captain made her excuses to the crowd and led them through the lock into the ship itself. Once they reached a cabin, she reached down a pair of tiny vials. "Drink that, it's medicinal." After a moment, she added, "And you'd best call me Lily."

Flash Fic Challenge: Whosoever

 Whosoever

The sword waited.

Someday a hero would come seeking it again. It didn't matter to the sword that it was at the bottom of the ocean and might have to wait a long time. Magic kept it from rusting and from dying and from changing. The runes along its blade gleamed softly.

Whosoever draws this sword from this [mud] shall be rightwise....

Rightwise target for the sword to take over. To slide silent tendrils of mental control into the wielder's mind. To encourage mistrust. To encourage swiftness to anger. To persuade into more wars and more fights and the resulting higher dependency on the sword itself.

To quietly erode any other support, turn friends against them, create too many problems to solve any other way. To destroy kingdoms. To destroy lives.

Up on the surface, divers splashed cheerfully over the side of the ship.

Below them, Excaliber waited, the runes along its blade gleaming softly.

Flash Fic Challenge: Going West

 Going West

The two gunslingers paced off the distance for the duel with the Tower of London looming in the background, paused, and then turned to glare at each other down the barrels of their guns.

There was a rising hum of tension, not at all dissipated by the sudden stir in the still, hot, air.

Then a voice yelled, "Cut!" and everyone relaxed while director read the note that the messenger (who had opened the studio door and caused the breeze) had brought.

One of the gunslingers dug a toe into the artificial grass.

The other eyed the painted backdrop of the Tower with a wry smile. "When they said 'Go west, young man, I think they meant a bit further than England."

Flash Fic Challenge: Guns and Roses

 Guns and Roses

The raygun clutched in the dead man's hand was my first clue that something weird was going on. It looked too real. And yes, plenty of people get angry at the folk crewing the tollbooths and road rage happens - to sometimes tragic effect - but the tollbooth operators don't usually shoot back.

Or if they do, it's with bullets, not rays.

The second clue of something weird going on was the roses growing all over the place. Really odd places, like out of the operator's chair (and out of his arm, but that was one for the mortician doing the autopsy)

Once the raygun had been checked over for prints, I pointed it cautiously at a patch of bare ground and pressed the trigger with a gloved finger. There was a streak of red light, and then another rose appeared, growing out of the ground where the ray had hit.

Well, that ought to make finding the culprit easier. Just follow the roses.

Flash Fic Challenge: Let Down Your Hair

 Let Down Your Hair

It was time. 'Zelle put her hairbrush away, gathered up her mountain of hair, and took her place at the bow of the ship, where the figurehead stood in a water navy. Static crawled across her as the protective mage-shield snapped into being around the crew's quarters. She leaned up into the magic and shook out her hair. The static drew it out into a perfect halo: a golden, gossamer fine, sail to catch the solar wind.

With that in place, she herself shifted, her body settling back into its statue form as if she had never walked and talked and laughed with her crew. As if she had never been anything but the ship itself.

One that was named, certainly. Lifted by the wind like a living thing, eager to dance across the asteroids. But hardly more than a feisty container for those she carried. (Those she carried knew better, but the paperwork didn't)

Her crew cast off, the wind filled the sail, and the Rapunzelle was on its way once more to the Spring festival on Mars.

Flash Fic Challenge: Loving Lines

 Loving Lines

"Can I draw you?" Steph asked.

Callie turned and looked back over her shoulder. "Here?" she asked incredulously, indicating the footpath that ran along the edge of the field.

"Well..." Steph hesitated. "Just a sketch? The light's nice here."

Callie sighed and then shrugged with amused resignation. "Very well, as you wish. How do you want me?"

Any way I can have you, Steph thought but didn't say out loud, only asking Callie to stand so that the sun caught and highlighted her hair and face.

Callie struck a teasing, dramatic, pose, then settled into something more comfortable to hold.

Steph drew quickly, wielding her preferred fountain pen in swift, sure, loving strokes to bring Callie to life on the page. Details, like love confessions, would have to wait.

Flash Fic Challenge: Fine Feathers

 Fine Feathers

The phoenix feathers had to be worth millions surely, Davy thought, as he crouched in the tool shed, clutching the small bag of feathers to his chest and waiting for the guards outside to move on.

Someone was certainly willing to pay a lot to have them back. The problem was, he couldn't be seen running with a bag of sparkling feathers without whoever saw him catching on. They were just far too obvious. But what else could he do?

It should be something clever, something you could turn into a good story later. But what?

He looked wildly around, but there were only garden tools and equipment stored in here. And yet, it was all he had to work with.

His gaze fell on a stack of cushions for the patio furniture, stored in here to keep them dry. Wait...weren't some cushions stuffed with feathers? He unzipped the cover on one of them, and grinned. Pulling out the pad inside, he replaced it with the bag of feathers and closed everything up again. It looked a little plumper but no more than a cushion should be, and he could carry a cushion anywhere!

He waited a few more minutes. Then, in a lull between the guards, he was over the wall and gone, reappearing further down with the cushion slung casually over his shoulder.

Success was his!

Flash Fic Challenge: Sing Me a Song

 Sing Me a Song

"Tell me a story, Granny!"

The old woman looked at the small girl dancing around the tiny room and smiled. "Very well, if you come and help me shape the bread, I'll tell you about a strange sighting I had when I was your age."

The girl bounced over, her protective pendant swinging across the neckline of her cut-down tunic, and plopped herself down beside her Granny. "I'm here!"

Granny split the bread dough, giving the girl a smaller piece. "It was late at night, down where the marsh meets the Nile," she began, her strong old hands kneading the dough into shape in time to her words. "Where we cut the papyrus for the scribes to use. I was sleeping up on the roof in the Dry season, and I could see without being tempted out to where they could get me..."

"Who, Granny?"

"The singers, sweetie. There were two of them, singing sweetly together, and they sounded so very sad, and yet so very loving."

"What were they like?"

"Let me think..." There was a twinkle in Granny's dark eyes. "One was wrapped in something as dark as the night sky, singing a plaintive song with the sort of soft huskiness that speaks of disuse, yet with silvery undertones lacing through it. It sounded as if the stars themselves were singing, if stars could sing. The other was draped in the palest white-gold of ripe barley, singing a warmer, richer harmony to the first one's. A deeper voice, earthier, well-used, catching the plaintive tones and turning them back into a love of all the earth and everything on it. Maybe they were gods - Nut and Geb, Gods of the sky and the earth, once beloved lovers, now forced apart, ever close and never to touch again. Maybe they were ghosts, missing those family members yet living, and calling them to join them. There's no way for us to tell - we leave that to the priests. And that," she finished, dabbing the pendent with a floury finger, "is why we all wear protective pendents. It means the ghosts can't lure us away..."

 

Flash Fic Challenge: Not to be Sniffed At

 Not to be Sniffed At

I opened the trunk of the clown's car and a large flower popped up asking me to smell it. I held my washcloth up at its smelling range instead, and the flower obligingly squirted water onto it. That gave me a headstart on washing the custard off the outside of the car and popping the expandable sides back into place.

Inside, they'd somehow managed to avoid getting actual custard on it for once, so I just hooked up the vacuum cleaner, hoovered up the pastry crumbs, and gave it a standard valet, catching the squirt of milk from the horn in a glass out of weekly habit and practice, and drinking it.

You get used to the pranks when you encounter them every week, and as for money...

Well, at least the pay isn't a joke.

Flash Fic Challenge: All Ticked Off

 All Ticked Off

The tick board in the old pawn shop hung from a length of rope. Customers came and went. Some turned goods over for a little cash. Some paid outright for the items they wanted or wanted back. And some paid on tick, returning each payday to hand over the next installment of payment for the purchase they were already using. Each installment was duly ticked off on the tick board until it was fully paid off.

Every time someone paid off something bought on tick, the rope grew a little thinner, a little more frayed, as if each tick cut through a single fibre. Every time someone had to default on something bought on tick, the rope grew a little thicker, a little sturdier, as if it was taking what was owed it in a more direct fashion.

It went on year after year like that, the rope waxing and waning in response to the fortunes of the customers, but never quite breaking even at its thinnest, until a loan shark moved in next door.

The loan shark lured in customers, wrapping them in debts they could never pay back while he fattened on them like the rope. Nobody could afford to pay on tick anymore, and the board hung empty, the rope gathering dust rather than strands.

As the customers' debts grew, they brought more to be pawned and bought less, until the shop was paying out more than it took in, and the loan shark smiled, and smiled, and smiled.

The owner of the pawn shop took the board down and unfastened the rope. It swung lightly from his hands, like the twitching tail of a snake, as he told it softly, "We had a bargain, you and I. You collected what was owed, only what was owed, and I pledged my honesty against yours. But now there is one who takes with a smile, until they owe their lives and their souls to him. There is no honesty in him, and he seeks to drive me out and take you over. He owes us the truth. He owes us an apology. He owes us an explanation. I call on you this final time to collect what is owed."

The rope slid from his hands to coil on the floor, and one frayed end caught the light of the setting sun, turning it into strands of shadow that stretched out across the floor towards the loan shark's building.

Next door, the loan shark began to scream. The sound grew thinner and rougher and more frayed as it went on, as if he was unravelling from the inside out.

Nobody ever found his body.

When the owner of the pawn shop hung up the tick board once more, the rope was thick and strong and fresh, as if had never been frayed at all.

Flash Fic Challenge: Sunset Warning

 Sunset Warning

(This story takes place in the post-apocalyptic Split universe of "Holding Onto Day", but is otherwise not connected to it)

 

An alarm went off in the virtual auditorium. "Ten minutes to sunset! This is your ten minute warning!"

There was a muffled groan from the students. "Sunset comes so early in winter, it's not fair."

The professor shook xer head. "Earlier every day until solstice, my dears. Go ahead and prepare, we'll pick up the lesson after it sets."

Images shifted from faces to ceilings across the auditorium as tablets in a score of tiny settlements were placed on floors or tables so that they wouldn't be temporarily lost in the shift. Students shifted and stretched, set down their notes, yelled the warning to anyone in their settlement who might have missed it. The preparations were routine, something they had done every day of their lives (or that their parents and guardians had done for them), but still a necessary chore.

"One minute to sunset! This is your one minute warning!"

A score of human teenagers did last minute checks and stood back.

Sunset rolled through, shifting the world outside the fairy rings that encircled each tiny settlement, and every person inside them. Clothes and held items vanished, replaced by whatever the person had been wearing or holding when sunrise caught them. Items that weren't being held, remained as they were

And every person shifted with the change, from human, to non-human. Minotaur hands and werewolf paws picked up tablets again, gryphon claws tapped cautiously, unicorn noses nudged buttons.

The professor tucked xer dragon feet comfortably under xem, scooped up xer pointer with a twist of xer flexible tail, and waited until all the faces had reappeared in the virtual auditorium. "Now, as I was saying before I was interrupted..."

Flash Fic Challenge: Taste Explosion

 Taste Explosion

"Shush! Put a sock in it!"

"Whose sock, George?"

"Any sock!"

"Do I look like I keep spare socks for this sort of thing? There, I found the mute button, will that do?"

"It'll have to, Freddie. Now, where do you think the stuff's hidden?"

"In the oven?"

"Oh for pity's sake... This is a restaurant kitchen, not a gingerbread cottage!"

"Found it! Back of the spice rack. Guess someone was hoping for a taste explosion!"

"A regular explosion, more like. Come on, let's get out of here before anyone comes to see what all that noise earlier was about."

"Yep, sure, after you..."