fic

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THE STRANGER

There was someone standing beside the refrigerator. From the angle, I had to be in the living room. Yet somehow… Even though he was unfamiliar–tall and thin, dressed in a sweater and jeans with tousled curls atop his head–there was something recognizable about him. Not the shape or the color of the eyes, but something that called out to me. That screamed out his identity.

He was me.

That was me standing next to the refrigerator. I knew it deeper than the deepest knowing. So far that something inside me rang out with the knowledge: That’s me!

I didn’t know his face or recognize his body. I didn’t know his name or anything about him. But I knew that was me I was looking at.

And who am I? | wondered, near to crawling out of my skin at the eerie strangeness of it all. The wonder and the weirdness.

I stared at him, but it was as though I was a ghost to his sight. He gazed through me as he turned to walk into the kitchen. There was the clink of dishes as he opened a cupboard and took down a plate and cup. I thought that I should say something–“Why are you digging through my dishes?“–but the words died unsaid and unformed, the will behind them dissipating before I even drew in breath to speak.

I moved closer to keep him in my view, but I didn’t dare to get within touching distance. I simply stood next to the refrigerator–where I had first seen him–and watched as he fixed himself a plate of buttered toast and made himself a cup of tea with sugar and milk the way I liked it. And I watched him eat, the way he chewed every bite, swallowed with a bob of his throat, and his hand rose and fell with the toast disappearing munch-munch-munch until it was gone and he was brushing the crumbs from his hands over the sink.

My sink.

In my kitchen.

In my house.

Using my dishes.

This stranger standing in his stranger skin, looking nothing like anyone I had ever known and the farthest from me as he could possibly get. Yet knowing that he was me and I was him. That we were the same person, though we’d never seen each other before and maybe never would again.

And I watched him as a ghost as he moved about his daily life. And there was so much familiarity in his every motion, in the way he tossed his head and moved his feet, in the way he held his mug–my mug–as he drank the tea until the last drop was gone and washed the dishes, his sleeves rolled up in the same way I would roll up mine.

And it was strange and familiar at the same time. And I wanted to watch him forever even as much as I wanted him to leave. Because it was uncomfortable to have him here. To feel so jealous of this stranger my mind kept insisting was so familiar, so me.

But I lingered near. I remained a silent witness as he lived in my house and enacted my life. And I watched him, admired him, slid my gaze up and down his form and felt a nameless wanting.

Until I woke up in my own bed. In my own skin. In my own self. In my own eerie sense of longing and loss, of something taken from me that I had never known but never not known.

And I got out of bed and I dressed myself. And I brushed my teeth and washed my face. And I brushed my hair. And I avoided my own eyes in the mirror as I went out into the kitchen and made myself some buttered toast and tea.

Alone again, without me.

/END

~HarperWCK

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Kakushigoto 01 at Amazon
0 comments on "SHORT FIC: Shiny Town, by Harper Kingsley #HarperWCK"

I wrote this on Twitter a tweet at a time.

Here’s my point of reference:

and here’s the tweet thread: https://twitter.com/HarperKingsley0/status/1547633608357134336.

SHINY TOWN

The Mayor of Shiny Town stood in his pressed trousers with the red suspenders, heavily embroidered vest, and blazer to survey the townsfolk going about their day. Each person was made distinctive by the clothes they wore.

The clothes they couldn’t remove.

Ever since that weird kid with the staff had passed through, nothing had been the same.

The kid had said their town was called "Shiny Town," and Shiny Town it had become.

They hadn’t had any rain in close to two years now, yet everything remained green, though oddly plastic.

Food had an odd taste to it now, even the things that came from cans.

The Mayor wondered if it was the food whose taste had changed, or if it was that his own taste buds had been changed with the odd metamorphosis he’d been forced through.

They’d all been transformed by that weird kid, from the oldest elder to the smallest of infants. The Mayor tried not to think of Little Sweetheart, as the kid had renamed her, the baby that hadn’t grown a single millimeter since The Change.

There was quiet speculation that Little Sweetheart was never going to grow up. She’d stay a 7 month old baby until she died of old age. Never gaining enough awareness to realize the hell they’d been trapped in.

Sometimes the Mayor envied Little Sweetheart her ignorance. Most times he wallowed in the unrelenting pity of the situation.

There was a lot of self-pity on his part, and while most times the fixed cheery smile that remained on his face was close to what he felt, there were darker times when he wished that he could frown. That the huge glossy orbs his eyes had become could cry.

But he wasn’t allowed the freedom of tears. No one was.

The kid had wanted cheery people, and that’s what they became. The cursed inhabitants of the now-named Shiny Town.

Sometimes the Mayor tried to think of his old name. His old life. His old self.

But it wouldn’t come. Had actually faded more in the last two years, until the things he’d yearned for on first becoming different were no more than memory shadows.

He’d see his name written down, and his eyes would blur over the letters, his mind unable to hold onto them.

He was the Mayor of Shiny Town. It was the sole identity he was allowed, the curse tightening around his mind whenever he tried to remember who he really was. Had been.

Likely never would be again.

Sometimes he looked in the mirror at his own cartoonishly huge eyes and the whiskers that refused to be shaved, and he hated that nameless child that had so-carelessly waved around such powerful magics and changed everything about him and the rest of the town.

He would try to find glimpses of who he used to be, and they seemed lesser everyday.

He was fading away from himself. Dying while still walking around with a body and a voice. Forced to follow the scripted phrases the kid had BURNED into him.

"Welcome to Shiny Town. I’m the Mayor and I’m here to help you."

"Please follow me and I’ll introduce you to the most important people in our town. We’re so glad you’ve finally come, Great Hero. We’ve been waiting for you to come save us."

"The monster has been attacking us for many a night. Good thing you’re here to take care of it."

And the Mayor tried not to think about "the monster," or what the kid had done to it… him? her? Whoever that poor thing had been before the Change.

A part of him was glad not to remember who the monster had once been. Though the searing ache in his heart made him fear the monster had been someone he’d loved.

Someone he could no longer remember, as he was forgetting himself.

He’d touch the clothes in his closet… the dresses, the pretty shoes… and it hurt to know he’d once been different. Happy.

Until that kid had come to town.

/END?

Let's Make Dumplings at Amazon
0 comments on "Bryan At the End of the World: Rookery Cookery"

"Rookery cookery crock, the food goes in the pot," he sing-songed to himself as he finished chopping the gigantic zucchini and scraped the pieces into the cast iron pan.

Bryan had found the garden and the rundown house attached to it and he felt decidedly blessed. Huge zucchini sprawling everywhere, crowding against large white onions, tufts of green onion, and sunflowers that were still tender enough to be plucked whole and chopped up to be added to his makeshift stir fry.

There was water to wash in. Both body and gear. Sunlight to warm his skin as his clothes hung out to dry, his backpack flopped inside out in the hope that the weird smell would finally be gone. And the pantry had been untouched, the occupants long since gone (though the dried bloodstains said not by choice), so he’d felt no shame in helping himself.

Shame had left him long ago.

He was cooking outside in a spot he’d cleared and circled with stones. There’d been no cooking oil in the trashed kitchen, but he’d been pleased to find the rectangular can of smoked oysters.

He wasn’t sure what most of the info on the can meant–his mom and dad had done all the grocery shopping, and it wasn’t like the Internet existed anymore–but he figured the oil was safe enough to use. He was hungry and he was going to eat.

Peeling the lid of the can back, he drizzled the oil over the vegetables, using the spoon to squish as much oil out of the oysters as he could. Then he shrugged and scooped the oysters into the pan too.

Fighting down the urge to chew on his lower lip, Bryan poked one of the oysters experimentally. Then he shrugged and used the spoon to pop it into his mouth.

He chewed slowly, letting the flavor roll over his tongue.

Then he swallowed.

"Hm."

He wasn’t sure if it was something he’d have eaten in his Everyday Life, but this wasn’t normal times anymore.

This was the End Times.

Or whatever else someone was supposed to call the experience of waking up decorated in blood in a world gone full post-apocalyptic.

He hadn’t seen a single person since he’d fled from that hotel of horrors with an axe in his hand and a bundle of human scalps in the bag slung over his shoulder.

Sometimes he thought he’d gone crazy. That none of this was real. That he was strapped to a bed somewhere and his parents were visiting him and if he just concentrated he’d be able to hear their voices calling his name. "Bryan." "Bryan." "Come back to us, Bryan."

But mostly he lived with the fear that this world was forever and real. That he had to keep going, surviving even when he wanted to lay down and give up because what else should he do?

Suicide was a sin. And even if he hadn’t been very religious before, he didn’t want to risk ending up in real Hell. Because if there was anything worse than this, he didn’t want to see it.

Sighing, Bryan forced himself to focus on the task at hand: Feeding himself. Enjoying the food. Not obsessing over the things he could not remember or change.

He used the spoon to toss the vegetables with the oil and spices he’d added. There was a can of Spam off to the side, but he hadn’t opened it and he thought now that he would save it.

The oysters had some amount of protein, and without refrigeration it wasn’t like he could save the leftovers. He was better off eating the whole pan of stir fry tonight and saving the Spam for breakfast. He’d found some minute rice that could be boiled in the bag. And he wasn’t ashamed of his excitement for it.

He settled the pan on the bricks he’d set amongst the wood fire and kept stirring the vegetables as the oil heated and things began to sizzle. He had some water off to the side to add later, as well as soy sauce and ramen noodles he’d half-cooked and drained.

Even if the food didn’t turn out perfect, he would eat every bite. Because he had to live. To make up for the things he’d maybe done. To atone for sins he didn’t remember. And to honor his parents, who had loved him and who he hoped he hadn’t killed. (But feared that he had.)

The world had lost all meaning. But he still had to live in it.

And he would count his days one meal at a time. And he would make his situation better one day after another until he figured things out. Because he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do.

He was still here. The world was still here. And he was still alive.

~"Bryan At the End of the World" by Harper Kingsley