Short fic

1 comment on "SHORT FIC: Apricot Sunrise"

For Kevin

Up all night. Exhausted. Bone tired. Weariness dragging down.

Whoever said crime doesn’t sleep wasn’t lying. It had been nonstop action all night. There was a scent of soot and body odor clinging to her skin.

Elisa looked at her phone to check the time. Grimaced at the crack running across the screen. Meta-grade materials her left foot. She’d slammed the thing into one recalcitrant face and now look at it: crack city.

The thought of having to get a new phone made her want to have a headache. Even with the cloud, there was still a lot of personal stuff she’d have to transfer over. And there was always the nagging sense of something being forgotten, left behind, whenever she got a new phone or device and had to abandon the old.

Nostalgia was almost a suffering friend on her part, rather than the thoughtful softness that other people got to enjoy.

She shoved the phone back in her utility belt and finished her slog to Canaverra Bridge. It was the perfect spot to watch the sunrise, the rippling blue water and the clean scent of ocean a cleansing backdrop.

Being a superhero wasn’t all cheery media smiles and punching villains in the face. It was tiring work, especially for a second-rate hero like her.

She didn’t have any illusions about her place in the world. She wasn’t a frontline hero. Just one of the grunts that cleaned up ground level criminals. And that was fine with her.

Superheroing was a job. One that paid her bills and let her live the life she wanted.

It hadn’t been her dream. It was a paycheck she worked hard for and earned with blood, sweat, and tears. Mostly not her own. She had a powerful right hook and wasn’t afraid to use it.

Her lips curved up when she realized she’d made it on time. Barely.

Ghostly wavering light at first rising up over the mountains. Then the spill of golden light as the sky brightened beneath the clouds. Then the first piercing rays of sunlight.

The sun rose, beautiful in the early morning chill. And Elisa watched it happen.

Beautiful.

=END=

1 comment on "Prompt 26: After being seduced by a demon, an empath ate a baby"

23. After being seduced by a demon, an empath ate a baby.

It was a strange time. That wasn’t an excuse. It just was what it was.

A strange time.

He’d picked up the demon at an estate sale. The candlesticks had immediately appealed to him. The sight made him think of the little hallway alcove that had been built into the house for some reason. That empty space called out to him, demanding to be filled.

He’d bought the candlesticks and brought them home. They’d fit in the alcove perfectly. Added class to the place.

Everything was great for a time. Work was going well. His house was finally feeling like a home. He was healthy and felt fitter than ever before in his life.

Of course it couldn’t last.

The dreams came first, then the sleepwalking started. The sleep emissions. The zoning out. The realization that something was really wrong.

By then it had likely already been too late.

The demon got in his head and built a home to stay. And in that time when he was lost, they’d done terrible things together.

The demon had twined itself throughout him until he didn’t know where it began and he ended.

Because he’d been so wrapped up in the feeling of things that he’d lost touch with the reality of things.

None of it had seemed real, even as it happened, and it was only afterward with the nightmares and prison cells that he’d come to realize what he’d done.

Because while they’d done it together, the demon was a demon and realized no wrong. It took a human soul to suffer for human sins.

And he’d committed a grave sin for letting it happen. For enjoying it in the moment, because whatever the strength of the demon there were some things he never should have allowed.

The sex. The scarification. The gorging themselves on any food they could reach.

It could all be forgiven.

The eating of a human baby?

Unforgivable.

x_x x_x x_x

Being known as "the baby eater" in prison wasn’t exactly the highest point of his prison sentence, but it wasn’t the worst either.

A spiritual trace had highlighted the signs of demonic possession in his aura. He was still sentenced to prison, but it was a lesser term than he would have gotten without the evidence of a demonic presence.

He took whatever blessings he could find. So that reduction of what otherwise would’ve been a life sentence was gratefully accepted.

He didn’t really think it was fair, considering what he’d done, but he raised no objection to being released just two years after he was sentenced.

A small apartment. A from-home job. And six months later he could almost pretend that his life wasn’t a completely ruined thing.

Almost.

/END

0 comments on "SHORT FIC: The Stranger"

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

• The Paypal: https://paypal.me/harperkingsley. Directly support the content.

• The Patreon: https://patreon.com/harperkingsley. Become a patron and receive access to Patreon-only content and bonus posts.

• The Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/harperwck. Artwork, links, a way to support the creation of new content.

• The Amazon shop: https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0. See curated lists of items, and if you click an item but buy something else I still get money for driving traffic.

• The story site: https://kimichee.com. Just stories, poems, and reviews, no excess babble.

• The blog: https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog. The stories, the meta, the babble, the news; a broad spread of content.

• The Twitter: https://twitter.com/harperkingsley0. Where the tweets live: part outrage, part flora and fauna pics, part babble.

0 comments on "SHORT FIC: Rotary, by Harper Kingsley #HarperWCK"

“Rotary” by Harper Kingsley

It’s like hitting all red lights. Every single station is a commercial. Flipping through the channels was a frown-making experience.

With a sigh, he tossed the remote control on the table.

“Spedro, switch to music please,” he said. Relaxing into the couch as the TV screen switched through functions and an analytics-chosen playlist began to play. He sighed and closed his eyes, resting his head against the back of the couch.

He let himself fall into the music. Drifting and swaying to the beat, the whole world stillng within him.

His nerves had been in such a jangle for the last few hours. He hadn’t been able to settle himself, to focus on anything.

It made sense that the music would so entirely sooth him.

He wasn’t focusing on anything.

He was letting himself go.

He breathed deeply and let the music catch him up in its embrace.

x

When the Duty Phone rang hours later, he felt well-rested and refreshed.

He rose smoothly from the couch and strode across the room to open the panel that hid the red rotary phone with its curling wire.

He picked up the phone receiver and brought it to the side of his head.

“Blue Ice here.”

=END=

~Harper Kingsley

https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog
https://twitter.com/harperkingsley0
https://paypal.me/harperkingsley
https://kimichee.com.
https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.
https://ko-fi.com/harperwck.
https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.