short story

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=

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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

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0 comments on "Three French Hens"

THREE FRENCH HENS

by Harper Kingsley

Melissa’s school encouraged the children to experience "agricultural studies." Which meant visits to the horse farms and exotic snakes visiting the classroom. The school also encouraged parental participation, which is how Vereint found himself strolling through the playground-turned-animal wonderland with a just-as nonplussed Warrick.

"Is this a rich-people school thing?" Vereint asked low-voiced. He paused to gaze at a pair of baby goats and Warrick loitered at his side. "You look very over-dressed."

"Thank you for noticing," Warrick joked, holding his arms wide in a brief pose. "Gong Yoo!"

"Oh, shut up." Vereint stuck out his tongue. "Just because I said he was cute."

"You already had the Coffee Prince DVDs long before we watched Train to Busan."

"I was a big Yoon Eun-hye fan," Vereint excused. He couldn’t help laughing at the disbelieving look Warrick gave him. "OKay. He’s very hot too. I loved them both very much. You never forget your first loves," he said, slanting a glance at Warrick.

He’d long-since admitted to his powerful teenaged crush on the superhero hunk Blue Ice. Warrick had been suitably flattered. Vereint didn’t even feel embarrassed anymore.

"Well, I guess it’s okay to admit a crush on Gong Yoo. I mean, he’s way out of your league," Warrick teased, and dodged Vereint’s fake shove.

"No rough housing," Warrick admonished jokingly. "They might kick us out."

Vereint rolled his eyes. Considering how much Warrick donated to the school… There should be a "Warrick Reidenger Tobias" wing with plaques and everything.

"Let’s go look at some more animals," he said, taking Warrick’s arm. He brushed his fingers over Warrick’s sleeve as they walked. "You do look very good in a suit. You really had no chance to change?"

"You caught me out," Warrick said. Their heads were inclined toward each other and their voices had dropped to near whispers. "I decided not to chance out of my suit because I have plans to seduce my husband later. Don’t tell him. He’s every excitable."

"Ah. Well then, I’ll keep my admirations to myself," Verient said in a proper "Jane Austen-heroine" tone. "Though be aware… You reall look very good in a suit. Very good."

"’It’s all for you, baby,’" Warrick joked, but the love in his eyes was real.

"You make me dreadfully happy," Vereint pronounced. "I don’t know what I’ll do without you. It’ll probably be terrible."

Warrick was serious. He pulled Vereint to one side of some chicken cages. "I would never hold anything against you, because I love you. And I trust that you will do your best to hold yourself together if I’m gone. I don’t want you to have to regret anything ever. I love you. I want the best for you. And I know you’ll always be the best you you can be."

Warrick wrapped his arms around Vereint and pulled him close, the tops of their heads meeting. It felt like they were in their own world, a huddle of two.

They stood there for some timeless while, until Vereint began to worry about the time. "We don’t want to miss Melissa’s play," he said, attempting to squirm away.

Warrick held him, "Just a moment longer," so Vereint stilled and leaned against Warrick. Breathed him in. The cologne only enhancing the natural smell of him.

Vereint didn’t say so, but he tried to memorize that smell. In case it was ever gone from him.

Finally they got themselves back together and continued walking around the cages until they reached where the folding chairs had been set up in front of a large stage.

"What kind of chicken is Melissa going to be again?" Warrick asked, arranging himself in a middle seat of the first row.

Vereint hid his smile and sat beside him. "She and two others are Faverolles. All the other kids are broken up into threes too. All the different kinds of chicken on one stage. It should be a real experience."

"I hope so," Warrick said, getting out his phone and pulling a mini-tripod out of his pocket.

By the time the chairs filled up around them, Warrick had a crystal clear view of the whole stage on his phone and was ready to record.

Vereint was amused. Warrick thought he was bad at parenting, but really he was doing a good job.

Vereint relaxed in his chair and leaned his head against Warrick’s shoulder. They’d seen a few kids running around, some half-in half-out of their chicken costumes, and it was clear they had a while yet to wait.

He felt content. A growing quiet happiness at the complete normalcy of things.

They’d adopted Melissa on the whim of the moment. The complete shock on her face after she’d watched her parents die had struck him deeply, had stuck with him to the point that he’d practically begged Warrick to let them take her in.

All he’d wanted was to take that horror off her face and help her find her happiness again. He wanted to think that they’d managed it. Because he was trying his best, and Warrick was always the best.

And that’s why they were here right now, waiting for a play that involved all the kids in chicken costumes. And Warrick was completely comfortable in his three-piece suit and thousand dollar shoes and the hay strewn ground. And Vereint was happy.

=END=

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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