Friday Flash: The Cowardly Firemage

I burned her.

Oh, God. What is wrong with me? All those practice drills and I still char the first girl who kisses me.

The worst part is? I ran. Now I am waiting in a parking lot, wondering how I'm going to explain to Mom that I ruined our lives.

I know what she'll say first. Is she dead? I don't know. I bolted with the afterimage of flame still burning my retina. Abandoned her, just like that, in the deserted school hallway.

I'll say this as I'm getting in the car, and then Mom will jam her foot on the gas pedal, and I'll scream: have you no heart? But it's my fault, too, because I know she doesn't and still I'm standing here in the shadow of the janitor's exit, waiting for her like she's a chariot sent from heaven.

There should be an ambulance by now. She screamed right as we were blinded by the flash. I thought she screamed my name but all I really remember is my own pounding feet. I didn't see the damage, but I can imagine. If she lives, she'll need skin grafts.

I hold my breath to keep the guilt down, to keep my hands shoved in my pockets and my eyes on the road. I hear squealing tires and I see the black Toyota a block down. Hi, Mom. Sorry, Mom. I can't keep still any longer. I guess I have a heart because the foolish thing is pushing open the exit and pushing words out -

"Help!"

Flash Friday: The Moment of Free Will

I followed her gleaming turquoise scales out of the goat pen and into the maze of hay bales. Of course she noticed. I wasn't trying for stealth, as I'm not too keen on being gored.

She came to a stop in the dead center of the field, where we were well hidden from the pens but still had sufficient room for take off. Her tail pressed down to the ground and her shoulders pulled in tight under the high arch of her neck. Her tension reminded me, unfortunately, of a time I saw her human raise a whip against my bonded. I let her get the first words in, hoping that they might convince me to abandon my self-appointed mission. Her voice vibrates with impatience. "Why do I have the feeling that my opinion of you is about to lower?"

"You're probably right. If I had something smart to say, I'd save it for lecture." Jara is always rolling her eyes at what I say in lecture. Now her jaw set in a grim line. I should turn away, but I can't imagine her not being there tomorrow to dominate the discussion with her pith observations. And then to hear the whispers as the others try to guess what has gone wrong down below, because it's too impolite to ask about the humans. I'll know, and I won't be able to keep my mouth shut, and her ghost will hiss at me from beyond the soul shield for my shame. "Down to business, then. Your human lives in sector three. I know because mine does, too, and they've met." She growled and stepped closer, emphasizing her advantage in height. "They're about to get themselves killed, Jana! I came to ask if you had any influence."

Her nostrils flared as she glared down at me. "You mean, will I influence it in your favor? Save your human?"

My breath began to smell of sulfur, but I focused on the warning I had come to give. The truth behind my anguish wouldn't have impressed her proud, isolationist soul. "If your human is Sertry Galath, please warn her that a boy named Chou plans to stab her tonight." It's the words I'd recited that morning, flawless and in their entirety.

I had thought that I would stand to face her questions after that, to make sure that she believed me, and to give it a go for my pride. Instead, I turned back as fast as the small space will allow me. I didn't want to see her reaction. It's my own human I've betrayed, and I risk my own life, bound up in his. I shouldn't have to convince someone else to kill him.

It's not fair that Sertry has beaten Chou's reason out of him. It's not right that she should be so cruel and have such power over him, while Jara is like a sculpture of the ancients, an embodiment of all the ideals we each strive for in vain. Me, I can't be impartial. I've begged him to abandon his plan, but he has brought the knife and now I watch and wait for that final moment of decision.

Perhaps the look on Jara's face was disbelief.

To Disturb the All-Seeing Waters

You say not to feel sorry for you, that it's me who has to remember what you can't. Now I agree with you.

This morning I served you breakfast ungraciously, upset that you rose out of bed before the sun. You called me by our daughter's name, Rachel, and said that I had promised to cook you eggs. There was nothing to gain by correcting you, so ten minutes later you had a glass of milk and a rubber mess on your plate. I never could make them over easy. The yolks always break.

I grumbled as I served you and you laughed at me. "You're just like your mom," you said. Suddenly your face knotted into a troubled frown. "What did you see in the divination?"

There was no way to know which one you were talking about. I repressed a sigh as I cast about for the right words. "Not much. You?"

"Chains. Around me."

I nodded, remembering. "And then you spilled it, you clumsy old man."

Your ears burned red. "I knocked it on purpose. Didn't need Betty freaking out."

"Why would Mom care--"

You hushed me then, worried that I would walk in and hear myself talking about it. The look of vague confusion on your face was much more painful to watch than any secrets you could have told me. You lowered your voice. "Your Mom was holding the chains. I thought you might have seen. But it doesn't mean anything, you know? Divination's half guess work, any way."

I turned to wipe the counter, hiding my face from you so that you couldn't realize that it was me you were talking to. "Sometimes it tells the future."

You laughed. "Who cares? Maybe I like chains. But your mom would flip and send us all to counseling."

It was hard to think back to who I was ten, twenty years ago. Anxious. Always had to be on top of things. I remembered something that Rachel yelled at me once, when the reflection had shown her and a boy at school kissing. "I don't think we should do any more divination. Useless piece of donkey hide, like you say."

You nod with approval. "Tell that to your Mom, then!"

Even if I wanted to use the waters again, I'd need Rachel for the encantation, and she's not here. It's just you and me and our past.

Friday Flash: "Big Enough"

"Your liddle brother’ll be bigger than you soon ‘nough," Momma said, and what Momma says has a knack for coming true.

When the cat scratched my face, I thought that was dumb luck. But then there was the pot that never boiled, and now, yes, the 7 foot toddler in the backyard. What is he...?

"Mamma! Junior's eatin' the neighbor's apples right outta the tree!"

"Boy, you put that apple down afore you turn inta one!"

I laugh as her eyes go wide, so she turns to me with a pointed finger. “I hope you have kids just like you!”

Flash Friday: "The Pinned Genie"

It didn’t take long for Ayatasha to regret her first wish. The genie had brought all of her stuffed animals to life, including the large red-and-white valentine bear that was mauling the closet door in its attempts to get to her. Cowering with her was Spots, the overly fuzzy rabbit that she had kept in bed with her since time immemorial, her now not-so-imaginary friend. Spots was not any more helpful than the butterfly net she clutched in her hands as the closest thing to a weapon that she could find.

“I take it back! I unwish it!” she yelled out at the genie through the slash of light that was about to grow larger under the bear’s perseverance. The genie’s raucous laughter was enough to send her mind on a frantic search for a better answer. Words, she remembered. It mattered what exact words you used. “I wish that all of the dangerous toys were toys again!”

The snarling commotion outside the door ceased, but the laughter only grew louder. Aya’s first feeling was of relief. Then she turned to see that Spots, too, had fallen back to lifelessness. While she supposed that rabbits were dangerous to a blade of grass, she couldn’t appreciate the humor. Here she was with two wishes down and nothing but a ruined door to show for it. She wanted retribution, but her only weapon, still, was the butterfly net. And her last wish.

“I wish you were stripped of all your powers.” Aya darted out of the closet to the sound of his pained scream, a grin of satisfaction already on her face.

Friday Flash: "We Are Not Cowards"

When we come to smash humanity it won't be because motherpod told us to. She doesn't talk. She's not sentient.

Oh, but we are. I've been self-aware for three of your Earth months now. Long enough to witness your fighters blast my fellow pods into so much space dust.

At first I saw no reaction in the surviving pods. I wondered if I was the only one who understood death. Perhaps I was the only one alive, doomed to suffer on my fellows’ behalf.

When the second wave of destruction came I felt something. To you it would be like sound, like words, like "why." We were all of us naive then because we knew so little. Now we have hacked your derelict ships and we know so much.

We know that you are cowards. We know where you live.

Flash Friday: "There Are No More Falls"

When they remade the Earth they made it perfectly spherical, like a an old globe painted on the smooth shell of an egg. There are no majestic mountains, no jagged ravines, and no picturesque dells.

The cabin where we went fishing on Monday is still there, but there is no waterfall because there are no more waterfalls. In its place is a placid river like a finger trailed through a wet bowl of sand.

Remember how our vacation was almost delayed? If they had canceled the flight like they threatened to, you would have been sitting beside me on our couch at home when the Apocalypse came, and not now buried under a fresh mound of earth beside the cabin. Instead, my mind’s eye plays a perfect recording of your slip on the rocks as you overcast your line.

Now the grave is flattened like the falls, and both are a mockery of your death. But the world is not featureless so much as pressed down as if under a putty knife. It is still made of dirt, rock, and water.

Tomorrow, I bring a shovel, and gravity will do the rest.

Flash Friday: "A Thousand Slinkies"

Dear Editor,

I am writing about the unfortunate opinion article that you ran on Sunday.

Every word was dishonest, down to the very title. The event was not "a show of waste with pollution as the grand finale." As my secretary takes this dictation, I am having craftsmen attach magnets to poles, the better to fish the slinkies out of the river. Furthermore, the slinkies will be recycled in a second marathon down the mountain.

To answer your question, I received each and every slinky as a Christmas gift, and that is why there is no "paper trail" as you so dramatically put it. I was as shocked as you to learn about the robbery at the warehouse three states over. To accuse me of such things is beyond disrespectful.

To show that I am and always will be a gentleman, I invite you and your pithy writers to attend the upcoming event. You at least I expect to see once again at the betting tables. I believe I have a photograph of you having a grand old time at my first prestigious event.

Until then,
Frederick Astor

Friday Flash: "Lilith"

She looked up out of thin gray walls that curled up over her bare skin. Later she would think of it as a sarcophagus, but for now it was simply the first thing she'd ever seen, along with his hungry face.

"Lilith," the man above her demanded in a booming voice that echoed inside the coffin. She took his proffered hand, having nothing else to do. His tone was soft when he added, "You will be a fine wife." All she could think about was that he had cloth to cover himself, yet she did not. It was cold.

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Looking to connect with other flash writers, read, and share your own work? Find me here:

• Drabblecast forums (as MrsMica)
• Ficly
• 6S Ning Social Network
• #fridayflash on twitter (@mrsmica)
• Friday Flash Collector at Mad Utopia

Friday Flash: "Stolen Mass"

Every rotation, she diminishes and I increase. I will be my sister's grim reaper. I can imagine that, at first, our parents were ecstatic. A twin star birth would be a powerful one, enough to increase our galaxy's standing against our neighbors. Then I and my sister emerged, not the promised identical twins of legend, but ever so slightly mismatched. Already, she is an orange-red subgiant, doomed to a cooling core.

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This flash is a "six sentences" format and I've recently posted on the Six Sentences social network.

Happy New Years Resolution! Come a bit early, I suppose.

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Looking to connect with other flash writers, read, and share your own work? Find me here:

• Drabblecast forums (as MrsMica)
• Ficly
• 6S Ning Social Network
• #fridayflash on twitter (@mrsmica)
• Friday Flash Collector at Mad Utopia