"My Ex From Hell"

WHERE R U, RANDAL?  WE NEED 2 TALK.

The text message had arrived at some point during the last three class periods, but my phone had been on silent so I hadn’t noticed.  It wasn’t until the end of the school day, when I was gathering the stack of papers to grade over the weekend, that I found it.

With only four weeks left in the school year, my mind was on everything except cryptic, errant text messages.  But the fact that this one was from Julie, my ex-girlfriend, sent a shiver down my spine.

Julie and I never had what could be called a functional relationship.  Meaning, we fought.  A lot.  The topic never really seemed to matter.  Actually, we never really talked that much unless we were fighting.  We dated for a year and I still doubt that I knew her favorite color, so we never, ever talked about ‘the relationship’.  

Not that it was all bad.  All the fighting meant lots of make-up sex, which seemed to make all the fighting worthwhile (for a few months, anyway).  And we certainly weren’t just using each other for angry sex; I thought we were really in love, for a while.  But, despite the good times, Julie and I seemed to be toxic to one another. 

We hadn’t spoken in over a year.  I wasn’t even sure why I still had her number in my phone.

I shivered again and closed the door to my classroom, and then quickly dialed Julie’s number.  It rang seven times before diverting to voicemail.  “This is Julie.  Leave a message,” her throaty, sensual voice purred. 

“Hey, Julie,” I said, and my voice cracked from nerves. “This is Randal.  I just got your text.  What’s going on?  Call me back.  Bye.”

The second I pressed the ‘end call’ button, my phone buzzed with another text.  I CANT TALK NOW. NEED 2 SEE U 2NITE.  CAN I COME BY YOUR PLACE?

I wanted to ask why Julie wouldn’t just call me, but, then again, she had always been a strange, particular creature.  SURE.  ILL HAVE PIZZA N BEER.  C U @ 8? I texted back.

A few seconds later:  C U THEN.

The doorbell rang at five minutes after eight that evening.  I had been so nervous about Julie coming that I had graded the entire stack of Geometry tests and already cracked into the six-pack I had picked up on the way home.  After I was sure that the table was clear of tests and beer bottles, I opened the door to my apartment. 

Julie was just as beautiful as I remembered her.  Five-foot-six, head full of thick, raven-black hair, emerald eyes, thick, pale lips. 

The toddler she held in her arms, however … that was new. 

“Hey, Randal,” she said, her eyes full of emotion.  “Can we come in?”

“Are you sure she’s mine?” I asked for the hundredth time in half an hour.  The pizza and beer were long gone.  Julie had disposed of most of the pizza.  I had handled most of the beer.

“Positive,” Julie sighed yet again.  “I told you, Randal, there wasn’t anyone else, and there hasn’t been anyone else since." 

The baby was beautiful.  She already had a frock of black hair on her little pink head, just like her mother.  The baby’s eyes were hazel, but, as it goes with babies, that could change.

“Brigid,” I said, watching the baby suck on Julie’s fingers one by one.  My Catholic upbringing sparked a memory of the name.  “The patron saint of infants and fatherless children?”

“Mm-hmm,” Julie replied, her eyes on the baby. 

I stood and pulled my fingers through my hair as I paced the room.  I desperately wanted another beer.  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner, Julie?” I cried.  “I mean, she’s, what, six months old, now?  You couldn’t have called me when you first found out you were pregnant?”  The more I talked about it, the more I felt like I was going to collapse.  Damn it, I needed another beer.  “Why did you suddenly decide to pop back into my life tonight?”

Julie’s eyes briefly flashed with anger.  I had seen that expression before.  “If you knew, Randal, you’d be a little more understanding.” 

I braced my feet and threw my hands into the air, ready to scream my response.  Then I noticed the baby in her arms, calm and placated, and made an effort to lower my tone.  “Please, enlighten me.”

The anger in Julie’s face melted as she looked away from me.  I caught a shadow of shame and embarrassment on her face before she managed to mask it.  “There’s something you don’t know about me,” she began.

“Like the fact that you were off having my baby somewhere, while I was living my life, thinking I was free and clear of my ex?” I said.  “I think I’ve realized that by now.”

“No, you asshole!” she cried, holding the baby closer to her chest.  “That I’m not even human!” 

Her cheeks flushed with red and she gently rocked Brigid, who seemed to be getting fussier by the second.  I stared incredulously at Julie, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.  “Oh, what is that supposed to mean?” I huffed.  “Is that something a psychologist told you?  Like, ‘you’re only a human by the people that define you’ or some other new-age crap?”

The angry blush crept down Julie’s neck onto her collar bone.  She shook her head slowly.  “Do you have to be such a prick?” She smoldered.  “No, Randal, I mean that, by definition of species, I am not a human being.”  She sighed, and the shame and embarrassment that I had noticed earlier returned.  “I’m a demon.”

 

I had been preparing a come-back for when it was my turn to argue, and already had my mouth open, ready to let it fly.  But at Julie’s last words, whatever I was going to say evaporated from my mind.  I closed my mouth.

“And no, that’s not some new-age or born-again Adventist crap,” Julie went on.  “I really am a flesh-and-bone demon.  A succubus, to be exact.” Julie closed her eyes and snapped her fingers.  When she opened them again, the green hue that I had fallen in love with was gone.  Instead, her eyes shone like two orange garnets.  Julie then braced Brigid against her hip and lifted her own black bangs.  Jutting from her forehead were two tiny red horns, each no longer than two inches. 

I didn’t realize how quickly I was backpedaling away from her until I collided, hard, with the dining room table.  I gripped its edge until my knuckles turned white.  “What the hell, Julie?” I tried to cry, but my voice squeaked out at just above a whisper.  “I mean … like … what … the hell?” 

“I didn’t tell you when we first met because … well … because I liked you.  A lot more than any other mortal I’ve ever met.” She dropped her bangs and cradled Brigid again.  “Normally, succubi just use sex to sustain ourselves.  We need it to survive.” She finally raised her eyes to mine.  “But it was different with you.”

Her voice was sultry and her words were honeyed, but my freaked-out brain wasn’t listening very well. “Oh my GOD, Julie!” I yelled.  “You’re a demon!  Like, a real, freakin’ demon!  And you don’t tell me until after you give birth to my child?”

The shame and embarrassment in her face were replaced with anger and hurt.  “You want to know why I never told you?” she defended.  Her voice was husky, like she was on the verge of tears.  “This.  This is why.  Because you’re the only mortal that I’ve ever … that I’ve ever loved … and I couldn’t stand the idea of you rejecting me, okay?!” She hid her face.  I would have sworn that the tears running from her amber eyes were made of gold.  “As for why I didn’t tell you about the baby until now: succubus births can get a little … complicated.  Not to mention that, for the first few months after birth, cambions – that’s the offspring of a succubus and a human – are sort of volatile.” 

I released the edge of the table and slowly approached my ex.  Yes, she was a real, honest-to-God (no pun intended) demon … but she was still the same Julie I had always known.  The only difference was that I knew what she was, now.  And, actually, for as little as I had bothered to learn about her during that year we dated, I probably would have ignored her if she had tried to tell the truth.  Hell, for all I knew she had tried to tell me, but I had been too unconcerned with our relationship to care.

God, she was right.  I was an asshole.    

“I’m ... I’m sorry, Julie,” I whispered, sitting cross-legged in front of her.  I gently touched her knee, and to my relief she didn’t shirk away.  “I’m just a little freaked out.  Ex is back in town.  Ex brings my baby with her.  Ex tells me that she’s not human, and our baby isn’t exactly human by proxy.  It’s sort of a lot to process.”

“I didn’t mean to do it like this,” she said.  Her black hair hung around her face like a curtain.

“Can I hold her?”  I asked, the words tumbling out faster than I could consider them.

Julie raised her face. Her eyes were back to green, but bloodshot and puffy.  Succubi really aren’t that different from normal girls.  “Of course,” she whispered.  She lifted the baby beneath her pudgy little arms.  Brigid wore a little pink onesy with ‘cookie bandit’ written across the front.  She kicked her legs in excitement as her mother held her aloft. 

Following Julie’s lead, I took the baby beneath the arms.  “Hey, baby,” I tried to say in my most comforting voice.  It felt strange, holding a baby.  It felt even stranger to know that the baby was mine, and stranger still that she wasn’t precisely human.  “I’m … um … I guess I’m your daddy.” 

The words weren’t as terrifying as I thought they’d be. 

Brigid giggled, and I found myself smiling.  “You are the happiest baby ever,” I marveled, bouncing her up and down.  “Why, I’ll bet you smile all the time.”  I bounced her a little higher.

“Um, Randal, you don’t want to do that,” Julie said quickly.  “She just ate, and cambions can be sort of …,”

Brigid’s mouth flew open and a gout of fire engulfed my face.

“Ohmygodohmygod!” I screamed.  Brigid was instantly taken from my hands and I slapped at my still-smoking eyebrows with both palms.  The smell of burned hair filled the air.

“When cambion babies spit up, they spit up fire,” Julie said meekly. Though her tone was apologetic, I could tell that she was trying to suppress a laugh.

I blinked against the spots that were forming in front of my eyes.  Brigid, however, was now laughing harder than ever.  Julie laughed and bounced the baby on her knee, though more gently than I had. She looked so beautiful during the simple act, more beautiful than she ever had during our long argument and makeup sessions.  “I guess it’s something I’m going to have to get used to,” I said simply. 

Julie’s eyes turned garnet again and her tiny horns reappeared.  In our rocky history, the two of us had never done much talking.  The look of relief and appreciation that came over her spoke louder and more clearly than any conversation me and my succubus girlfriend ever had. 

"After the Fall"

 Title:  "After the Fall"
Wordcount:  >1300 words
rated PG-13 for mild suggestive dialogue 

Author:  Graham Patrick Smith

"It's good to see you again," I said, my nervousness apparent in the way I diverted my eyes and shuffled my feet.  If she took note, she gave no indication as she stared back at me with steely gray eyes.

"It's good to see you again, too," she said.  The warm, late-summer wind blew across the hilltop where we both stood, making the amber-colored fields of wheat and the still-green trees of the rolling valley below us dance and sway, filling the air with their rustling like the churning of the ocean.  We stood under a giant oak tree, one that was prematurely turning the golds and oranges of the immanent autumn.  My tennis shoes crunched the fallen, discarded acorn tops, cast aside by the squirrels and other creatures that used the massive, old tree for sustenance.

I suppose, in that aspect, the creatures and I were the same.

She stood barefoot on the organic carpet.  The light breaking through the oak tree's canopy in patches where the leaved had already been shed lit her pale, shimmering skin.  Another gust of wind, this one cooler than the last, tossed her light blonde hair around her head, making her curls bounce and sway around her slender shoulders.

It had been almost three months since I had last seen Ostereth, and I had missed her terribly.  Not that I even knew her real name was Ostereth; it was merely the name she gave me, and I never questioned it.  I wasn't even sure she HAD a real name, or if she merely liked the way it sounded and decided to call herself that.

She wore a dress of light blue that made her gray eyes stand out like silver, and a slight smile played across her face as she looked at me the way she did every time we had our encounters.  I wasn't sure if she could tell that I had fallen in love with her or not. I knew that she knew things, impossible things about me and my life that I had never told her, so I wouldn't be surprised if she had figured it out.

It was the fifth time I had summoned her, that wily spirit of the air.

The old book I had discovered in the estate sale my parents had purchased had described the processes of summoning spirits, willing them into physical form from the Arid Places of the world.  I had tried it two springs ago, in the very place where Ostereth and I now stood, the day before the first day of spring as the book had described.

And Ostereth had appeared.

She had been beautiful and elegant, clad only in the wind that supplied her with her name.  She said she was young as far as spirits go - only three-hundred and thirty-seven years old, at the time - which made my seventeen seem ridiculous by comparison.  The book had warned of speaking with spirits, saying they loved to play tricks and make unfair bargains and treat mortal creatures with distain.

But she had asked nothing from me.  She had no deals, no bargains, only curiosity, for she said it was her first time visiting the mortal world.  We had spoken for hours that first night, and even when the late-winter air had made my limbs numb I still sat with her under the oak tree.  I had fallen in love with her long before she had asked me to help her try out her new form of flesh beneath the massive bows.  She had been as warm as a summer breeze.

And that was how it had been, the day before every seasonal change, for over a year.

The months between our meetings felt like years.  I agonized over my feelings for a creature I knew I could never fully have any more than I could cage the wind.  I wasted time wondering if an everliving spirit could have feelings for me like I had for her, though she would outlive me by millennia.  In the weeks and days that preceded each summoning I would prepare a barrage of questions for her.  What did she do during our months apart?  What were the Arid Places like?  Did she understand human emotions?  Was I a fool to spend my months pining after her?

And every time the nearly-four-centuries-old Ostereth (who didn't look a day older than me) appeared, all those prepared questions disappeared, along with the worries that my love for her would never be fulfilled.  When she was there, nothing else mattered; not the doubts that I sometimes had as to whether or not she was even real, not the worry that she might not show up when summoned.  Every time she appeared, she smiled that beautiful smile and greeted me as warmly as I did her.

"How have you been?" she asked me, her smile as lighthearted and joyful as it had ever been.

"Fine," I lied, and she knew it.  Every time we met was sweeter and more heartwrenching than the last, and this time I knew that we wouldn't have a proper meeting untill the spring.  The summonings were always harder after the fall, because winter is the time when air spirits are allowed to play and roam and let their essences mix with their brethren.  The pull from her fellow spirits makes the pre-winter summoning more difficult, and she can never stay as long.  And although I knew it was stupid and childish and very human of me, I always became a little jealous during the winter; the thought of Ostereth's essence mixing and spiraling with the other air spirits made me envy them terribly.  I knew she wasn't mine, nor was I under any illusions that she could ever be mine ... but that didn't stop me from desiring her every time I felt a snowflake on my face.

"You're lying," she replied with a smile, laying a warm hand, the exact temperature of the pre-autumn air, on the side of my face.

I smiled sheepishly.  "How did you know?"

"You told the same lie last fall."

The wind suddenly shifted and became much warmer, shoving her straight at me.  As I put my arms around the centuries-old spirit and our lips met, I caught a whiff of the wheat feilds and the old oak tree and the other fresh, renewed smells that signaled the end of summer.  And it occured to me that I wasn't smelling my surroundings; I was smelling her, because she was my surroundings.

We pulled away at exactly the same instant, and the rational side of my brain did its best to ruin the moment.  I knew that, at midnight, when Ostereth dissappeared and I was left alone on the hilltop, that I would wonder if it had all been a dream.  I knew how bad it would hurt tomorrow, going back to school and mortality, where there was no magic and no Ostereth.  But, with her in my arms at that moment, I didn't care.

From nowhere my wandering mind suddenly found one of the questions I had been burning to ask Ostereth for over a year now.  I swallowed and stammered, "Will you miss me, at midnight?"

She grinned, eyes glistening.  "I always do."  Running her fingers through my hair, she added, "my nervous pile of blood and sweet emotions."

As she kissed me for the first time in three months, I dreaded the thought that it was going to be a very long, lonely fall, untill I saw her again just before winter.  But a portion of me felt that spring was already on its way. 

Trigger Finger

Brigit's Flame - February 2012, week 1 entry
Prompt:  Thank you
Title:  Trigger Finger
Wordcount:  ~1700, rated PG-13 for mild language and violent imagery
Author:  Graham Smith (chuck_the_plant)

My ears filled with thunder when she pulled the trigger.  She blinked involuntarily against the sound and her shoulders moved less than they did the last time, but all five cans still stood along the fencepost.  “You missed again,” I told her. 

Sasha spun to me with venom in her eyes.  “I know that!” she screamed.  “You don’t have to rub it in my face!” 

I felt my back straighten as I stared at the twelve-year-old.  “Look, do you want to learn to shoot or not?”  I asked her, my voice like iron.  “Because I don’t have to teach you, you know.”

“If you’re going to keep being an asshole about it, then no!” she screamed back.

I pressed my lips together in frustration and kneaded my hands together, trying to repress my own shouting.  I definitely was not being an asshole about it, but screaming at her wouldn't prove it.  Besides, she had already fired off three shots, and that, combined with her screaming, was going to bring the flesh-eaters from miles around in the next hour.  We had to move. 

“Pack your stuff.  Were leaving,” I told her, shouldering my backpack.  I held out my hand for the gun.  She glared hatefully at it for a second before handing the gun over.  Sasha then gathered her meager belongings, hoisted them on her back, and followed me out of the open field, where we had camped the night before. 

The zombie apocalypse hadn't been what the movies made it out to be.  It wasn’t an exciting slug-fest against the forces of the undead; it was everyone you’ve ever known and loved, suddenly losing their minds and becoming overwhelmed with the desire to eat living meat. 

The biological agent had hit a little over a year ago, as near as I could tell.  In under a week, the phrase “We are the ninety-nine percent” became redefined to describe those that contracted the agent.  I was lucky; I had been pretty much a loner my whole life, and my southern upbringing meant I already had a sizable stockpile of guns.  Even luckier, I was one of the one percent of Americans that seemed to be immune to the agent. 

Sasha hadn’t been so lucky.  Sure, she was immune, but because she was adopted, she was the only one in her family.  I found her when she was eleven years old, hiding in an upstairs closet in her family’s home, when I had gone inside scavenging for food and weapons.  The bodies of her family had been in the living room, where they apparently had ripped each other to shreds looking for their next meals.  I never asked Sasha if she had witnessed the grizzly scene, but judging from how little she talked about it, she had. 

She was a little too old to be my daughter and a little too young to be my sister, but regardless I had dedicated myself to protecting Sasha.  We quickly became friends and learned to depend on each other, but lately we had been fighting a lot.  Especially since food had become scarce.  Now both of us were almost constantly hungry, which made being on the move from the flesh-eaters very difficult. 

“Where are we going?” Sasha asked after we had walked a mile, south, in silence. 

“Wherever there’s food,” I said, “and ammunition.”

“Because I throw so much away every time I pick up the gun?” she accused.  “Because I’m such a terrible shot?”

I gritted my teeth.  “I didn’t say that.  We just need more.” 

“That’s what you meant, though!  If I’m such a waste of ammunition, why are you trying to teach me to shoot?”

Sasha’s bad attitude was getting on my nerves, and the growl in my stomach was doing nothing to help.  “Because you need to know how to defend yourself.  I might not always be around to protect you.” 

“So I’m just a defenseless little kid?  Something you have to constantly look after?  A burden?”

After traveling with a pre-teenager for over a year, I should have known not to get into a argument volley with her.  If I would have ignored her she would have gotten over it.  Pushing the subject was the worst thing I could have done; she was younger than me, and I would tire before she did.  “Well, just judging by how you handle the gun, I’d say yes!” 

I didn’t mean it.  She and I were both hungry, and I knew that our words were more based on empty stomachs than real emotions.  Not to mention that I was the adult and she was the child, and I had a responsibility to watch what I said. 

When Sasha replied, her voice was a husky whisper.  “I hate you." Then she sucked in a great breath of air and screamed, “If you don’t want me around so badly, why don’t you just feed me to the zombies?  Then you’d have all the food and bullets to yourself!”

We had to get at least five miles away from the gunshots to lose the flesh-eaters that would be attracted by the sound, and even further if we kept screaming.  “What food?” I screamed back at her.  “In case you haven’t noticed, we haven’t eaten in a day and a half!  Now how about we shut up and keep walking!” 

Sasha turned and started walking to the west, toward the setting sun.

“Where are you going?” I demanded. 

“Anywhere away from you!” she screamed back.  “I’ll be fine on my own!”

I glanced to the south and noticed a large barn a few miles away.  “Sasha, get back here.  Look, we’ll stop in that barn tonight, and when we wake up tomorrow we’ll both feel better.”

“No!” she screamed.  “I’m getting away from you!  You’ve done nothing but be mean to me since we met!  I hate you!”

After all I’ve done for her, that’s what she says to me?  Hunger filed the edges of my response into sharp blades.  “Fine!”  I screamed at her back.  “When I find food, I’m going to eat it all myself, for once!” 

Sasha didn’t respond, but kept walking west.  I huffed an exasperated breath out of my nose at the infuriating girl, then turned and trudged south, toward the barn. 

I didn’t find any food in the barn.

It looked like there had been some seed corn there, maybe a few months ago, but it had been scavenged.  Now only the bare wood remained.  As the sun set I climbed into the loft, dropping my bag of guns by the ladder in case I had to make a hasty exit.  As I spread out my sleeping bag I thought about Sasha, but when I looked out toward the horizon she was nowhere to be seen.  I thought about going out to look for her, but I had no idea where she had gone.  If I was lucky she’d remember that I said I was headed for the barn and she’d find me. 

After a few hours of moping and worrying, I put my small handgun by my side and slipped into my sleeping bag, feeling just like the asshole she claimed I was. 

It was still dark when my eyes snapped open to the nearly inaudible sound of feet creaking on the loft.  My instincts instantly surged at the thought that I was surrounded by flesh-eaters, but then I remembered that flesh-eaters couldn’t climb ladders, and I had left the loft’s ladder down in case Sasha tried to find me.  Even so, I slowly slid my hand out of my sleeping bag to my side, where I had laid my gun. 

It was gone.

And it was then that I heard the small, angry, muffled whimpers of a twelve-year-old girl, and the familiar click of the safety being switched off on my favorite gun.  

It was dark and I was laying on my stomach, so I had no idea where Sasha was.  But, wherever she was, I was completely at her mercy.

Fear and adrenaline flooded my senses as I realized what was happening, but I managed to keep them under control.  If I jumped up from my sleeping bag and tried to tackle her, she might panic and fire.  My breathing quickened, but I tried to still it.  She was twelve years old; if she knew I was panicking then she’d panic, too, which would increase my chances of being shot.  Even if she merely wounded me and didn’t kill me, there was no way I’d be able to get five miles away before the smell of my blood brought the flesh-eaters out of the woodwork.

I laid there, waiting for Sasha’s next move.  After what must have only been minutes but felt like an eternity, I heard her take a few steps toward me, click the safety back into place, and gently set the gun back where she had found it.  She fell to her knees beside me and her whimpers turned into full-blown sobs.

I had no idea what to do.  A little girl that I had basically adopted had nearly killed me in my sleep, and was now crying her eyes out.  But just as I was deciding whether or not to be furious, terrified, or pitying, Sasha stretched out onto the floor and curled into my side, desperately pressing herself against me. 

Even after what I had said to her, even after seeing her family butcher themselves, even after surviving in our living hell of a world for over a year with a relative stranger, even though she'd have twice as much food without me around ... Sasha still wanted to trust me.

I acted like I was stretching in my sleep and draped my arm over her.  The girl wriggled closer, and I pressed my face into the top of her head.  She stunk like little girl sweat, and I couldn’t imagine how badly I must have smelled, but we laid like that until her sobbing stopped and her breathing became heavy and steady. 

When I was sure Sasha was asleep, I whispered to her softly, “Thank you for not giving up on me.” 

Sandworld, Episode 1: Hot Water

                Mira could barley move her arms.  They were pressed against her chest, palms up, and she tried to free her left hand enough to reach into the metallic belly of the contraption.  Sweat poured from her brow and soaked her hair, which was pulled into a tight braid and pinned beneath her head.  “Can you see it, Mira?” she heard her father ask. 

                “Ot yeh,” Mira replied.  She had tried to say “not yet”, but the light clenched in her teeth had prevented her from doing so. 

                After a second of silence, her father said, “Is that a yes, or a no?” 

                With a grunt of frustration directed at herself rather than her dad, Mira wriggled the fingers of her right hand until she was able to take the light from her mouth.  It had started to dim, so she shook it as well as she could.  Its light gained a little strength.  “Not yet,” she replied.  “This is the same model we worked on yesterday.  Why is the coupling not where it’s supposed to be?” 

                From the room around her came the modest sound of someone clearing his throat.  “I’m afraid that’s, um, my doing,” said Mr. Mayota, Mira and her father’s latest client.  “I had some, um, modifications made on it a few months ago.  Now it only takes half as much coal to keep it hot!”

                “Until it breaks down,” Mira grumbled to herself.  Louder this time, she asked, “Do you know where they put the power coupling when they did these ‘modifications’?” 

                “Not really,” Mr. Mayota replied.  “I don’t know much about these things, so I didn’t really ask questions.  Which is also why I called you two instead of crawling under there myself.”

                Mira squinted into the metallic underbelly of the huge pressure-cooker.  Everyone in Beryl had one, and fixing them was what kept Kinvara Repairs in business.  Her father had started the business when he was not much older than she, and since her arms had been long enough to reach into the metal bellies of the things, Mira had been tagging along.  Mira suspected that her father used his daughter’s knowledge of contraptions to keep himself from clambering beneath the things.  She teased him about it often, but only because she loved him. 

                Suddenly she spied a familiar part amid the mismatched and jury-rigged innards:  a narrow, hard glass cylinder that was capped on both ends by brass knobs.  Inside the coupling was a spring, which was supposed to be at least somewhat compressed.  This one had decompressed almost completely and nearly forced one of the brass knobs off the end.  “I found it!” she cried in triumph.  “Wow, it’s a wreck.  There’s no recompressing this one.  It’s shot.” 

                Mr. Mayota said a curse word, to which Mira’s dad responded, “Kish, if you don’t mind!  My daughter is in the room!”

                “I’m sorry, Maleer,” he replied, though he still sounded flustered.  “It’s just … I thought my troubles were over when I paid for those modifications.”

                “Think of it this way,” Mira said as she twisted her left arm among the cogs and pistons of the contraption.  “The money you saved on coal will pay for the new coupling.  So you haven’t really lost anything.”  She took the coupling with her gloved hand and tried to pull it free.  Whoever had cheated Mr. Mayota out of his money for the so-called ‘modifications’ had really forced it into place; Mira bit her lip in frustration and pulled harder. 

                Without warning the coupling pulled free, and her hand came flying back.  A thin stream of lukewarm water issued from the coupling socket and splashed onto Mira’s face.

                Of all the things that could have happened when she removed the coupling, that was the worst possible.  The spring inside the power coupling was meant to stay compressed and regulate the heat from cooker’s coal-fired belly to its water pot.  The result was steam, which powered the contraption at three times the efficiency of coal-fire alone.  Every time the steamer was used, the spring decompressed a little, until it had to be reset.  But whoever had messed with the cooker’s innards hadn’t put it back correctly; the trickle of water could only mean one thing.  Mira was seconds away from a blistering blast of steam to the face. 

                When the water splashed onto her face, Mira squeezed her eyes shut and tried to turn away from its source.  “Pull me out! Pull me out!” she cried frantically to her father, who had been holding her ankles the entire time.  Two hands yanked hard on her boots, and just as Mira slid from beneath the cooker she felt a searing blast of steam broil her long braid, which trailed behind her head. 

                “Mira!  Are you all right?!” Mira heard her father cry.  She finally allowed herself to spit the acrid, metallic water from her mouth as two hands slipped beneath her back and lifted her from the floor.  Mira flung away her heavy gloves and wiped her face with a handkerchief from her pocket. 

                “I’m fine,” she assured her father when she could see again.  He sat in front of her, his dark eyes full of worry and his tall, prominent nose only inches away from her.  His huge arms wrapped around her and squeezed her tightly and his onyx-colored beard, peppered with its fair share of white, scratched comfortingly against her cheek. 

                When he finally released her, Mira turned and looked at the damage to the cooker.  The low-ceilinged room had become stiflingly hot and muggy from the blast of steam.  The floor beneath it was covered with water, and even from a few feet away Mira could feel the heat that radiated from the puddle.  If her father hadn’t pulled her out when he did, she’d surely be dead.   Or she’d be in so much agony that she’d wish she was dead. 

                “Mira!  Maleer!  I …. I ….” Mr. Mayota stuttered.  The short man ran his hand across his bald pate, which was covered in sweat from the heat of the room. 

                Mira, her heart thundering in her ears from the close call, tossed the broken coupling at Mr. Mayota’s feet.  “That’ll be seventy-one cogs for the new coupling, ten cogs for removal fee …” she looked back to the cooker.  As if on cue, it burped out one last blast of steam.  “ … and twenty cogs for installation of the new one.  Once your cooker cools off.”  

Johnny Jackrabbit and the Treasure of Mad Badger

Brigit's Flame All-Stars contest, week 2
Topic:  Transcendent
Title:  Johnny Jackrabbit and the Treasure of Mad Badger
593 words, rated G
Author:  Graham Smith (chuck_the_plant)

“Who’s that, daddy?” asked a small voice from my lap.  A little hand pointed to the screen. 

“That’s the main character, as a kid,” I whispered to Tucker. 

Tucker turned around and blinked two huge brown eyes at me.  “But I thought that he was a grown-up.” 

“He was.  I mean, he is.  This is a flashback.”  I ran my fingers through my son’s silky blonde hair.

“Oh.”  Tucker turned back to the screen and focused on the cartoon characters for another moment, then turned back around in my lap.  “What’s a flashback?” 

In front of us, a teenage girl turned around and sent an acidic look to Tucker and me.  I could have returned the gesture, since I had been ignoring the blue glow from her cell phone since the movie started and plainly wasn’t interested in the movie through which she was babysitting the two kids next to her.  Instead I ignored her and whispered to Tucker, “It’s when someone thinks back to something that happened to them in the past.  See?  That’s why Johnny Jackrabbit is smaller, here.” 

Tucker looked back to the screen, as if just seeing it for the first time, and then turned back to me.  His seven-year-old eyes were wide.  “Oh!” 

Tried as he might to keep his voice down, his last word had come out louder than he had intended.  Through the darkness of the theater I saw several more heads turn our way, and I stifled a laugh as I pressed my finger to my lips and made a shushing motion.  Tucker’s hands flew to his mouth like he had just discovered his transgression, and he turned back to the screen. 

Jonathan Jackrabbit’s flashback ended, and the grown-up version of the character appeared on screen again.  With his band of other cartoon animals, he set off on a quest to find buried treasure.  During a musical montage that showed the characters traveling by boat, plane, and hot air balloon, Tucker turned back to me.  “Is that why he’s looking for treasure, daddy?  Because he remembered reading about it in his flashback?” 

“You got it,” I told him.

This time, the teenage girl actually turned around and shushed at us.  Tucker jumped from surprise, nearly dropping his popcorn, and the girl turned around before either he or I could confront her.  Tucker beckoned me with his finger, and when I leaned down he cupped his hands around my ear.  “That girl’s mad, isn’t she?” he said, his voice almost silent. 

Imitating my son, I cupped my hands around one of his tiny ears.  “I think so.”

It was Tucker’s turn again, and I didn’t even mind that his hands were oily from the popcorn.  “Maybe we should be quiet so she won’t get madder.” 

Instead of replying I merely winked to my son and gave him a thumbs-up.  As he turned around and stuffed his cheeks with more popcorn, I realized that it wouldn’t bother me if everyone in the theater shushed us, pelted us with Raisinettes, or tried to blind us with their cell phones.  I had never enjoyed a movie as much as Johnny Jackrabbit and the Treasure of Mad Badger.

“I love you, Tucker,” I said softly into his ear. 

Tucker turned, shushed me much louder than was necessary, and then looked back to the screen.  A second later he turned and whispered, “I love you, too, Daddy.”  He then quickly added, “Are they going to use those shovels to dig for treasure?” 

I shushed my son, nodded, and squeezed him tightly. 

Mr. Cavanaugh, The Inept

Brigit's Flame January All-Stars Contest, Week 1
Topic:  Erudition
Title:  Mr. Cavanugh, the Inept
Author:  Graham Smith (chuck_the_plant)
Wordcount:  1250

This piece is near and dear to my heart, because it is loosely based off of the very first novel I ever wrote (by the same name).  I have yet to sell it because it so happens that it's pretty terrible and needs rewritten.  Even so, it'll always be my baby. Enjoy! 

My palms start to sweat as the bell rings and my first class enters the room.  I'm nervous, because this isn’t just my first class of the day, or my first class of the school year… it's the first class I've ever taught, period.  And, of course, the other reason has me so nervous that I'm afraid my knees will start knocking together.

Once everyone is seated, I brace my feet in a confident stance and spread my palms welcomingly.  “Good morning, everyone.  My name is Mr. Cavanaugh, and welcome to first period.”  I consider saying, ‘Call me Mark, because Mr. Cavanaugh is my father!’, but I decide it’s too corny and cliché.  Not to mention that it’s the first day of school, and I’m trying to make an impression that will last all year.  

Things go fairly well.  I spend the entire class period explaining my classroom rules and procedures, then I tell a few stories about myself to lighten the air.  I get what I think are a few good-natured laughs, which I guess is the best I can expect from a room full of teenagers.  When the bell rings to end class, I’m glad I decided to wear a black shirt because I’m sweating badly. 

Second period, luckily, is planning period for my wing of the building.  As the halls fill with students, I step outside of my classroom and watch as kids pull items from their lockers for their next classes.  When the last locker is closed and the hall is empty, I slump against the wall and exhale a sigh of relief.

“Rough first class?” says a voice to my side, and I turn to see Lina Argus, another teacher on my floor, walking toward me.  She befriended me the day I was hired, and the two of us have become close since then.  I still haven’t gathered the courage to ask her out, but I will, soon.  At least I hope I will, because she is stunningly gorgeous. 

“Actually, no,” I reply with a smile.  “In fact, it went perfectly.”

She grins.  “Why are you so surprised?  I’ve been telling you for weeks that you’d be fine.  No one made an issue of it, did they?” 

She is, of course, referring to the number one reason why I was nervous about the first day of school, even more than it being my first day as a bonified teacher.  I am the only one of my kind in the building.  “No,” I said again.

“See?  It’s like I told you:  kids respect confidence.  If you don’t make a big deal out of it, neither will they.  You’re their teacher, and they want to see you as an authority figure, whether you’re an Inept or not.”

 “I guess they knew what to expect, since my class is called ‘Inept Studies’,” I add.  “By the way, have I mentioned how much I dislike that name?”

“It might have come up,” Lina says with a smirk.  “But I’ve told you, ‘Inept’ doesn’t mean the same thing to us as it does to you.  It just means you’re not an Adept, like us.  And if you’d like to change the name, talk to Elmer.”  She's referring to Elmer Cartwright, the Dean of McGrady’s Institute for Adept Youths.  “But I’m telling you, you’ve got nothing to worry about.  These kids are going to love you, and no one’s going to think you’re ….”

A scream resounds from around the corner of the hallway.  I turn to see a boy I don’t recognize, probably sixteen years old, bolt around the corner at full-speed , with a mischievous grin on his face.  A second later a girl rounds the corner after him.  She has red hair and she’s soaked from head to toe.  The boy darts behind me and Lina, using us as human shields, and cries, “No matter what she says, she’s lying!” 

The girl skids to a stop.  Her wet tennis shoes make her slide a few inches on the tile.  “Really, Charlie?!” she screams at him.  “On the first day of school?!  Really?!” 

It’s then that I recognize the girl.  Her name is Cassandra Kinney, and I was told to watch out for her.  She was suspended three times last year for fighting; not because she was necessarily a bad kid, but because she was constantly antagonized by other kids and was easy to push to her tipping point.  I also remember something about a screwed up home life. 

She grips her hands into fists and her hair blows around her face.  Steam starts to billow from her body.  Even though she’s standing fifteen feet away from me I can feel the heat rolling from her.  She glares daggers past me to Charlie, whom it seems is trying to hide his snickering.  Cassie huffs in breaths through clenched teeth, and then her hair bursts into flames. 

Oh.  And Cassie is a fire Adept.

“Control yourself, Cassie,” Lina said, taking a step toward the girl.  “You said this year is going to be different, remember?  No more suspensions?” 

“But Ms. Argus!” Cassie argues.  “He just drenched me as I was walking into gym!”

“And he’s going to get in trouble,” Lina says, and she turns and glares harder and Charlie.  The boy tries to step behind me, but I move against the wall to expose him.  “But you’re going to do better this year.  Last May, we made a pact.  No suspensions.” 

Cassie presses her lips into a thin line and closes her eyes, and her breathing slowly returns to normal.  The flames in her hair gradually die down, then disappear altogether.  Her clothes are completely dry, but her shirt seems to have shrunk from the steam because an inch of her midriff is showing. 

“Good girl,” Lina says.  “Now go to your dorm and change clothes.  Be back in time for third period.”  Cassie then notices that her shirt has shrunk and almost loses her temper again, but she simply shakes her head angrily.  Lina then whirls to Charlie.  “As for you, young man, I expect better from you!  This is your fourth year at McGrady’s, and you know the punishment for using your powers on another student!  And your parents are going to get a call about replacing Cassie’s clothes.”

Lina prods an indignant-looking Charlie toward the principal’s office.  He sprayed Cassie with a misty jet of water from his index finger as he passes.  The red-headed girl looks like she is about to snatch at him with her bare hands, but I take a brave step toward her and decide to do something teacher-like. “Come on, Cassie,” I say.  “You made a good choice.  Don’t offset it by making a bad one.” 

Cassie squeezes her hands until they shake and the air becomes warm again, but after a second she composes herself.   For a silent moment it’s just she and I in the hallway, and I suddenly brake into a nervous sweat again.  “I’m going to my dorm to get changed, like Ms. Argus said,” she says.  “Thanks, Mr. Cavanaugh.  I’ll see you for fourth period.”  With that, she leaves. 

Hoo boy.  That loose-cannon fire Adept is in my fourth period class.  And, along with her, two-dozen other children that, in addition to taking my class, arecurrently taking classes on how to turn invisible, change their shapes, and bend the elements to their whims.  Even my colleagues can do amazing things that I had only read about in comic books and seen in video games.      

Just another day for the only Inept at McGrady’s Institute for Adept Youths, I suppose. 

The Other White Meat

"It smells funny," Lupus said. 

Nubilus sniffed. "It does. But it's not an unpleasant smell, is it?" 

Lupus nudged the small bundle with his nose again. "A little like flowers.  Flowers that have soiled themselves." 

Nubilus rolls her eyes at her husband. "It smells better than that.  Why don't you open it and see what's inside?"

Lupus stalked around the wrapped bundle and examined it from every side. It didn’t sound or smell like anything deadly, so he took a corner of the little pink cloth in his teeth and pulled it back.  He jumped backward at what he saw.  "What IS it?" Nubilus asked as she stepped closer.

"Don't touch it!" her husband warned. "We don't know what it is or where it's been!" 

"Oh, please, Lupus!" Nubilus teased. "You worry too much!  Look how pink and lumpy it is! It's not going to hurt us." She took an appraising sniff, which encouraged Lupus to stalk toward it.

"It looks like one of the baby pigs we snatched from the barn last week.  Only uglier."  He licked his lips. "I wonder if it tastes the same." 

Just then, the thing in the bundle started to squirm, and some feeble sounds escaped its mouth.  As its two tiny eyes squinted to the sky, it threw its mouth open and screamed until its face turned red. 

Lupus opened his jaws and lunged for the thing, but Nubilus stepped in front of him. "What do you think you're doing?!"

“How else are we supposed to get it to shut up?!” Lupus argued.  “It’s crying is going to draw the entire rest of the pack, and then we’re going to have to share!”

"You are NOT eating this creature, and we are certainly not sharing it with the pack!" 

Lupus lowered his ears and whined. "But I love pork!" 

"Lupus, this isn't a pig!" Nubilus barked.  “Look, no hooves! It has ... fingers.  Like a human."  Nubilus lay on the ground and wrapped herself around the small thing, placing her nose and tail close to its face. A second later it stopped crying. 

Lupus, on the other hand, had backed away from it again. "What are you doing!?" he cried. "If that thing is a human pup, we need to be gone! Do you know what humans pups come from?  Big humans.  Do you know what big humans have? Guns." 

"I think someone left her here," Nubilus said.  Her eyelids drooped pleasantly as she nuzzled the baby with her nose. 

"How do you know it's a ‘her’?" Lupus asked. Nubilus took the edge of the blanket in her teeth and lifted it, and lupus turned away, disgusted. "Okay, I get it.  But why do you think someone left her here?" 

"She's too small to have run away on her own, and she was wrapped in this blanket," Nubilus rationalized. "Plus, look at this." Gently she dug around inside the blanket with her snout, and emerged with a piece of paper gently clenched in her teeth. On it were several lines of human writing.

"So some human heard I liked pork and wanted to leave me a piglet. I mean, a humanlet. Either way, I don't want it. Let's go." 

"Let's keep her, Lupus." 

Lupus tripped over all four of his legs. "I told you, I don't care how much I like pork, I'm not giving some human more excuses to take shots at us!" 

"Not to eat!" Nubilus said, outraged. "As our pup." 

Lupus' face fell. "Please, Nubilus, we've been through this.  We can't have pups.  We've tried."

"But what if she was meant for us, Lupus?"  Nubilus pushed.  "What if she's the pup we've always wanted?" 

"I've never wanted a human pup!" Lupus cried.

Nubilus' eyes became fierce. "It wasn't a mistake that we found her. It can't be. You are not going to eat her, and I am not going to leave her for something else to eat her."  She nuzzled the baby lovingly with her snout.  "She needs us. All we have to do is get her back to the den.  We can decide what to tell the pack later."

Lupus crept closer to the baby and put his nose inches from her face.  For a moment her tiny hands reached for him, but then she snatched a whisker and plucked it from his snout.  Lupus yelped and skittered backward. 

"See?  Our pup already takes after you!  Ferocious from the start!" Lupus shook his head, and when he opened his eyes he found a look in his wife's eyes that he had always hoped to see, but had never appeared until now from their inability to have their own pups.

 "I can't believe I'm doing this," he grumbled.  Lupus knelt, took the edges of the blanket in his teeth, and gently picked the baby up from the ground. Nubilus grinned at him in a manner than only wolves can distinguish, and the two trotted to their den to plan a way to convince the pack that what they had found was their pup and not a humanlet.    

Nubilus licked her husband’s snout.  “I love you.”

“I luff you, too,” Lupus replied, his mouth full of blanket.