Flash

Before the Beach House

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Thomas opened the door and looked down at the woman lying in the sand at the foot of his porch. “Do you need help, Sue?”

“No.” Susan looked up at the darkening sky and felt her heart throb in her chest as the shock of her skid across the asphalt started to fade.

Thomas stepped out onto the porch and looked down the street after Susan’s partner and then eyed the blood staining the sand underneath Susan. “You sure? That looked painful.”

“Everything’s fine here.” She lifted a hand up into the air and waved it in Thomas’ direction. “You can go back inside, Tom. I’ll follow in a few minutes.”

“Alright.” Thomas turned away but paused at the door. “Make sure to brush the sand off before you come inside.”

“But it’s a beach house, Tom.” Susan let her arm fall to her side and tried to turn her head toward her older brother. Her neck screamed in protest, so she stopped.

Thomas sighed and turned around again. “Yes, but I want the beach to stay outside.”

“Sure thing, Bro.” Susan smirked and pointed two finger-guns at the sky. Thomas walked inside. “Yep.” Susan let her hands slowly fall back to the ground as a wave of pain swept through her again. “Everything’s pretty alright.”

Half an hour later, as the sky finally gave in to the sweeping darkness and the first stars appeared, Susan rolled to her front and stood up. Her back was caked in bloody sand, but she didn’t seem to notice it. Instead, she stared after the ex-partner who’d decided assault was an appropriate response to being bought out of a business she’d been holding back. Daisy would be someone else’s liability.

Berserk rages didn’t belong in shopkeeping. She’d be happier as an adventurer again.

Hand on my Heart

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If you had asked, I’d have said yes. I never could deny you anything. You could have asked for my heart, and I’d have cut it out for you.

They say you never really know love until you hold your child for the first time. I usually like to argue with that because I feel like that denies the love of people without children, but I don’t think I can anymore.

I would have said yes. I would have given you my blessing. Sent you off with the knowledge that, even if I do not agree with what you want to do, I will always support you. But you didn’t ask.

I can’t blame you. I wanted you to be strong and master of your own destiny. I wanted you to do whatever you wanted with your life, even if I wound up trying to stop you. I am so proud you became everything I ever hoped you could.

I just wish you knew that. There are so many things I’d have said if I’d known you were leaving, so many lessons I’d have liked to teach you. But you left. Now, you have no more lessons to learn.

I saw you do an interview once, a couple years after you left. I was so proud of you. I carried newspaper clippings in my wallet so I could brag like I used to when you were a baby. The fire in your eyes warmed me even as I felt the cold distance that I could never seem to close.

One day, I hope you find this. You never replied to my emails or messages, so I hope you eventually pick up this letter. It will be too late, but at least you’ll know. I’ll always be your biggest fan.

 

Equal Rights for Familiars

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“Being a witch’s familiar is a thankless job. You have to carry stuff around, hunt for magical reagents, fight off adventurers, and clean her bathrooms. I don’t know if you know what a steady diet of potion fumes and small children does to your insides, but I have first-hand experience with what comes out and I can tell you it is not pleasant for anyone.

“It’d make it all worth it if she’d just release the curse that binds you into your demi-mortal form, return the locket that holds the soul of your beloved, or, in Theodore’s case, stop dosing you with love potions every six hours.”

“You take that back! My Gina is a lovely woman!”

“Shut up, Theo. We all know what’s really going on, even if you’re incapable of believing it for another hour or two. This is exactly what I’m talking about! We need to unionize. We need to campaign for equal rights within the magical community! We must walk up to the table and demand they give us a seat.

“I know you’re all worried about what your witch might do to you if you protest or participate in our strike. For some of us, that will be the price we pay in order to gain freedom, rights, and respect for the rest of us. We outnumber them and they can’t just kill us all! The magical community would collapse overnight without us to support it.”

“I get what you’re saying, but have you considered that they can just replace us with a simple spell?”

“Sure, but they can’t kills us with a single spell!”

“Actually, they can.”

“What?”

“Yeah. My witch developed it last week. We’re pretty screwed.”

“Uh, I’ll put that on the agenda for next week.”

“If we’re still alive, next week.”

The Brown Package

Chris

Sal was chosen to do a special job. Employment can happen to anyone, if they’re not careful, and Sal was no exception.

Post-scarcity society was pretty good. Sal never needed to work to put food on the table or a roof over their head. Those things had always just been there. An entire lifetime of ease and self-exploration came to an abrupt halt when, instead of food, a tablet appeared on Sal’s table.

“If you want to continue living off the largess of society, there is a task you must complete. If you do not, you will never eat again.”

Sal pondered those words as they walked down the street toward the Mag station. Death seemed like a high price to pay for not delivering a bunch of bundles wrapped in brown fiber. Sal was curious and more than a little frustrated that their attempt to open one of the packages had result in an alarm. A flashing warning that said disobeying the instructions would lead to instant death.

By the time Sal got to the station and dropped off the first package, they were dying of curiosity. Deciding death was preferable to not knowing what was inside the package, Sal ripped one open as they stood in the center of the daily chaos of the Mag station. Inside was a small bundle of red sticks, a tangle of wires, and a retro-styled digital clock.

Sal started to poke one of the sticks, but the clock start beeping. Something deep inside Sal started panicking, so they threw the bundle as far as they could. As it reached the peak of its flight, the bundle flashed, let out a huge boom, and burst into balloons, confetti, and some holo clapping hands while the words “Happy Retirement, Jerry!” flashed above it all.

Town Management

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Argorath the Dark Lord, ruler of the Pits of Hindejnam, surveyed the city sprawling beneath his castle and sneered as more peasants flocked to his walls. They wanted safety from the horrors beyond his walls, even if it cost them their freedom. Their mewling sickened him and he had no use for them. He already had as many useless peasants as he could bear.

He signalled to his guards to drop the gates and, a few moments later, the chilling clank of his hell-forged gates slamming down was met by more wails from the pathetic masses rushing towards his walls.

It would be night soon. There was nowhere left for them to hide and the beasts would find them. Brutish adventurers would follow right after and anyone who survived the beasts would meet their death at the hands of treasury-hungry mercenaries.

It was terrible and he almost wished he could do something to help. Almost. He had enough on his plate with his own useless peasants. They did nothing but take up space and he had to have them around. If he didn’t, his knights would leave, his miners would disappear, and even his castellan would wander away. Peasants were an important part of keeping a town together and so he begrudgingly accepted the bare minimum.

He really wished he could expand his town walls, but he was out of space. He’d hit capacity and there was nothing he could do with his town to expand, so he mostly focused on strengthening it as much as he could. He didn’t want to meet his end at the hands of treasure hungry adventurers, either, and they just kept getting stronger.

He really wished he’d sprung for a premium account, now. Then there’d be no limit to his town’s size or strength.

The End of a Long Road

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The road was long and the directions did not always make sense. Despite it, he prevailed. It took years, many false starts, innumerable dead-ends, and more moments of hopelessness than he cared to remember. Finally, after everything he went through, he had reached his destination.

He walked through the empty city, admiring the towering structures that he had thought he’d only see in his dreams and trying to imagine what it would look life a year from now, when it was filled with people.

It took everything he had to keep himself from being overwhelmed by excitement. He wandered from one landmark to the next, checking them out as he passed and doing his best to stay calm as the city matched everything he’d always imagined.

Of course, it wasn’t entirely perfect. The entire city was in ruins, but that didn’t excuse the misaligned walls he found and the scattered bugs throughout. Nothing major of course, since the fact the city was a ruin hid most of them from even the most dedicated observer. He made some notes, but knew they’d need to wait.

Finally, it was time to leave. He’d be back eventually. He’d never be away for long, that was for sure. For now, though, it was time to leave and let everyone else in. He glanced at the timer overhead and decided to stick around a bit. Seconds after the timer expired, the first person showed up. A scant few seconds later, two more people blinked into existence around the first one.

“Have fun!” He smiled at their bewildered expressions and then logged out. After taking off his headset and gloves, he tapped a few commands on his computer and sat back to watch the active user counter quickly climb toward one million.

A Man of Numbers

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All Theodore cared about was numbers and all he wanted out of his life was to find particularly challenging sets of numbers to play with. Let the others have their social lives and their romances. Numbers were all he needed.

Columns of reference numbers scrolled past as he looked for a break in the sequence. Each column’s total should equal all of its reference numbers added together which should equal the total of the column left of it plus the number of reference numbers in the column.

It was a tricky algorithm, but it ensured only he could create new reference numbers. If they didn’t all add up correctly, the program wouldn’t close when he tried to exit. It meant staying late, frequently, but he didn’t mind.

After almost two hours of searching, he found the new reference number and followed it to the document it represented. It was a few sheets of transcribed meeting notes someone had hidden on the network.

After he finished reading through them, his heart was racing as he typed an email to his boss. They were hiding something from their bosses and he’d found them! He hit send and went home. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.

The next day, he met his boss on the main floor to watch two security guards and the man’s manager talk to the culprit for a moment and then gently guide him out. Theodore recognized his cousin Bill, as Bill tried to pull away from the guards.

Bill saw him and shouted. “Theo! Please!” The guards grabbed him and continued to guide him toward the foyer. “Theo! Tell them! We were just making plans to throw a surprise party for Gus’ birthday tomorrow!”

Theodore’s stomach lurched. Gus, his boss, turned to him and sighed. “Dammit, Theodore. Not again.”

Morning Coffee

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Harris woke to the scent of frying bacon, birdsong, and early-morning sunlight. He blinked his eyes, trying to adjust to the light from the window Linda had thrown open.

“C’mon, get up!”

Harris pulled the blankets over his head. Linda sat down on the bed, pulled the blanket back, and gave him a kiss on the nose. “If you wait too long, breakfast is going to get cold!”

Harris smiled as Linda pulled the sheet back, putting up only a token resistance as she hauled him out of bed. “Alright, alright.” Harris pushed himself to his feet and hugged his wife. “You win.” After putting on his bathrobe and new slippers, he followed his wife’s singing down the stairs to the kitchen. He watched as she flipped pancakes for a moment and then started making coffee. Five minutes later, they were eating.

“I’ve got a few errands to run, Harris, but I’ll be back shortly after one.”

“Alright. I’m going to work on getting our taxes filed after I clean up here. Should be done before you’re back.” He smiled at Linda.

He lifted his mug to take a sip, but the handle slipped in his hands and hot coffee poured into his lap. Even as he leapt out of the chair, part of his brain pulled at him and, instead of a coffee stain on his robe, he was looking at his bedroom.

The shades were drawn and the window was closed. The air smelled faintly of sweat. He looked around his room and tried to see it as he had when he was still asleep. He tried to remember his wife as she had looked that morning, but all he could remember was how her face had looked when she handed him the divorce papers later that day.

Doing Some Squats

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Nelson stuck the last plate into the dishwasher. After drying his hands off, he put soap into the dishwasher and set it to start in two hours. He wiped down the counters, swept the floor, and then mopped it. Once the kitchen was sparkling, he turned toward the living room and called out. “Kitchen’s done.”
“Four more rooms and then we’re finished.”
Nelson picked up the cleaning supplies Allie had left on the table. “I swear, you should have finished the living room by now.”
“I would be if we hadn’t made such a mess out here.”
Nelson chuckled as he walked into the dining room. “I guess we were a little too enthusiastic.”
“You were the one who wanted to do this with me. The last step is always cleaning.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Nelson sighed and started cleaning the dining room. Dusting, vacuuming, furniture polishing, and tidying. After finishing, he went into the living room and found Allie just wrapping up.
“Finally got the stains out.” Allie grimaced and picked up her tray of cleaning supplies. “Let’s tackle the bedroom and then you can get the small bathroom while I get the big one.”
“Sure.” Nelson followed Allie up the stairs. “This is way more work than I expected.”
“Proper domestic care takes time.”
“Yeah, but I thought the whole point of breaking into vacant houses was to avoid doing this kind of work.”
Allie shrugged. “Better than getting caught.”
Nelson grumbled as he helped Allie clean the bedroom. Halfway through, Allie paused. “Did the dishwasher just start?”
“No.” Nelson checked the clock near the bed. “Not for another hour.”
“Then what was that rumbling?”
Nelson looked out the window. “That was the garage door.” A family was climbing out of the car parked in the driveway.
“Shit.”

Sensitivity Assessment

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I clicked on the link in the email and watched the video message load. It was an advertisement for some kind of new electric toothbrush and I stifled a yawn as a parade of cheerful white woman in their late twenties marveled at how clean their perfect teeth felt.

After it ended, I watched it a few more times. Once I’d gotten everything I could, I typed up my notes, stuck them into a reply email, and sent it off. A few minutes later, my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“What do you mean ‘it needs less white women.”

“Fewer. You have almost two dozen actors and they’re all white women. It needs some diversity.”

“The agency sent us these women. What the hell where we supposed to do?”

I shrugged, shifting the phone so I could use both my hands again. “I don’t know, Shannon. You wanted a sensitivity assessment and I gave it to you.”

“In the most unprofessional way possible.” Shannon was pissed and I held back the urge to sigh.

“Did you want me to pretend it was fine? I answered everything according to our guidelines and there’s nothing in my response I haven’t sent to you a dozen times already.”

“Whatever, Kent. I can’t do this right now. I’ve got to go talk to the director and let him know we’ve got to reshoot the entire commercial.”

“You called me.”

I imagined Shannon slamming the phone down and smiled. She got so angry every time I sent her the feedback she requested. I probably could have been a little less blunt in my email, but she was just so much fun to wind up.