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Flash: What’s Wrong

Erin Penn

Photo by Portuguese Gravity on Unsplash

The anniversary dinner talk continued from salad to steak. Life complications had kept Alledria, Wayne, and Dara busy and four months of family, friends, work, and life gossip, plus covering favorite shows and books meant the dessert discussion didn’t occur until the plates had been scraped clean and the food server stood over them asking if they wanted anything else. She walked away with the used plates and an order for one molten monster, officially for Wayne, but the meal, and conversation, extension included a request for three clean forks.

While pushing back her twists as the three friends return to concentrate on each other, Dara felt a tickle on her arm. She muttered “drat” when she discovered blood welling from a hole on her forearm and reached for her purse she had hooked onto the table.

“You really shouldn’t scratch your scabs like that,” Wayne commented as Dara applied a band-aid to the wound.

“I didn’t—”

Alledria interrupted, bumping her husband. “I’ve told her that a thousand times. It’s an old habit from school. One time, she…” Alledria started a story from their high school years which Dara had hear a hundred times and Alledria’s husband at least six.

The muscle cramps from laughing relaxed in Dara’s face; the edges of her smile took on a brittleness, crumbling the wideness away, removing the best parts of the joy. “Never mind,” sighed from suddenly numb lips, her quiet words unheard across the table. She inserted laughter appropriately when the Alledria ended the story.

Wayne responded with a short anecdote about a family member’s childhood. All of them had been sharing toddler and baby stories all afternoon in between other news because of Alledria’s pregnancy announcement. The molten monster, a mixture of chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, and hot caramel, arrived as he delivered the punchline. With the forks distributed, Alledria grabbed out the first bite of bitter fudge and sweet ice cream. Beside her, Wayne carved out a piece of cake and caramel.

Dara scraped the tines of her fork through the decorative chocolate drizzle on the edge of the plate. After tasting the cocoa delight, she set the fork down to watch the others devour the dessert.

About midway through the oversized caloric sugar rush, Alledria paused to wipe the edges of her mouth and noticed Dara’s quietness. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing.” The corners of Dara’s mouth pushed against the crumbling, forcing a politer smile into place.

A quick frown crossed Alledria’s face. “Don’t give me that. Something’s wrong.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, no.” Alledria reached across the table to grab her best friend’s hand. “Don’t think about Kase. He’s not worth it.”

“It’s not him.” Dara eased her hand out of Alledria’s grasp. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. You only shut down like this when—”

“I’m not thinking about him at all, I promise.” Dara tried a better smile to deflect her personal bloodhound of a friend. “Don’t let the ice cream melt.”

“Wayne will take care of it.” Alledia pushed the plate out of the middle of the table to in front of her husband. “If you are not thinking about him, what made you shut down.”

“Nothing. I’m good. Everything is fine.”

“No, no.” Tapping her chin, Alledria started rewinding the conversation, “Jess sleeping on a toddler toilet, scrapping off a couple of scabs for making slides for biology, the band-aid…” Her face froze in consternation, “I cut you off.”

“No, you didn’t—”

“I did. I did. More than that, I didn’t listen.”

“It’s fine.”

“No. I promised you I would always listen, but I haven’t been. Not about your scabs.”

Blood raised against Dara’s cheeks in a shadowy blush. She shrugged. “It’s fine. No one ever listens. I’m used to it.” Dara’s eyes grew round when she realized what had come out of her mouth.

“Oh.my.god.” Alledria grabbed Dara’s hand. “I’m so sorry.

“It’s—”

“If you say fine or okay one more time, I will hurt you. Don’t make a pregnant woman hurt you.”

Dara gave a small chuckle. “Are you going to use that excuse for the next six month?”

“Of course, wouldn’t you?”

“She’s been using it on me for the last month.” Wayne said as he finished the dessert. “Welcome to the club.” He paused then added. “You know how bulldog she is about finding things out, abstemiously for her writing, but really because she likes to poke her nose into everything. Yeah, triple that because of hormones after the morning sickness wears off in the morning.”

“You poor man.” Dara commiserated.

“Don’t,” Alledria waved a finger first at Dara and then at Wayne. “Don’t distract me.” She returned her focus to her friend. “We are going to get refills on our drinks and then we are going to back up and you are going to tell me about your scabs.”

“You know about them.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” Alledria started ticking off what she did know. “You have had them forever. They just happen whenever. You’ve seen doctors about them. Have you ever gotten a diagnosis?”

Dara nodded.

“What was it?”

“Non-psychosis Stigmata.”

Wayne choked on his beer. While patting his back, Alledria said, “I think I would have remembered if you said that.”

“I tend to say hematidrosis or psychogenic purpua, since that is the most common type of unexplained bleeding, but it isn’t sweating blood and it isn’t stress induced.” Alledia pulled out a small notebook from her purse and patted it. “It didn’t increase or decrease for Christmas crazy in the retail stores, nor did the divorce impact it. I’ve kept track.”

“So what does the diagnosis actually mean?”

“Same as most diagnosis, it is Latin or whatever that translates into the symptoms you have, not what is causing it. Like COPD means ‘Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease’ or you have chronic issues causing swelling in the lungs which makes it hard to breath. In my case, I have random unexplained bleeding from the skin not tied to a high religious fervor.”

“That’s helpful.” Alledria deadpanned.

“Yep. And expense,” Dara said. “I stopped investigating when the store dropped health insurance for the hourly workers.”

“Alright, let’s wind back to the beginning and you tell me everything.” Alledria waved at their server and indicated more drinks for everyone.

(words 1,056; first published 4/11/2026 – Getting closer to the story I was trying to write, but still not there. The characters just keep chatting like they are friends.)

 

Anniversary Dinner Series
Chapter One: Anniversary Dinner (9/11/2022)
Chapter Two: What’s Wrong (9/8/2024)
Chapter Three: What’s Wrong with Me? (12/29/2024)

Magical Words: Running and Writing

Erin Penn

Photo by sporlab on Unsplash

Going the distance writing in hard. Only these past couple years have I managed anything close to a long form. Part of my problem is I think of writing like running sprints, getting it done and over with as quickly as possible. Writing long form is a marathon.

I do marathon work all the time in my gigs – I count down the days for taxes, I count the packages for the post office, I record the number of words in a book to edit.

Christina Henry did a guest blog for Magical Words on October 24, 2014 on “of Running and Writing”, explaining how running a marathon helped her finally finish a novel. Instead of concentrating on the destination, she started working on the journey.

My biggest take away is

When you actually run the race you never think, “One mile down, 25 to go.” Instead you think,  “One more mile. One more mile.” And slowly but surely you get to the finish line

My personal problem with long-form is I do think “one mile down, 25 to go.” I accomplish so much more when I “write today, write today, write today”.

Maybe the post will inspire you for longer creative works. Again the URL is: http://www.magicalwords.net/specialgueststars/christina-henry-of-running-and-writing/

Book Review: The Hummingbird’s Gift

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

The Hummingbird’s Gift by Reese Morrison

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

What if the gods got it wrong?

When children in Rohahen’s tribe come of age, they receive shifter forms from the gods. Sometimes these forms come with an extra gift: strength-sharers can give mental commands while heart-singers can shape others’ emotions.

Rohahen has been hiding his crush on Tier for fifteen years. For the balance of the tribe, the Chief must marry a heart-singer, not a strength-sharer like himself.

Only Rohahen is starting to wonder if there might be other ways of being a heart-singer. When Tier starts to return his affection, perhaps he can find the bravery to show the world who he really is.

Because the ways of the gods are mysterious. And maybe they didn’t get it wrong after all.

“The Hummingbird’s Gift” is a companion to “Hummingbird and Kraken” and continues the story of one if its primary characters. (It will not make sense as a stand-alone.) It is a friends-to-lovers story with an adorable bison shifter, a uncertain Chief, a heart-singer coming into his own, plenty of heat, and a HEA.

 

MY REVIEW

Most romances focus on the relationship between the two love interests and leave the rest of the world to adjust to them. Love is that powerful a force, or so the fantasy magic of romance tells us.

But community is a true powerhouse in reality, and as a chief, Tier’s duties are to his people and being in balance for them. Any relationship he takes on much consider these duties because they are as much a part of him as his shifter abilities.

Rohahen understands this and has kept his distance, but since the gardener’s abduction Tier is no longer keeping his.

Can they find balance without harming their beloved community?

Although, at times, the dialog is somewhat stilted, overall the story is a sweet (and spicy M-M) short story romance. I always adore a story where the society pressures are based on love, not hate. Reese Morrison delivers again.

While the Amazon blurb indicates that this story should be read after its companion book, I found this short story worked just fine on its own. We are all used to being dropped into the middle of the action and figuring things out from there, right?

(Read through Kindle Unlimited)

Flash: Exit Strategy

Erin Penn

Photo by ConvertKit on Unsplash

I couldn’t take it anymore and left my private space to grab Xanadu’s alarm and turned it off. They may be my favorite American, but sometimes I could ring their neck. I have to bang the curtain surrounding her woodworking space to find the overlapping cloth entrance. The white kitchen timer was set on a stool near the passthrough.

“What, oh, was that ringing?” they asked, looking up from the ten-to-one ratio rat-inspired column they were carving for the Manyard building, red paint clinging above their left eyebrow. They had finished the last of the two-foot columns for the inside atrium Tuesday and painted them with the red lacquer substitute last night. Dabbing the splinters and sawdust away with a brownish washcloth, they revealed the hand-held foot-sized zodiac-inspired art had been roughed out since I left for work. Six of the eight outside columns were at the detail stage; only the rat and pig needed the initial rough-outs. They had chosen to do those last since they were the two center outside columns and would have the most traffic.

“For an hour.”

Xanadu laughed, “Surely not.”

“It’s seven-twenty.”

“Dinner!” They set down the toy column carefully, then jumped up and ran toward the kitchen.

I grabbed their shoulder as they ran past. “I’ll order pizza. No need for another meal with sawdust in it.”

“What? Are you sure?” Their eyes drifted back to the wood carving.

I squeezed their shoulder. “Yes, I’m sure. And, no, you are not going back to that until you take an hour break – your orders.”

They closed their eyes and nodded. “I forgot to eat lunch.”

“Then you are done for the day.”

“But—”

I held up a finger. “Your orders.”

“My work gets crappy without breaks.” They pouted, crossing their arms over their leather apron. “Fine, I’ll shower while you order. No pineapple.” They stomped off to our mutual bathroom.

***

Xanadu took the last pineapple slice, leaving the bacon and cheese pizza of the two-for-one deal untouched. Rolling their dark eyes as they bite in, “I forget how great warm pineapple tastes.”

I picked up the untouched pizza and put it in the fridge for tomorrow’s breakfast. One meal down and ready for when I take over kitchen duties tomorrow. Grabbing a washcloth, I wiped down the counter and the island for crumbs and sawdust settling out from the air. “So, I’ve been meaning to ask. Do you want to go to the November Lantern Festival again this year?”

“It happens the first week of November and it is September already. There is no way we could get a travel visa ready.”

“About that.” I moved over to our pile of mail and dig down a couple of days, dropping the political flyers and store advertisements into our recycling bucket at the end of the kitchenette island before I find the government envelope. “My family really would like to see me so they expedited things for us.” I wave the fat envelope.

“But the plane tickets will be crazy expensive this close.”

“Paid for.”

Their eyes narrowed, black eyeliner turning their eyes into slits. “What’s going on?”

“My parents would like me to be outside of America during the election,” I said tapping the envelope against my other hand.

“Why?”

Stopping the nervous tic, I gave them a look, tilting my head. We both grew up political brats.

“He isn’t going to win. There is no way he is going to win again.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Sure he managed to stay out of prison so far, but there are still several court cases to go.”

I waited.

They sighed, “But even if he loses…”

“He’s promised chaos, refusing to accept the outcome if it goes against him.”

“That’s not just it, it can’t just be it.” They hopped off the stool and walked over to me and took the envelope out of my hands. “What else has your family heard?”

“Nothing they can share with me, but I am going home to keep them happy.” I shrugged. I may be a fighter of justice, but I wasn’t untouchable. “He promised to round up all the Chinese and illegal immigrants and put them in camps.”

“You are Korean, not Chinese. And on a permanent visa thanks to your family.”

“Like his followers can tell the difference between me and the Chinese.”

Xanadu ran rough fingers around the edges of the envelopes, switching to Korean to say, “The travel visa will only be good for a couple of weeks. What will we do then?”

“It’s a three-year work visa with exit and entry privileges. Father and older brother slid us in under the Manyard trade contract, since you are working for them.”

Frowning, they worked a finger into the envelope and opened it. “And how did they justify you?”

“Native son.”

They switched to American. “Right. Duh.” They unfolded the paperwork, being careful not to drop the visas while examining them. “It will take me away for the second round of project baseline work. But…” They handed the paperwork to me. “If he wins, then the only second round I will be dealing with is getting hauled off to those camps for some reeducation. I’m in.”

“Korea isn’t much better for accepting queerness.”

“Are they threatening camps? Do they have full-blown plans like Project 2025?”

“Not unless North Korea comes across the border.”

“Then we are all screwed. Everywhere.” They tossed the envelope and paperwork onto the island and stepped into my space to hold themselves against me. “How did it get so wrong?”

I hug them to my body. “I don’t know, my dragon, I don’t know.”

(946 words, first published 9/1/2024)

Capturing the Tiger and Dragon Series

  1. X is for Xenophile (4/28/2024)
  2. X is for Xylotomous (5/19/2024)
  3. X is for Xanthic (6/9/2024)
  4. Exhibit (7/14/24)
  5. Exit Strategy (9/1/2024)

I Walked into a Bar

Erin Penn

This month I’ve done a short series on injuries. For the editing rant, I discussed The Burn (8/13/2024) and then the writing exercise, Pain is a Character Trait (8/27/2024) centered on creating a flash where the character is dealing with the aftermath of an injury.

I also suggested a BONUS EXERCISE of documenting a grievous injury.

Back in November 2020, I walked into a bar or a bar walked into me. The wound was self-inflicted, mostly.

To do all the postal things, while I was building my strength up after my hire to help deal with the COVID packages, I bought a sturdy hand truck to keep in my minivan. I had a delivery of a sixty pound something (the post office will take up to 70 pounds), so I unhooked it and brought it to the back of my van where the package was. The ground was uneven. I lifted the package out and guided/control-dropped it onto the dolly’s footplate.

As fulcrums do, the foot plate tilted down and the frame swung forward and hit my head … hard. Really, REaLlY HaRD.

Like hit with a solid steel pipe at speed hard.

I monitored my eyes for the next two hour, crying often, while I finished my route. (There were no other people in that day as it was a holiday. I was specifically hired to cover holidays. It is a small office.) Once back in the office, the clerk and I took pictures.

This is what the injury looked like at the two to three hour mark.

Notice, very little coloration difference from normal skin. Some red-purpling from what will become bruising. Definite swelling.

And, no, I didn’t go to the doctor or hospital because no health insurance at the time. I barely had any money after months of unemployment during 2020 COVID. … Ask me my opinion about the need for universal health care. (grrrr)

At home – let’s say about five to six hours, you can see how far the knot is raised off the forehead.

Notice, still no bruising showing. I didn’t have anything but a tight knot for several days. It was more white than any other special color.

On day five, the swelling went down enough the bruised blood could flow to the closest cavity and the first spectacular bruising appeared.

Suddenly I had a black eye. I didn’t have a black eye the day before, but during the night, the swelling went down and “poof” black eye. I had no injury to the eye – you can still see the bruising at the original injury site, but the optical lobe has a lot of empty space and gravity wins.

When I went in to work that day, the boss was shocked at the eye. The raised knot didn’t raise a single fuss, other then making me take an hour of “how to prevent injuries” videos, but the black eye worried the supervisor. By this time I was healing well and could easily work, much better than the previous four days.

Again this injury was nearly four years ago at this point. I am well and healthy, and now have health insurance if I face another grievous injury.

***

Let me add: Vote for people who support universal health care come November 2024. Not having any savings or health insurance makes for some really bad life choices. Writing about this here is making me tense up and want to cry – the hopeless situation is embedded in my head more firmly then the actual injury.