Flash: D is for Done

ID 339656677 ©
Ulrich Allgaier | Dreamstime.com

I hate my life.

I have never sung so long for anyone in my life. Not even the one person in my Composer line who died since I became the Diva; he had been forty-two when the heart attack took him. Rosalynn is ninety-six. At some point, someone had turned on the light for the conference room. The sun had set long ago. Tears pour from my eyes, soaking my work blouse.

For sorrow and grief and loss.

For greatness and compassion; sympathy and determination.

For pain.

From exhaustion.

At last the keening drops to how she will die. Quietly, at home, holding her husband’s hand. The last words she will hear is how much he loves her.

The wail ends. In two days, the lady I and my sisters just sang for will pass beyond the veil.

Damn she had accomplished a lot for a peanut farmer’s wife.

The song is finally done.

I collapse.

Someone catches me before I hit the soft beige carpet.

How?

Why?

No one should be stupid enough to be here. In a room where a banshee is singing.

I had been looking forward to falling on the carpet. I never had had carpet before at the end of a wail. Falling on linoleum hurts. The carpet had looked so soft when I had snuck in here.

I try to focus my eyes on the face, squinting through the tears and exhaustion. The room swims around black eyes. The thin red line beneath them moves, but my ears aren’t working after being exposed to a banshee wail for so long. We are not immune to our own magic. Hence reason number one of why I hate my life. Insanity runs through banshee lines like the Dublin Marathon. I wonder what the person said.

A cloth runs over my face, drying it. I sniffle to get a scent. My eyes aren’t clear enough to see death right now, and I certainly can’t hear the person’s life song the way my ears feels all pressured-and-hurting. Smell is the easiest, but all I smell is snot. They hold the cloth over my nose after my sniffle, so I blow on it like a five-year old child. I feel the vibration from them talking against my skin before they lay me the super soft floor. Oh, to have money for this type of carpet in my studio apartment.

I practice breathing. I hum a note and it HURTS. No talking tomorrow.

At least, it is a Saturday.

Maybe I will be able to talk by Monday.

I’d hate to use sick leave the first week I qualify for it.

The person comes back and starts cleaning my face and neck with wet paper towels, and the cool wet slimy things feel absolutely wonderful.

I might be running a fever.

When the person lifts me up to a sitting position, I grab an arm to steady myself against the dizzy of blown out eardrums as they turn my head down so I only see the arm.

A male arm clad in really, really nice fabric. Like fabric that only comes in custom-made suits. Oops. Someone from the fifth floor.

Well, duh, I am on the fifth floor. Of course it would be one of the insurance company’s administrators. I am so going to quit from embarrassment. And I just finished my ninety-day probation!

(In case you are wondering, because people ask banshees these types of questions all the time, yes, a person can die of embarrassment. It is extremely rare, but we have a tune for it so it happened at least once.)

Are they…???

Ick…he is licking my ear!

Tongue in ear, gross.

I try to pull away, but he has a firm grip on my jaw and turns me so he can lick my other ear.

Lick INSIDE my other ear!

Oh god, oh god, oh god … wait, I can hear me whining!

That’s new.

I thought I would be deaf for a while. It’s a common-side effect after banshees use their powers. Like not being able to talk. We all learn sign language at a young age. More for others, when our voices drop into the death wail cords, but it has other uses too.

He lets go of my face and just supports my shoulders. I can squirm but breaking his grip is out of the question.

Now banshees aren’t the strongest of the supernaturals, in fact we are WAY down on that list, but we are still stronger than normal humans. Okay, maybe not me right now, exhausted as I am, physically, magically. I still can’t focus the eyes, and I can’t hear the person’s living song even though I can hear the building’s heat kicking in.

But I think I am calm enough that I am not longer crying. No, I am not certain; I’m exhausted, okay? I sniff again.

Ash, soil, stone. Specifically, crematory ash, grave soil, and tomb stone. Ash, soil, and stone smell different once death touches them.

Vampire.

Lugh-bless-it, he is one of the owners or progenies thereof.

Forget retirement, I will earn that embarrassment death tune for myself. I blush as only a redhead of Irish descent can.

I hate my life.

(words 875; first published 4/6/2025)

Ymir’s Songs series

  1. Fifteen Minutes (10/09/2022)
  2. Song for Rosalyn (11/26/2023)
  3. D is for Done (4/6/2025)

Flash: The Final Door

Photo by Efe Kurnaz on Unsplash

The blue corridor leads to an illuminated red-orange door. You thought it would be a glowing white tunnel. That is what everyone said it would be. Those that came back. Maybe that is the waiting room version.

The beeps had stopped. So many beeps. Seemed like days. You remember jumping when every muscle in your body contracted while on the bed. Had you been sick? Or was it an accident? Were you young or old? A short life or a filled one? Were family mourning you or waiting on the other side of the door?

The short walk ends with two steps leading up to the bright door. Clearly a front door of some sort, there is no doorbell, no knocker, not even a thrice damn (should you be using that language here?) camera-speaker to explain why you are here.

You knock.

It’s the polite thing to do.

Were you polite before? Things are slippery.

You knock again.

Third time’s the charm. You knock a little harder.

You try the doorknob.

It rattles as you move it, but only moves so far.

The door is locked.

Is the door to the afterlife supposed to be locked?

How long should you wait for someone to answer?

You bang on it hard, but it makes no more noise than the polite knock.

You wait.

Not long. You do remember you don’t have much patience. It was either because you were too young and everything waited for took forever, or you were too old and you felt the press of time. Maybe you were an important person and always had a place to be. Or was it you were always running late?

You look back along the corridor to where you came from. The corridor that direction ends in a neon yellow-green door.

One last knock, just in case.

No answer, you go back the way you came.

Is this why there are ghosts? Or maybe reincarnation? The green door’s knob turns easily.

(words 330; first published 3/2/2025 – – created based on a visual prompt for a Facebook writer’s group, aim is about 50 words)

Flash: Hyperfocus

Photo From USkins.com – Skin Decal Wrap for Yeti Tumbler Rambler 30 oz Baja 0014 Neon Green

The light rap of knuckles on the door was swiftly followed by “Hey, you okay?”

Blinking back into this side of reality from the weird notes some crazy person had scribbled in some old Dragon magazines, I looked over at Mica. “Yeah, sure.”

“Just wondering. I hadn’t heard anything from you since the honeymoon.” They leaned against the doorframe. “You not upset about me moving out or anything?”

“Why on earth would I be upset about you moving out?” I chuckled. “Lord help us both if Dave and I had to live under the same roof more than two days running.”

They rolled their eyes, clearly remembering a few times, their then-fiancé crashed at our place on long holiday weekends. Dave and I are friends, better friends at a distance. Just because he married my best friends does not invoke best-friend-adjacent privileges. “So, then why? No text, no call. You give a non-bi person the worries.”

A smile creased my face. “Sorry, I got a new hyperfocus.”

I don’t know what they read into the smile and words, but they frowned; their eyebrows did the little fencing with each other. “Have you been eating?”

“Um…”

“Today, have you eaten today?”

“No?” I apologized. “I think. What day is today?”

“Thursday, I got back Tuesday.”

“Um, then definitely no.” I waved at the three empty glasses on the table next to the pile of magazines I have been pouring over. “But I am hydrated at least.”

“Thank mercy for small blessings.” They shook their head. “Let’s get some scrambled eggs into you and you can tell me all about it.”

“Be right there.”

“Now, genius.”

“I promise, you go ahead.” After waiting to make sure they walked away, I gathered the magazines up. Tapping them into a neat pile, I placed them into special briefcase I bought just for the forty-year-old publications and snapped it close. I checked once to make sure the lock held. I then tucked it under my desk and muttered a few short words under my breath.

The case faded from sight.

Between my study and the kitchen, my brain exploded into a thousand different directions on what to tell Mica.

“You are so lucky you are rich, Janis.” Mica said as they pulled out butter, eggs, and bread from my refrigerator. “How much work have you missed this week?”

“Oh, I got fired about three weeks ago.” Shrugging, I hopped onto one of stool lining the green marble island. “Missed too much work helping getting the wedding together.”

“What?” They spun my direction, spatula at the ready, threatening me like it was a sword … or a wand. “You didn’t tell me?”

“What? Like I wanted to stock shelves each day after I finished the bookkeeping because Bossing-Boss-Boss was like, ‘you are salary, you are working forty hours’? Fuck that. I’m not a quitter, but I wasn’t going to fight stupidity.”

After breaking the eggs into a bowl, Mica passed the bowl to me with a fork to mix it up just the way I like it while they got the butter sizzling in my cast iron frying pan. “Alright, then what next?”

“Oh, I haven’t decided.” I pushed the bowl to them. “Do I want to travel a little?” The speculation lining that question surprised me. … Do I want to travel?

“You hate travel.”

“Yeah, but I lost a roommate to the love of their life,” I ran the words through my head trying to figure out what I was thinking, “maybe I should go looking for mine?” That wasn’t it, but it wasn’t not-it. Love could be a sidequest.

“Really Janis?” Mica looked impressed. Then frowned, the eyebrows bowing and engaging like two Olympic fencers, “What aren’t you telling me? What the fuck is your hyperfocus?”

“Magic.”

I can’t believe I blurted it out like that.

“Like the Gathering? I go away for a week and Daniel gets you into that crack?” They scraped the eggs onto my favorite green plate and started browning the toast in the pan. The long-suffering sigh carried fifteen years of witnessing me collecting hobbies. “How many packs have you bought?”

“None.”

They stopped the eyebrow war long enough to raise one of the perfectly plucked blades high in disbelief.

“No really,” I assured them. “I’m talking about real magic, not cards.”

“What, like witchcraft? Wiccan or something like that?”

Toast buttered from the pan, three eggs with pepper, no salt, slid back to me while they put the bowl and utensils in the dishwasher and the butter and leftover eggs back into the fridge. “No, and not satanism or hoodoo or anything like that, although I have been doing some side research into those to figure out how this works.” I dug in and ate my first forkful.

And forgot to talk until the plate was cleared.

“How long since you last ate?” The sarcasm dripped like juice from a squeezed lemon.

“Shut up.”

They chuckled and took the plate back to add to the dishwasher.

They didn’t offer anything else. I hate getting a heavy belly when I am focused, which usually means I dropped five to ten pounds during a hyperfocus initial onset. At least I had learned to stay hydrated. Two hospital visits to for IVs to force fluids after collapsing had made me put some serious preventive measures in place.

Speaking of which …

“I need to refill my drinks.” I got off the stool and pulled out theirs for them to sit on. “Let me grab my glasses and set up for tonight’s session.”

“You’re not planning on sleeping tonight?”

Pausing in the doorway in the hall leading to my half of the house, I closed my eyes to test how heavy they were. With food in my belly, they had lead weights attached to them. But I got them open. “Alright, I will be setting up the drinks for tomorrow. Satisfied Mixtrix busybody?”

“Very.” They waved their hands in a ‘shoo’ fashion. “Off you go.”

The briefcase remained hidden by its cloaking. I moved it to a different location behind a bookcase, then gathered my glasses from the table and the four sealed, empty bottles on the floor and the hot chocolate mug beside my reading chair. Eight was a bit much to juggle, but cantrips would work long enough from the study to the kitchen.

May as well show off. Then the real explanations can begin. “Upsa daisy.” With four vessels in hand, the rest figured out what I wanted and hovered like a constellation of moons around the lightly glowing green center mass of glassware.

I inhaled deeply and returned to the kitchen.

(words 1114; first published 2/23/2024)

Ye Olde Dragon Magazines Series

  1. Smol Snak 2/16/2025
  2. Hyperfocus 2/23/2025

Flash: Smol Snak

Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash

:Hallo Fren. Mi nam is snak and I is smol: The green snake blinked its sparkling black eyes and flicked its tongue out.

I stared at it in amazement.

Raising up, it started wrapping itself around my finger. :You taste-smell-heat big. I luv u. Hug u.:

“Daniel … that speak with animals I just cast in-game.”

“Yeah, I’m still looking up the intelligent level of the racoons.” The DM glanced over his carved wooden screen. “Oh, Rascal got out again. I need to get a better cover for him. Don’t worry, he isn’t poisonous.”

“Venomous, he isn’t venomous.”

:I swift like wind. Hunt spring on buggies. Nom nom.:

Daniel shrugged. “Not poisonous either.” He flipped a few more pages. “Alright I found it.”

“Where did you get the chant you gave to me?”

“Oh, do you like it? I thought since we are doing one-on-one games while Mica and Dave are on their honeymoon, we could really explore your magic-using. Found it in an old Dragon Magazine at C-Me-Rolling. Someone had marked a set of six to hell and gone, so I got them for a steal – early publications, like in the thirties or fifties, and found that in the margins.”

“Um, so these other five charms you gave me…”

:You nice warm – bettir than lamp. I sleep.:

As you will, I thought toward it. I got back something that felt like a vibration-purr-drifting-off.

“Yeah, whoever did it stuck in a few in every book. They seemed cool, usually surrounding articles explaining how to make the game more immersive.”

“Just curious, did you read these aloud?”

“Sure, just checking the cadence and what-not. They felt good.”

Looking over the list Daniel gave me, after speak with animals, there was also Detect Magic; Light; Magic Missile; Invisibility; and Fire Bolt. “Anything strange happen?”

“What, like a light show? Nah, I never play magic-users, not like you.” Daniel smiled. “Give me a fighter any day. Something that could be real.”

“Right … um, could I see those magazines when we are done this session? They sound cool.”

“Sure, now the Racoon asks for some of your peanuts in exchange for the location the goblins went.”

(words 364; first published 2/16/2025)

Ye Olde Dragon Magazines Series

  1. Smol Snak 2/16/2025
  2. Hyperfocus 2/23/2025

Flash: The Back Room Part 3

ID 18618401 © Justin Black | Dreamstime.com

When the landlord closed the door behind him, hiding the Back Room from the mayhem of the harvest festival overflow happening in the front, Nigel jumped out of his seat and took a few steps over the Ashall woolen knotted carpet likely brought across the ocean on a Zeriff ship. “No, we should—”

“No?” Matthews firmly interrupted, pulling the younger man up short, like he was a squire again. “My lands, Sir.”

“Yes, your Grace.” Nigel froze his movement, perhaps for the first time since his horse arrived three hours ago, dropping his eyes to his boots in a short nod. “My apologies.”

“Apologies are only worth their weight in adjustment of behavior.”

“Yes, your Grace.” Nigel widened his stance, properly bowing his head and clasping his hands behind his back. Many a time he had heard those words, and he knew Matthews would accept only one response. “How may I amend my discourtesy?”

Waiting, the young man felt the stare on his head, like a sword across the neck, even though his old knight never rose from his chair. Behind him, he heard silks and cottons rustle. Heat rose up his neck, the blush fortunately hidden under his carvat and the high neck of this riding jacket. To be corrected in front of a peasant! Worse, to DESERVE to be corrected.

“Help the Mistress remove her boots.” Matthews ordered. “I know I taught you how to properly care for the boots and blisters of a hard march. Dismissed.”

Nigel flinched at the emotional emptiness of the last word. He hated that desolation of emotions while in the field at age ten, he hated it now, fourteen years later. And he hated himself for mastering the same tone shortly after he was knighted at seventeen when he needed the tent cleared and the men of his unit to be about their business. He had hoped his fighting years were behind him after he served the required ten years Jackel demanded, but with the recall to family lands, he knew family requirements would again burden his shoulders.

He spun neatly to see the woman had raised her skirts to her knees, the clay from the hems flaking off either side onto the towels laid out by the keep’s sons. The clay caked the boots over the foot laces and up to the third of four buckles on the calves. Streaks of mud disappeared into the fabric hiding her thighs. The Crew of Crew, Zeriff’shaZeriff, whatever her real name was, attempted with shaking fingers to unbuckle the top right buckle.

Her head tilted slightly up to glare at him. Daring him to come closer, the poison in her eyes hidden behind the veil. “Your Grace,” her travel roughened voice whispered from her precarious position, “I couldn’t … wouldn’t presume.”

“Please Mistress,” Matthews smooth voice gave no hint of shouting orders at troops for thirty years, before Jackel had let his uncle retire shortly after Nigel’s officer ceremony. “I assure you, my ex-ward is well-versed in bandaging wounded feet. If you are to get to Blackstone, you have another two days travel, four maybe even five if you rejoin your caravan, depending on how many gifts your country has sent for the royal wedding.”

Nigel watched her shoulders sag within the Kylar bodice; it lacked the shoulder padding found in the Mysentte fashion. He vastly preferred the Kylar fashion for the mobility allowed both men and women, and for the thinner tops in the warmer climate. Some fabric worn by the matriarchs was thin to the point of being translucent under the netted supporting bodice.

“Very well,” she said. For the first time, she turned her head completely to Nigel. “Thank you. Lesh modula ever.”

Ma’ke.” Nigel responded as he sunk to his knees upon the towels. He moved the bowl of water aside, to better access the boots. Up close, as he worked the soaked and stretched buckles loose, he noticed how the boniness of her knees, the lack of imprint or dye painting on the boots, and the mud coating the underlayers of her skirts.

Had she hike the outer layers over her head, or removed them entirely until she had reached the outskirts of Climb’s Start.

When the fourth buckle gave way, he pulled the top apart, widening it, revealing a ring of blisters around the top of her calf where the wet leather had rested. Assessment of the layers of mud covering the laces on the bottom had him reaching for the top towel of the pile left by the keep’s family. After wetting it in the bowl, he started wiping the clay away.

Nigel felt remorse for judging the woman so harshly. No harrigan would have walked herself to blisters and her gloves to shreds to prevent her horse from getting a split hoof after it threw a shoe as she guided it through a foreign country. Lesson number a hundred and fifty on the subject of never make assumptions. Someday he will learn it.

He heard the innkeep come in with their food, the woman thanked the keep for the heated spiced wine and the small basket of broken bread and cheese as he placed it on the settee beside her. She nibbled small bits from the basket by burrowing a hand under her veil and getting the food to her mouth. She left the mulled wine on the table Matthews had been keeping his books. Over his head, once the food had arrived, the Zeriff asked Matthews what Blackstone was like and if he knew any of the wedding plans.

Did Matthews know about the wedding plans? Nigel snorted as the polite discussion continued. She sidestepped Matthews’ first questions about the largesse within the bride gifts her country was sending to the royal wedding. Surprise for the crown and safety for the travel were her excuses. Blackstone, being the winter castle for the kingdom had fewer visitors than Redstone, but still had few political secrets to hide, ended up being the least fraught topic they settled on. Searching questions about the gardens, mountain roads to there, and how the split of the castle worked for both guests and hosts for the genders, kept the conversation light, yet meaningful.

After clearing enough of the mud to untie the boot lacing across the top of the inset on both the boots and getting the left boot unbuckled, he slipped the left one off first since that was the one he had in hand, to find a not quite emaciated leg, much much thinner than legs of the court ladies Nigel had the pleasure being close enough to view.  Rashes, ulcers, and blisters furthered marred his favorite body part to have wrapped around his waist. Arm hugs came a close second. A rolled down, scrunched sock, silk, not thick wool, dyed in a mix of dark and bright red liquid clung around her toes. The boot sloshed.

He poured the noxious mix of leather-spoiled water, sweat, blister fluid, and blood into the bucket, then worked the second boot off. Zeriff’shaZeriff panted quietly above him to hold back a moan.

Looking up, Nigel finally caught a clear view of her eyes. Bloodshot from pain, the brown held a golden undertone. Too much yellow to be anything but magic, but a woman powerful enough to travel on her own would be expected to hold some. Not a full green, as was the case of most of the females chosen for the Roadsky Queens, nor the gold of the most powerful witches, but enough undertones to lead a caravan of merchants delivering a bridal gift to a royal wedding from a pirate kingdom.

No man had yellow in his eyes, nor green. Nigel’s were pure blue, like his brothers and his father.

He wanted to paint those eyes and lost himself in the gradations of color, somehow enhanced rather than spoiled by the tired bloodshot color of what was normally white. His fingers twitched on leather, wanting a palette and brush instead.

“Add about half the tea leaves and marigold flowers, and a quarter of the salt to the water.”

“What, huh?”

The woman’s tired voice repeated instructions to prepare the water to cleanse wounds.

“Right.” Nigel said, setting aside the boot he had been holding.

(words 1,385; first published 2/13/2025)

The Back Room series

  1. The Back Room (1/19/2025)
  2. The Back Room Part 2 (2/2/2025)
  3. The Back Room Part 3 (2/9/2025)