Flash: Pixie Power 1 – I feel a sneeze

Photo from Unsplash

“Amie, what are you doing?”

Amie looked up from her hands, filled with pixie dust. “Deciding.”

Her sheep-hooved friend, normally as staid as any domestic animal, even when as tipsy as they both were after their third bar of their monthly fourth Friday bar crawl, her one weekend night off each month, covered his face with his hands, then spread his fingers to look through them, his black nails stark against his white hair and eyebrows, “Do I even want to know.”

“Mischief?” the pixie dust in her cupped hands illuminating her face from below. The stuff just slogged off naturally from her hair, skin, and cut nails. By law, Amie had to keep it under tight control – combing her hair at home, wearing a hair net or using a hair net spell, scrubbing skin vigorously every morning. Jars of it lit her bedroom between her trips for bio-magick sanitation processing. She pocketed two handfuls before leaving the apartment.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Becaaaause….”

“Not good enough.”

“You really want to spend the weekend in a holding cell,” Bowser wiped his hands down his face and brought them to his side, “again.”

“What else is there to do, now my debit card is maxed out?”

“Girl—”

“Woman,” she snapped.

“Lady, my friend, my dear, dear, precious pixie pal,” Bowser stepped closer, but to the side. Pixie power aimed as a cone effect in front of the wielder. A bar that refused to serve fairies and an after-hours club using pixies and elves as entertainment, but not welcomed as patrons, were across the street. “Please see reason for once in your madcap life.”

Glancing to the sheepish male, Amie scrunched her nose. “I feel a sneeze.”

“Don’t.”

Amie blew the pixie dust, grabbed her friend’s hand, and pulled them into a run. Behind them rainbows and bubbles of colored light flew across the street and coated the entrances. Expensive witch hexes sparkled, fighting the pixie dust, neutralizing it, but leaving the establishments vulnerable if others took decided to retaliate tonight against their bigotry before the spells could be recast.

(words 348; first published 10/15/2023)

Pixie Power Series

  1. I feel a sneeze (10/15/23)
  2. I rather not (10/22/23)
  3. I am just boring (10/29/23)

Flash: Dustu Hunting

Image: Photo 94880168 | Indigenous North Carolina © John Wollwerth | Dreamstime.com
CHEROKEE, NORTH CAROLINA-JUNE 17, 2017: A Cherokee Indian uses a traditional blowgun.
NOTE: Picture is for SALE on dreamtime. I paid for use of this. If you choose to use the photo elsewhere,
please give credit (and money) to the artist. Thank you.

Last year’s leaves under the new leaf-fall itched, but Dustu did not move. His six-foot blow gun was aimed at the autumn berry bushes, a favorite of small birds. A younger sister rested nearby. She already had four birds on a string, ready to be taken back and shared. To feed everyone, they needed six.

Waiting patiently for the birds to calm after the last kill resulted in an unexpected bounty. A group of turkeys scratched at the bottom of the bushes, getting food the bright-songs and angry-flyers couldn’t access. Dustu dropped his aim to the large ground birds. He wasn’t the best shot of the tribe, but patience brought in food as much as accuracy.

Focus.

A turkey head, eye, lined up perfectly. Dustu blew the hand-length dart down the cane tube with one hard breath.

His sister’s whoop chased away other possible prey, but they had enough. More than enough. Some of today’s meat will be dried for the winter months.

(words 164; first published 10/8/2023)

Flash: Peacock Caper

Photo by Stacy Ropati on Unsplash

The canals of Venice, famous for their beauty, but infamous for their treatment of Carnival costumes, became an insurmountable barrier in Nemesis run from the police. At least, this one waterway in particular, and at least, so the police thought. Peacocks are not water fowl, blue though their colors be, but Nemesis wasn’t a bird, nor just a costume, but the best jewelry thief of all time. And insurmountable just mean you go under.

A lift of the skirt inverted the costume into a watertight bag holding all feathers, satin and costume jewels within, the criminal grateful to be out of the outfit. Waterproof lining meant the outfit did not allow any air in, and the breeze made Nemesis grateful for whatever slip since sent the police stumbling across their tail. The gems, wallets, and small bits and bobs of art procured over the three-day spree tumbled from sleeve to bag and they sealed it close. Larger, special-ordered items, had already been delivered to agents hidden among the crowds with a brush and bump. A twist converted the figurehead of the cane into a breathing mask, and the cane a very limited air supply.

The black full body suit kept the questionable water from touching skin, and Nemesis slipped away.

(words 210; first published 10/1/2023 – written for a Facebook group. Aim is 50 words.)

Flash: Commitment

Photo from Dreamstime (paid stock art)

“One way or another,” ja’Zel rocked back and forth, “I’m gonna find you.” She dug in with one foot, pushing hard into the soil, then exploded forward, pushing hard each step, gaining speed. “I’m gonna get you.” A moment to suck in air before …

Flinging herself into the Between. A chasm cut by the gods not a month ago to keep two tribes from war.

“Forever, you and me.” Her knees and hands hit the edge, the dirt still loose from the quake, but momentum rolled her forward the last few inches. Tears streamed down her face as her fear broke from where she had tightly bound it.

She sobbed in the early morning light, one, two gulps. “Enough of that. Time to move. ma’Drel here I come.”

(word 129; first published 9/24/23)

Flash: Storm Front

Photo from Unsplash

They called him “god”, an eternity ago. One of his many eternities. Each crashing against him, waves against stone. An immortal mutation born before such concepts even existed.

But immortality has limits, requirements. A planet to live on, air to breathe, water to drink.

Earth and him knew each other well at this point, and he could feel the changes building in his long-time companion, tipping like an avalanche, snowballing like an ice age. If the eight billion people of the world did not get their act together, he will don the mantle of a deity once again.

Today, his annoyance led him back to the sea with a purpose. He’ll remind the nations what the oceans can do when enough heat is dumped in them. He blew his beautiful water planet a kiss. The caress swirling out to join a tropical depression.

(words 143, first published 9/17/2023)