SMUGGLERS & GMEN

SMUGGLERS & GMEN
Copyright OCT 2008
Word count: 613
Based on a memory from camp.


We climbed the hills like an agitated nest of spiders, chasing the taunting beams of our flashlights, our bodies smelling of wet earth, falling leaves, sticks, and gravel…soft, young sweat…the changing of the season. We threw ourselves over the green-mossed boulders with abject abandon, scrabbling, and leaping, clawing and catching, frantic to seize upon the fleeing shadows before us. We were not a quiet pack, and our prey was not a quiet prey. You could hear us calling out, whispers, howls, whoops, laughter, screams of half-fright...demanding, wanting. They had what we wanted, hidden, secret...there if you knew where to look, and we reveled in the hunt, nostrils flaring, ribs hot with our own breath. You could hear the fall of stones, the thud and the yowl of pain as one of our kind slipped in the chase. He had broken his arm, and some of the others left the pack to carry him out and beyond the ranging shadows.

Whirling, breaking from the main pack, easily out-pacing two would be escapees...panting, grinning, ready for it, waiting only for the weak to succumb. They were ours, but the rest of the shadow pack ran through the darkness. We waited for our captives...breathing hard, hands on knees, still ready to pounce. Their eyes darted, flickering...they were ours. We felt our breath jag over our own white teeth, sharp and wet, and hot. Aching and needing like a long, forgotten girl on a long forgotten prom night. They had it. They had only to give it to us, and we would allow them their freedom...perhaps. Perhaps...though they would fall through the night of infamy....the first caught...the first taken. Ours.

We glared them down...and brushed our hands along their arms, hands and hair...we almost let them go back into the darkness, like little gnats... merely a presence to bore omnipotent predators. Little nothings...little things...we touched the cuffs of their shirts, and the the tags on their necks...even the laces of their shoes...disgusted, impatient...and yet, it I was who found it.

"Turn." I demanded, she did...knowing that I had seen beyond her deception...Ooh, clever rabbits...more capable that we had credited them. They had followed the rules...and used them to their advantage. "Take them off." I growled, and the cry went up behind me, joyful, ecstatic. Slowly, shyly, she did as she was told....raising her hand to her eyes, brushing her fingers back against the copper frames, and carefully, oh so carefully, my little rabbit handed me her glasses...allowing her fingers to remain for the briefest moment on the slender metal....I had no wish to hide the triumph I felt. I could feel the joy of the pack rising behind me. Carefully, as though I was touching the wing of a butterfly, I unrolled the tiny white curl of paper from the dark coppered temple...the place that would have been positioned just behind my little rabbit's left ear. It was warm from her heat...and damp from her sweat...and reluctant to give up its secret. "Easy, easy"...I coaxed it...easing and unfolding the wet, white slip until it surrendered under my intricate molestation. A low whistle from my mouth....and I held it aloft. The splinter pack howled and laughed in their joy. "That's it my friends! 375 points on the first try!!! Even if they get all of the other points, tonight this game is ours!!!"

Our victory was assured, but the chase was far from over. We left our captives where they stood, allowing them to bob about like aimless balloons, and we threw ourselves once more into the dark.

In Kay's Kitchen

In Kay's Kitchen
copyright OCT 2008
Word count: 340
Flash Fiction prompt.


Kay's Kitchen was a haven, soft and glowing, scented with cinnamon, butter, and long simmering roasts. Everything was "Just So" and "Utterly Perfect" and "How Dear"...or so I thought before I heard the muffled thumps in the side cupboard.

I was only one of many house guests, but the only one who couldn't sleep. Well-worn boards sighed and creaked beneath my feet. Delicately lit grapevine wreaths and polished copper clamored in a most polite and Kay-like fashion for my attention, welcoming the expected flattery, but ready to deflect it prettily with the deft grace of a consummate actress.

The thumps continued, louder, insistent. I found myself wondering what kind of ghost could live in the Uber--perfection of Kay's fairytale home. Would she require them to have their 800-thread-count-organic-cotton-shrouds to be freshly starched and pressed after each night of haunting...perhaps lovingly spritzed with lavender linen water. Would they hang themselves up neatly in sachet-laden garment bags, on the off chance that some imaginary errant moth would make an appearance?

Louder then...and louder still. Even in this land of obsessively crisp antique doilies, something was off. My heart shifted into overdrive...and I could not tell which thumps came from my chest or behind the ancient wooden doors. I moved toward the cupboard, slow shallow breaths between bitten lower lip...noticing in spite of myself, that the brass knobs of the cupboard had been polished with to a soft, luminous glow.

The doors rattled again, and I could hear all six sets of Kay's unchipped Lenox china shivering in response. There was nothing for it. I ripped open the doors, and discovered
a bedraggled, snaggle-toothed-one-eyed fiend...its mouth dripping with carnage.
The ancient beast poured out of the cupboard, glaring at me with the contempt that only the very fat, and most Persian of cats could maintain.

As I watched it saunter awkwardly away, I breathed a prayer of absolute joy, ecstatic at last. Finally, I could sleep soundly. There were mice in Kay's Oh-So-Perfect kitchen...and life was now very good, indeed.