Exercise in Microfiction

I emerged from my first bed, shed my last coat and spread my wings. It was the first real warmth I had felt; the earth had coated and sheltered me, but it was still cold among the twisted roots and blind moving threads of flesh. Standing amidst the tall shadows, I drank it in. And soon, I folded my dry wings, rasping together in my first experimental song.

Around me, my brothers did the same. I know, because my leg membranes ached with the force of the chorus.

We soon found our bearings, my brothers and I. We touched the souls drifting up from the fruits of the tall shadows. We fed on these fruits when we first saw her. She was silent, but not demure, never demure. She leapt with confidence and grace greater than any of the other silent ones.

Every night my brothers and I courted her, our song growing as the world grew warmer. She did not choose between us. (I try to believe that she would have chosen me.) She ignored us, as we ignored everything but the world's bounty and her.

And then, one warm night, the ghost leaper took her. It was a giant beast, with damp fungal breath, and a cry that shook us all.

Fools, we leapt after it, dropping our bounty, for what was it next to her?

One by one, it took them, grasping them with an impossibly long strand of sour honey. We are agile, but it is fast, this beast. Of my brothers, I alone was quickest, springing behind a boulder, and finding shelter beneath.

Here I cower, but the cloak of earth is no longer a comfort, for I feel the monster's baleful cry. I touch its soul. And I know that the nearest fruit is much too far, and my crop is empty. The beast can afford to wait. I cannot.

Exercise in Microfiction

Swift, a blue blaze on winged feet, leaps through and past the flashing sirens'
call. Cries for help come early to one with the sense of velocity.

Ancient gray stone and pillars arrive in an instant, and a gaping maw of a door. An instant more, and the speed sense guides Swift to a chamber of clocks, all stopped. And in the center of it looms a shade, the alarm tripper. Widdershins. Swift pauses to meet the gaze of stop watch eyes, but quickly averts it.

The shade's cloaked right hand rests upon its jeweled timepiece quarry. The left hand begins to gesture, and stop watch eyes stare at the figure in blue.

Swift, always impatient, leaps past Widdershins into a dusty grandfather clock. The loud clang interrupts the spell, and Widdershins spins sunwise to silence the echoes.

The sirens draw closer. Widdershins, unbalanced by the spin, struggles to concentrate on a new spell. Swift focuses on the enemy, rocking imperceptibly on heels and toes.

This time, Swift is more patient. Widdershins focuses on the clocks surrounding them now, and slowly with surprising stealth one second hand clicks backwards. Then another. Then another, and Swift senses a pause of time no noise can interrupt.

They are beyond noise.

They are not beyond movement, though, in a field of time out of time, and Swift moves. Widdershins, whole attention on jewel-encrusted prize, does not expect a collision at Swift speed.

Knocked back, Widdershins drops both clock and field. The uniforms storm and secure the exhibit, place silver bracelets on the ever-patient Widdershins. Stop watch eyes never leave the door.

Swift is gone as though Swift never was. Other sirens beckon, after all. But they will meet again. They always do.