“Oh, damn, I forgot! Hey Cherry, I just have to pop into the bank here to pay a bill, it’ll take five minutes. You don’t mind, do you?”

Oh jeez, booooring! I bet she gets in line behind a crazy old lady with a million pennies to count out and we’ll be stuck in there all damned afternoon. So much for new shoes.

“Whatever.”

I should’ve set a reminder on my phone for this bill, ought to get it set up on a standing order really. Still, it isn’t lunchtime yet, shouldn’t be too busy. Hey, the queue’s not even that bad.

“You wanna sit over there while I queue?”

No, I want to go shopping, but you’re being boring. Still, at least I can check my Facebook while I’m waiting.

“Whatever.”

Really should get my online banking sorted out- no, not while I’ve got Cherry waiting. She looks pissed off already. Glad there’s nobody in front of me counting out small change, at least!

“Oh hi, yeah, I just want to pay this bill?”

Vaguebooking, obvious frape, boring links, Farmville updates. Why do I bother? I wonder if I’ve got time to play Angry Birds- nah, she’s at the counter already.

“Nobody move this is a robbery!”

What the-?

What the-?

“Down on the ground! Now! Nobody move and you won’t get hurt!”

Oh no, not today…

ohnoohnoohnoohgodohgodhelphelp!

“Drop the phone!”

Oh you did not just point a gun at my sister- no, I can’t, not in public, stay in control – can’t let people know – but she’s my sister-

please don’t shoot me, I dropped it, please don’t hurt me, oh Christy, help me!
“Please don’t hurt me, I wasn’t calling anyone-”

“Shut up! On the ground!”

What are they doing with that bomb? That’s enough to blow the entire – oh no, that’s enough to blow up the entire building…

Not with my sister in it, they won’t.

Secrets be damned. I have to do something.

Christy? No!

“What the- Stop her! Shoot her!”

Stay down, Cherry, please stay down… Knock out these two, and I should have enough time to disarm the bomb, careful now Christy, don’t jolt it… It’s already primed, maybe I can detach the detonator- it won’t come off.

Damn. Only one thing to do.

She isn’t bleeding? They shot her, but she isn’t….

She’s flying.

Punch through the wall, hope it doesn’t destabilise the building. No time to worry about falling masonry. If I can fly high enough, fast enough, the surge from the blast won’t reach the ground…

She’s flying.

“Oh my stars! It’s Fantastic Girl!”

Fantast- no. No. She’s my sister, she’s my boring, dull sister, she can’t be…

But she is.

My sister is Fantastic Girl.

© Kari Fay

(Author’s Note – Last minute panic to post – I wrote this earlier and then got distracted by Things. Anyway, for the Three Word Wednesday prompt this week, we got Detach, Jolt and Surge.

P.S., ThomG if you read this – I haven’t been able to leave a comment on 3WW for the last few weeks, the word verification won’t accept my answers!)

Their cupboards, which for so long had been raided so often that it was easier to keep them bare, could now be filled until they were heaving. Their houses, which had been rattled and shaken by the pests running around for years, now stood quiet and calm.

The piper had saved their fortunes, and their sanity. But they hadn’t paid him the price he asked.

He stood at the top of the mountain, arms folded, and looked down at the town, his multicoloured cloak fluttering in the breeze.

“Any moment,” he muttered to himself. “Any moment now.”

The sun passed overhead, and began to sink towards the horizon. Still he waited, watching the town.

“Well, that’s not right!”

He paced back and forth. Where were they? What could have gone wrong? According to his calculations, they should have been clamouring for him by now, desperate to thrust their hard-earned coins into his hands.

Where were they?

He had to find out. He threw his cloak off, replacing it with a plain brown one, and he stooped and screwed up his face that he might not be recognised, and he set off down the mountainside into the town.

He stopped first at a small, cosy house, where the windows glowed with warm light, and he peered in. At a candlelit table, a man leaned forward to feed a morsel of food to his wife, as her bare foot caressed his leg. They didn’t seem upset in the least.

The piper frowned, and moved on.

The window of the next house revealed a similar picture, and the one after that made him blush to the roots of his hair.

A laugh rang out through the evening air, and the piper turned. A middle-aged couple were dancing through the town square, quite obviously drunk and delighted.

“Excuse me,” he called, trying half-heartedly to mask his voice, “What has happened here?”

The woman giggled. “The most wonderful thing,” she said. “Our children are all gone! We are free of responsibilities after so many years – I can go out without worrying about child care, I can get drunk without worrying about people calling me an unfit mother, I can wear a nice dress without worrying about a baby vomiting down the front of it! It’s the best thing ever!”

The piper said nothing. He turned on his heels and strode back up the mountain.

The couple in the town square stopped dancing when he was out of sight, and around them doors creaked ajar and people peered out.

The dancing woman looked at her husband, her voice suddenly sober. “Do you think it worked?”

He nodded. “I think so,” he said. “They’ll be home soon, don’t you worry.”

© Kari Fay

Until that night.

T’was her song that caught us; captured the ear of the man at the wheel first, then captured the hearts of every last one of us. Not for a moment did we hesitate. Not for a moment did any man argue. Even as we crashed upon the rocks, even as our beautiful, faithful ship was torn into mere lumber, we were captivated.

She sat upon the rocks like an ancient goddess, her hair shining in the moonlight as she combed it out. She barely even looked around as the ship bore down upon her. The noise of the splintering wreck, though horrific, didn’t disturb the song she sang.

But she watched us as we drowned. She smiled at us as we sank into the brine, and I saw her laughing as the last bubble of breath left my lips.

© Kari Fay

(Author’s Note: This week the Three Word Wednesday prompt is Bubble, Lumber and Wreck.)

She dropped her tablet onto the table with a huff. He looked at her over his coffee cup and raised an eyebrow.

“I… thought you’d be happy about that,” he said carefully.

“Happy? They give us one measly event, and we’re supposed to be happy about it?”

He shrugged. “At least some of us get to go to the Olympics. You are entering, aren’t you? It’s better than being excluded entirely, after all.”

She glowered at him. “I still don’t see why we should be excluded from the other events.”

He laughed. “Really? You don’t think the fact of our superiority would make it all a wee bit dull? Pass me the milk, would you?”

She put the jug down in front of him with such force that it leaped out and splashed his face.

“It’s people like you going on about us being ‘superior’ that got us excluded from the main events,” she snapped. “It’s ridiculous.”

He shrugged again. “Well, it’s true though. We are the next step in human evolution.”

She stood up and crossed the room to look out the window. “Oh, yeah, right, whatever,” she said, dismissively. “You say that, and they take it as a reason to exclude us from all the standard events, across the board. Then they have the nerve to offer us this one free-for-all fight, as if we’re all equally combat capable! How does that make sense?

“Alison,” he began. She ignored him.

“I mean, look at Sonia for an example. How exactly does x-ray vision give her an advantage in the hundred metres sprint? It’s just discrimination!”

“Calm down, Alison,” he said, a concerned tone in his voice. She carried on talking, getting ever more heated.

“And little Jessie, hers is a disadvantage, invisible gymnasts are not-”

“Alison!”

He threw the milk over her head. It sizzled and evaporated, and she stared at him angrily for a moment before getting herself under control. Gradually the fire emanating from her body died down.

“I’m sorry,” she said, clenching her fist over the last flame. “It just makes me so angry.”

He sat down with a sigh.

“You’ve melted the sink again,” he said. “How many Olympic athletes can do that?”

© Kari Fay

He folded his arms and looked out, his lips set in a thin line. Out there, the darkness held sway, pierced only by the tiniest specks of light- light that held no promise of safety.

“It’s the only way,” he said. “You said so. It rolled downhill.”

“I said I thought it did,” she began, hesitant.

“You saw it,” he shouted. “You know you did. It has to be out there, it isn’t up here, and I have to find it!”

She started to cry. He clutched at his hair for a moment then knelt down next to her to look her right in the eyes.

“Hey, hey,” he said, his voice softer, “Don’t cry. It isn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have shouted at you. Look, it’s my responsibility. I have to go find it, before Father finds out. You know what he’s like. He’ll freak out.”

She sniffed. “But it isn’t safe.”

He patted her cheek. “It can’t be far,” he said. “I’ll barely even be out of the light.”

She looked down. “Nanna says you don’t need to reach the shadows for them to get you.”

He nodded. “Nanna also says they can’t get you if somebody in the light is watching you, though, doesn’t she?”

She stuck a finger in her mouth and sucked it, nodding slowly.

“So you can keep me safe, you see? You stay up here in the bright, safe light, and you watch me. Don’t take your eyes off me, and I’ll be right back. Okay?”

She looked at him, her pink eyes wide and bright, still shimmering with tears.

“Okay,” she said. “I won’t even blink.”

He stood up and walked slowly down the hill into the darkness, searching for the precious orb. He hoped that Nanna was right about the safety of being watched, that it wasn’t simply one of the stories she made up. It was a tiny sliver of hope, but it was all he had.

© Kari Fay

(Author’s Note: This is my postponed story for yesterday’s Three Word Wednesday, using the prompt words Downhill, Freak and Sliver.)

I’m not American, but based on the information I’ve read, that’s not going to mean SOPA and PIPA wouldn’t affect me, because the internet is global.

At the same time, as a writer, I’m all for the idea of having a better way to combat copyright theft – but the operative word there is “better”. I don’t believe this is it.

That’s why I won’t be posting a story here this Wednesday, January 18th.

(But check back on Thursday! )

He didn’t look up from his coffee. “Was it the one where you fly through candy floss clouds to the Land of Chocolate, where you’re welcomed like a deity? I like that one,” he said.

She folded her arms with a huff and frowned at him. “No,” she said. “Don’t be silly.”

She fell silent as he munched away at his Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

Finally he looked up. “What was it, then?”

She looked puzzled. “What was what?”

He rolled his eyes. “Your dream. Oh come on, you walked in here like some kind of messiah all ‘I have a dream”, so what was it?”

“You git,” she said, turning away to pour a cup of coffee for herself. “I’ve completely forgotten it now.”

He shrugged. “Oh well. Can’t have been that important then, can it? Have we got any orange juice?”

The image flickered and faded out, and the teacher turned to the class.

“And there you have it,” it said. “All attempts to mind-flux members of the human race into spreading a state of peace and harmony rather than their natural aggression have been derailed in much the same way.”

The class looked at each other and made small beeping noises.

“No talking amongst yourselves,” the teacher said, waving one long digit at them in warning. “If you have questions, raise a tentacle.”

A forest of tentacles arose, and one student was chosen to speak.

“Why are the humans so resistant?”

The teacher nodded. “A very good question, Q’zurkamod. We believe that it is largely due to their exceptionally short attention span. Why, if one were observing this class, I expect they would stop paying attention right about….

Now.”

© Kari Fay

It was only when the cherry tree blossomed that they could quite believe that the long, hard winter had truly come to an end. Only when the warm breeze carried soft petals of cherry blossom, shifted their hair and caressed their cheeks like a gentle lover, that they could trust in Nature once more, and put aside their fear of the long, dark nights.

But like the cherry blossom, the warm days would only last so long; soon it would be winter once more, and the soft breezes would turn into brutal winds. They stood beneath the tree with the last rays of sun on their faces and tried to commit the sensation to memory, a warmth that would stay in their hearts until the sun shone again.

© Kari Fay

(Author’s Note: It’s Three Word Wednesday once more and the prompt this week is the words Brutal, Sullen and Trust.)

It was one of those terribly embarrassing moments; the constant noise and hubbub of the room died off in an instant and his voice carried loud and clear through the silence. He turned slowly to see the local priest standing in the doorway, looking straight at him.

“Oh. Um.” He turned beet red as he met the priest’s gaze. “Father O’Hanlon… I uh… didn’t see you-”

The priest stared back at him. The entire room was absolutely silent.

“Don’t mind me,” said the priest. “Have you heard the one about the nun and the spinning wheel?”

copyright Kari Fay

(Author’s Note: I’m in a cottage with incredibly sporadic internet access so I hope this posts!)

It would have been much easier to simply ask somebody to introduce them at some gala event or other, but that somehow didn’t seem right. He didn’t want her to think of him as “Brad Beaumont, Famous Author”. He wanted her to think of him as just Brad, then somewhere along the way he could mention that he wrote books and then maybe somebody else could mention the bestseller status and the awards…

No, first he needed to meet her by absolute chance. That was why he had been following her for the last few weeks to establish her routine.

It was a pretty underhanded tactic, he had to admit that, too, but people had done worse things for love, surely? Besides, if he hadn’t followed her, he wouldn’t have known that she came to this particular coffee shop at this particular time each Wednesday, for the same particular drink, and he wouldn’t have been able to time it just right so he could get into the queue just ahead of her, like so.

“I’ll have a tall double shot hazelnut latte to go, please,” he said to the barista with a smile. The barista took his order, took his money, and he moved aside to wait for the drink. He could just about hear her dulcet tones over the hubbub as she ordered her own tall, double shot hazelnut latte to go. Exactly as planned.

He waited until the drink was called out.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said as they both reached out for the drink. “Did you order this too? You can have it, I don’t mind waiting.”

She smiled. Oh, what a smile! He would die for that smile. “Oh, no, you take it,” she said. “You were here first.”

“No no, I insist,” he said, stepping back. “Have we met before? My name’s Brad.”

She laughed. “I know.”

He blinked. “You know?”

“You’re Brad Beaumont, the famous author,” she said, pulling the hardback book out of her handbag just far enough for him to see the title. Beyond Dreams, his first big hit.

Well, he thought, so much for Just Brad.

© Kari Fay

(Author’s Note: This week the prompt from Three Word Wednesday is the words Naughty, Tactic and Zenith.)