Flash fiction Friday! :D Remember way back when I said A Stranger’s Kindness was a stand alone? And then went and made a bunch of discount continuations? We’re at it again folks! I hope you enjoy another day with the stranger and the kid (and aren’t getting sick of them yet <u<;;)! Feedback is appreciated ^u^
Thanks again for organising and hosting @cawolters!
Prompt: We Are Not Alone
Words: 1499 orz
Previous parts: 1, 2, 3
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Sometimes you have a bad day. Just a heaping pile of unwanted events. You get up, three new rejection letters. You boil the kettle and the milk’s gone bad even though you know you only bought it last week. Your awful bitter coffee spills down your shirt – your favourite, naturally – after you trip over a toy that you specifically remember having asked the night before that it be put away. There’s a notice that the rates are going up again and now the window’s broken thanks to a bored kid losing control of a ball. Thoughts nag at you that the kid should be in school or something. You know this but you don’t know it it’s safe yet and you haven’t worked out a cover for why you have a kid who, for some reason, has missed a lot of class time. No pressure but if you botch up, it’s yours and the kid’s necks on the chopping block but how are you supposed to be able to work that out and maintain your late grandmother’s cottage and look after Sudden Child and find a job and those rejection letters aren’t going to read themselves and that takes time. You know, just your run of the mill stuff. It might just be me. It seems unlikely that these experiences are universally shared. Although, I am sure that a lot of people have been in a similar situation as me now, kneeling over broken glass, duct taping it out of the carpet. I guess you can say I’ve been a little … tense lately.
The kid’s settled in well. His nightmares haven’t been so bad since we put up those stars. He’s really taken to gardening as well which, I’ll never admit out loud, is somewhat touching. We haven’t heard anything from his folks or the police. It should be singing and smooth sailing, but I feel paranoid. Like disaster is looming over us while we carry on, oblivious. There’s no way it was that easy. It’s in every story. The instant the villains..? heroes..? Characters, breath a sigh of relief, crunch! Beartrap. I’m serious about schooling as well. I’ve got to sort it out, I want to, bit damn if it’s not nauseating to think he might be recognised.
“I’m really sorry.” He’s not as whistley now his front teeth have grown back in. Unfortunate buck teeth until the rest of him catches up. He’s been hovering – figuratively, those wings are still too small to be more than decoration yet – the entire time I’ve been cleaning. Of course I’m not letting a seven year old pick up glass. How stupid do you think I am?
“I know. It’s fine.” I think I’ve got all the pieces. Another tape canvas to be sure.
“I tried to stop it, but it was too fast.” His fingers worry the fraying hem of his shirt. I’ll have to get him new clothes again soon. More money.
“Look kid, accidents happen. It sucks that the window broke, but no one was hurt. That’s what matters. Now you know to be more careful next time. You can help me put the new panes in when I get them. Fair?”
He nods eagerly, brightening despite my frank tone. At least he’s gotten used to that.
I get up, bones creaking in protest. I feel old. Tired. It was lucky I didn’t break my ankle on that damn toy. Kid follows me to the kitchen. Might as well get a start on lunch. Paper catches my eye when I get the bread from the pantry. The calendar month is wrong already. Where has all the time gone?
“Could you fix the calendar?” Probably better to get that sorted before I forget again.
“Yep!” He’s as zealous as ever. Why do kids love doing all those little mundane things? Y’know, pushing crossing buttons, taking tickets from the deli dispenser, pulling sticky note sheets off, that sort of thing. Weird little goblins.
“Guess what!”
“What?”
“It’s my birthday month!” He thrashes his tail, nearly sending the trashcan flying in his excitement.
Already? I don’t let my hands slow. One small act of keeping it together. My mind races on. Stars above. The window wasn’t enough? I have to get him something, obviously, kids deserve birthday presents. And a cake. Would he want a party? How am I supposed to facilitate a party of one?? I’ll run out of money soon. I thought this would be a whole ‘new leaf’ situation. But if I keep getting rejections, I’m going to have to start stealing again. At least it’ll get those guys off my back. What about giving the kid a decent role model? I can’t give him much, but I thought I could do that for him. If I go back to my expertise and get caught, that’s it. All anyone will hear is that some crazed thief kidnapped a little boy. He’ll get shoved straight back into their hands no questions. A pat on the back to his rescuers and I rot. I can’t let that happen. I’m trapped. I’ve never been trapped before. Not like this.
He’s still waiting for a response. The enthusiasm draining from him the longer I delay.
“You… You’re not cancelling my birthday, right? I’m really, reaalllyyy sorry about the window..”
“ENOUGH ABOUT THE DAMN WINDOW!” I regret it immediately. He cowers, stumbling over apologies.
A second to breath.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” This time, I do stop. Giving him my full attention, crouching to look him in the eye. “I’m not mad about the window. I told you, it’s fine. I was… feeling stressed and snapped. It was wrong for me to take out my feelings on you. Can you forgive me?”
He pauses. This is not something he’s gotten used to. I wonder how many time’s he’s been given an apology. He considers my words, then nods.
“I forgive you.”
“Thank you.” I finish up the sandwiches. “What do you want for your birthday?”
“Um!” Another pause. Faux thought. He already knows what he wants. “Can we go fishing? I’ve always wanted to try!”
“Fishing?” That wasn’t what I expected.
“Yeah! You know, on a boat, catching fish with strings! You’ve got a boat, right?”
“What? Why do you think I have a boat?”
“Well, you do live near the water and, you know, you kinda have lots of things that maybe you shouldn’t have…” Not wanting to commit to the accusation, he trailed off, twiddling his thumbs.
“Do you think I’ve stolen a boat?”
“Mayybee…”
“Do you know how hard that would be? You can’t just decide to acquire a boat for the fun of it. You have to sell those things.”
“Is that a no..?”
I sigh. I don’t fish but it is his birthday. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises but I’ll try.”
“Really!?” Stars, his eyes shone. “Thank you!” He launched a hug at me. Kids.
“Okay. That’s enough. Take your lunch and off with you. Go do whatever it is gremlins do. I’ve got a call to make.”
He gave a final squeeze before running off, giggling. I flip open my phone, plugging in the one person who may be able to help. She answers on the third ring.
“Hey Grace, it’s me.”
Quiet laughter. “I know who you are dummy. Caller ID.”
“Right. Uh, you remember Grandpa’s old boat?”
“The one Gran left me? Yeah. Hard to forget when I can see it now.”
“How would you feel about going fishing with me and someone?”
“You hate fishing.” There’s a note of accusation in her voice. I hope this is the right decision.
“I do. It’s cruel and unnecessary. But that’s a rant for another day. See, there’s this kid…”
“What kid? Why do you know a kid?” She doesn’t leave room for an answer, barrelling on. “Wait! I swear to god, if you tell me you stole a kid –“
“First of all, there are a lot of unfair accusations going around today. Second, I’m deeply offended that you think the only way I’d know a kid is through dishonest means. Third, you’re right, I did.”
“What the actual – actually, never mind. Two minutes then I’m calling the cops.
“The long and short, he’s Tainted and his parents were pretty much torturing him. I’m trying to help him, I swear.”
Grace was silent for a long moment. We’ve had our differences. Bridges a patchwork of scorches and repairs. I don’t know how she will respond but I hope she can at least sympathise. She was always the one to bring home injured animals when we were young. If she wants to cut ties after this, that’s fair. As long as she doesn’t rat me out, it’ll be okay. Finally, she sighs.
“That sounds like the sort of dumb thing you would do. Alright. What can I do to help?”
I guess we aren’t as alone as I thought.
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Tag list
@cawolters, @inkovert, @snobbysnekboi, @kainablue, and @i-rove-rock-n-roll
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Sorry if this one isn’t at my usual quality. My brain’s kinda fried today :T Hopefully things’ll be running smoothly again next week ^u^
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James thought back to his applied physics class and remembered that for carbon to emit green light it had to be burning around 185K. If he had pen and paper, he could probably work out a formula for how fast these meteors were traveling and when the next shower would be, but from his current position on his back in the middle of the Blue Ridge Parkway, all he could think to say to Greg was; “thanks for bringing me all the way out here. I’ve never seen a meteor shower this clearly”.
“Yeah man. I figured there wouldn’t be anybody on the road this late at night, and this vista is far enough away from town to not have any light pollution.”
“Crazy to think that those stars died thousands of years ago and we’re just now seeing their final explosions.”
“Makes you wonder what the effect of some of the things we’re doing right now may be in our lifetimes. If those stars are providing us this lightshow from a thousand years ago, what does that mean for the first date I set Kevin and Toni up on tonight? Where are those ripples gonna lead, if anywhere?”
“Right? Everything’s connected and all part of the same story. Even crazier to think that some people think we’re alone in this universe.”
Greg chuckled to himself and reflected back to a week ago at just about this time. He was walking out of the tattoo parlor with a new piece that covered most of his thigh depicting his recent experience with abduction...by some form of sentient otherworldly creature.
“Yeah man, we are not alone. That’s for damn sure. This universe is too big, and there’s too many anecdotal references to encounters and sightings for all of them to be wrong.”
James thought about a probability problem he had worked on a few years back where the discovery had been that the odds of being the only sentient life in the universe were about the same as getting struck by lightning a second time while holding a winning lottery ticket.
“You’re right Greg, there’s no way we’re alone out here. The probability of that is astronomically low.”
They both chuckled at the pun, and gazed back up at the sky in time to see three twinkling red and blue lights speeding across the same path that the previous meteor had emblazoned in the darkness--but these lights were moving in the opposite direction.
