F is for FLASH FICTION_THE DREAMER'S PUNISHMENT

For a great review of my novel, THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS, go to Donna Hole's blog :

http://donnahole.blogspot.com/2011/04/drawing-on-mythology.html

SAM IN A FLASH (fiction)_ THE DREAMER'S PUNISHMENT

{From the journal of Captain Samuel McCord} :

What did Oscar Wilde write me that time?

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight,

and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

The house is dark, its empty windows more like vacant eyes than dirty glass.

They give the building the look of some huge, discarded skull of a lost god.

I don't like this. Lt. Trifle (yes, that's her name,

and the main reason she got a black belt in Karate)

called me out here in the middle of nowhere.

Nowhere being on the outskirts of Metairie --

which is on the outskirts of New Orleans --

which, itself, is on the outskirts of Hell if you listen to some preachers.

She said I was needed out here and then hung up.

Or got the phone snatched out of her hand.

I came as soon as I could.

Was I in time? Time. I could stop it for awhile --

if I was willing to pay the price.

I was. It hurt like hell. I deserved worse.

Ask a thousand widows what the undead Captain Samuel McCord deserved, and they'd tell you the same thing.

The time-snared air felt like heavy invisible water pressing in against me. I endured.

It's what I do.

I made my way to the back of the house. I tried to cat-foot in out of instinct.

Reality trumped instinct.

The weight of frozen time made each step feel as if I were lifting the weight of the world. Cat-footing was out.

Lumbering like a dinosaur with arthritis was all I could manage. I smiled like the wolf I felt.

Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.

And time was mine. For as long as I could endure the pain.

The house of shadows was deserted. No furniture. Lots of needles. Lots of spoons. Discarded rubber tubing.

A crack house.

I made it to the front room.

It wasn't empty. A young punk had Trifle dead to rights.

Mostly dead if I didn't act fast.

How he got the drop on her was obvious. She was cradling an unconscious, feverish girl. Trifle's heart had blind-sided her.

I released time.

The addict yelped in surprise. He jerked his gun towards me.

I smiled and spoke low, hearing the thunder sent by the Turquoise Woman above me.

"How young can you die of old age?"

"What the fuck?," he frowned.

Sad last words.

I answered my own question.

I sped up time all around him. He squealed, squirmed, shouted, then wheezed into raspy coughing. He aged into an old man in seconds.

As he fell, he crumbled into dust right in front of Trifle. The moon caressed the hot sunset of her hair as she looked down, the beauty of her pale face twisted into ugliness by horror.

The mound of dust started to disappear in the faint breath of the stale breeze. She turned hollow eyes to me.

"You're a monster," she husked.

What had Oliver Goldsmith written to me?

I remembered : Silence gives consent.

I left without saying a word. *********************************