Tomorrow Wednesday, Dec 2 2009

“They’re wings!“

Cara circled around the elaborate contraption before her, her breath tight in her chest, held by excitement. Wings! All rusty metal and canvas-colored polyplastics, but still, she could see them, see the beauty of them amidst the grime and the grease and the ropes stretched taut, holding them upright from either side. The dull red-gold light fell through the polyplastic membranes where they tapered into points six feet above her, leaving a fluttery feeling in her heart and a crimson stain of light across her face.

“They’re not quite finished yet,” Matthias warned her from his place in the corner, propped back on his three-legged chair. She dragged her eyes from the beautiful mass of bolts and careful wires before her and turned to glare at him, having to guess at his expression because his whole upper half was swathed in the shadow creeping down the wall as the sun set below the rim of the half-dissolved ceiling high above them. Cara’s hands found her hips in a familiar defiant gesture–the one that always made Matt sigh and tip forward in his chair. His face came into view all at once, a bizarre mix of hard angles and definitive shadows slashing across the planes of his face in the dust-red light of the fading day. His hands and arms were streaked and smudged with oil, and she knew that he had probably been here for days, playing and prodding and bending those beautiful, spectacular wings into shape again, just because he knew she’d like them. Because all she’d ever wanted to do, for as long as she could think or speak, was fly away from here, just for a split second, on wings that flashed and glimmered in the sunlight.

“There are still a few things that need working on,” he said again, suppression in his tone. Cara bristled.

His cautious practicality, usually accepted with reluctant quietness from his companion, felt as dark and out of touch as the shadows streaking across the room behind Cara’s steadfast pose. She refused to let him talk her out of this today. Especially when she knew that he’d done all this for her, and he had brought her here to make sure she saw them. Instead of answering, she turned again to watch the sunlight play across the half-burnished metal clasps where the shoulders of the harness met the ultra-light material of the wingspan on either side.  “Wings,” she breathed again, reverently. It was so perfect that she knew this memory would be shiny around the edges, and the hope in her throat was so hard that it hurt to swallow.

She felt Matthias rustle to his feet behind her, his feet making no noise on the hard floor because there wasn’t enough of him left to even disturb the coating of metal shavings covering everything in sight. He came to stand beside her and for a moment the two of them were silent, just staring at the remarkable flying contraption as the world began to darken outside, the cool night air wafting in from above and all around. Too many cracks and holes in the doors and windows and walls to repair in here, of course. But Matt had managed to rig up a few lights along the walls, and Cara could hear the metallic hum as they blinked on, one by one, in preparation of the coming dark cycle. She turned to look at him when the one directly above his head on the far wall didn’t turn on. He gave a sigh, and his thin shoulders seemed to collapse in on themselves like an old spring.

Broken, of course. Cara couldn’t remember a time when something in the world wasn’t broken, wasn’t falling apart before her eyes. Even Matthias, who looked less substantial every time she looked at him, like he was wisping away in his own genius, getting picked apart by his own sky-high longings for things (for people?) that Cara never asked about, because she knew that she wouldn’t get an answer. She didn’t want one. Everyone was broken, and everything was falling apart litlte by little before her eyes, fading away with the last remnants of the day. It seemed silly–superficial, a word that Matt had just taught her last week–to draw attention to the fact that the pieces of their world were turning slowly into dust.

“From dust we came, and to dust we will return,” she murmured to herself, because the words were hard to keep inside her head, where they’d been bouncing around ever since Matthias read them to her, years and years ago. She could feel his concerned gaze trace her face, but she ignored him, staring at the wings again. They reflected silver now, the faint white lights on the walls turning the membranes and the hard lining of the metal the same color as the stars that shimmered outside the atmospheric veil on clearer nights.

She turned her head to face him, and her voice was firm and full of a kind of fierce joy that she hadn’t felt once in her whole life, before seeing the wings. “I’m using them.”

He gave another one of his long sighs, and Cara thought she could see the metal shavings fall off the sound like a cloud of resignation. “Tomorrow, Cara. Please? I have to finish them. We’ll try them in the morning.”

The thought of waiting another second–of being stuck here, both feet on the slowly turning, quickly crumbling earth when the sky and the stars and the dream of her life waited above her–was nearly her undoing. For a long moment she could see it in her mind’s eye, as she rushed past him and buckled herself into the harness. She could feel the singing adrenaline in her veins, the rushing in her head as she grasped that control with her left hand and pushed the green button at its tip. She felt the wind rush against her face and heard herself laugh with delight, Matthias’ panicked yell erased in the beautiful, stunning sound of the polyplastics charging and her feet leaving the ground and the sky opening up above her like the only gift she had ever been given in her life.

Flying.

But then her eyes cleared, and she was looking at Matt’s worried face again, and she felt her heart beating strongly in her chest. She wondered, for the first time, why Matthias did these things for her. He didn’t want the wings for himself, had never even considered it. He only wanted to watch her taking off, and know that he was the one to put the last bolts and the fiddly pieces in place. The understanding weighed her down, grounded her, and when she looked at the wings again, she could brace herself against their pull.

“Tomorrow?” she asked him, her voice hesitant and hopeful and a hundred other things she wished it wasn’t. “You promise? Tomorrow they’ll be ready?”

The smile in his eyes was new to her, but the affectionate tone in his voice was all familiar memory. “I promise, Cara. Tomorrow, you can fly.”

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Real Life Invasion Monday, Nov 16 2009

Another excerpt from my story Corrupting Paradise. In this scene, we meet Elim for the first time, and we also encounter Client 47 in Pod 109, who will be the team’s problem for the rest of the story.

—

Ano knocked on Elim’s open office door out of habit and stepped in without waiting for an answer. Stepping over a loose cable on the floor, she made her way to the sole occupant of the room, who was perched on his chair in the middle of a nest of wires surrounded by input tablets and a rack of memory crystals. Raising her voice a little to be heard over the chirps and whirring that spilled from the mass of technology around her, Ano put a hand on her Operator’s shoulder. “Talk to me.”

As an Almarian male, Elim shared his employer’s accent, but his physical attributes were similar to Ano’s only in their vividness. His mess of black hair was naturally streaked with silver and his eyes changed color according to his mood. At the moment, his irises reflected purple in the light from the screen he was staring at. Ano winced. Purple meant her friend was severely stressed.

When he spoke, his emotion was confirmed by the strain in his normally flowing voice. “This could be nothing.” She gave him a look that he caught as he glanced up at her. He read the disbelief on her face clearly and sighed heavily, turning back. “Or it could be something so big that we’ll have wished you’d have believed me when I said it was nothing and we hadn’t gone on and talked about it.”

Ano patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. “Fair enough. Now talk about it.”

With all the motivation of a prophet preaching the end of the world to people ignoring the fire raining out of the sky, Elim gestured to the screen in front of him.

For several moments, Ano was nonplussed. “It’s a portion of the roster,” she pointed out unnecessarily.

And indeed it was. Columns of information scrolled by, listing client name, requested reality, the length of the customer’s stay, date of project completion, the names of the team members responsible for the project, the form and amount of payment, and the number of the stasis pod currently holding the customer. Besides the disturbingly low numbers in the payment columns, Ano had never seen anything less like an emergency in her life.

“Yes,” Elim replied patiently, as if he was trying to talk to someone who still refuses to believe the world is ending even though her dog has just been hit by a flaming meteor. “Look at Client 47.”

She looked at Client 47. And then she looked again. And then a third time, just to make sure she wasn’t blinking and looking at the wrong line or just plain hallucinating.

She wasn’t.

There was no name in the “Name” column for Client 47. The information in the “Requested Reality” column flickered, changed from “rainy library” to “wooded beach” and flickered again as it stopped on “ocean vista” and turned into a jumble of code before righting itself and changing one more time, landing on “rainy library” again.

“Client 47,” Ano declared with the quiet dread of a person who gets hit by a flaming meteor, loses a leg and her eyesight and finally admits that maybe, just maybe, something’s wrong with the weather today, “is in a universe that is rapidly disintegrating.”

“Yes,” Elim agreed. There were several moments of silence.

“Elim?” Ano inquired politely.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to go back to that sentence where you mentioned that I was going to wish I didn’t ask and we never had this conversation.”

“Oh? What would you like to do differently?” He watched her face cautiously to make sure her eyes weren’t changing color; Ano’s green irises had a habit of turning gold when she got drastically upset.

Her expression, though, remained very calm as she answered, “I would like to agree with you.”

“This is what you get when you don’t listen to me.”

“Next time I try and disagree with you, hit me and demand a raise.” Ano straightened from bending to read over his shoulder, stretched her neck, tapped her earpiece into place and spoke the nine words that her team dreaded to hear. “We have a Real Life Invasion in Pod 109.”

She was a bit disappointed when no one answered right away, even though she hadn’t expected them to. Finally, Tri broke the silence. “Oh.”

This was followed by Becken’s, “We’re on our way down.”

Ano waited expectantly for Jenny and wasn’t disappointed when her, “Can I stay with my titanium river? Please? Just this once?” came moments later.

“Everybody downstairs. Jenny, wait for us. Elim, if you’d be so kind as to fill the others in while we go?” She headed to the door, hesitating just a second before stepping back into the main office and towards something she didn’t at all want to face.

“Boss!” Elim called, swiveling in his chair at the last second.

She turned expectantly and held his eyes for a moment, taking in the anxious blue color they’d turned. His voice was about as serious as it got. “Accidents happen. It’s just life.”

There were several things he could have said, most of which Ano wanted to hear far more. It would do. With a smile that she couldn’t back up with humor, she left the office.

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Springfield Halloween: Getting a Move On, and Other TV Cliches Wednesday, Oct 21 2009

My second writing prompt for Springfield Halloween: “So, are the two of you going to break out into song at some point?” Carson, Jake and Elizabeth prepare for a night on the town.

—

“For heaven’s sake, get a move on! We’re already late!”

Jake Caster took a second to wonder just how many times he’d heard those exact same words in that exact same Scottish accent over the course of the twelve or so years he’d known Carson Cramer. Once every holiday, at least. Back when they were at school, it had been about once a class period. He had long since gotten used to his best friend being two literal steps ahead of him, trying to walk just a little faster to wherever it was that they were going. Jake was well acquainted with the back of Carson’s head; he could probably draw it with his eyes closed.

Carson surged on ahead and Jake lollygagged behind and watched his back. It was a system, and it worked for them. But Jake was almost sure that this was the first time in the history of their friendship that he was lagging behind because he was being forced to carry a freaking fifteen pound television camera.

“Why did I let you talk me into this?” he wondered aloud to the back of Carson’s head. “I was going to spend the night at home, actually getting things done. Aren’t you always saying that I need to concentrate on my art?”

“No,” the other man replied without hesitation. “Your mother is the one who tells you to concentrate on your art. I’m the one who’s been telling you to get a bleeding social life for the last ten years. What man in his right mind stays home on Halloween, when there are lovely costumed young ladies running about with snacks?”

Not for the first time, Jake was momentarily thrown by his friend’s apparently boundless ability to turn every innocent holiday into an excuse to date someone. “…I’ve never thought of Halloween that way before.”

“And that’s why you’re living in an apartment by yourself,” Carson replied. They finally slowed down to round the corner to the cafe. Carson tossed Jake a wink over his shoulder; the motion made his face twist oddly under the white half-mask covering the right side of his face. Jake would never admit it out loud, but the Phantom of the Opera look worked for Carson like it would for few others. The white shirt and ruffly cravat added drama to an otherwise classic tuxedo, and only someone as ridiculously extroverted as Carson could actually pull off that cape.

Jake forcibly returned his attention to the conversation at hand, mostly because Carson’s ensemble made his own thrown-together ninja outfit seem a little pathetic. “Hey, I have a cat!” he protested weakly. Carson turned back to reply, but Jake already knew what he was going to say, and he was pretty much right, so he capitulated with a sigh and changed the subject. “Remind me again why you don’t have some studio lackey doing the heavy lifting for you?”

It was Carson’s turn to sigh. “Because apparently I’m the only one mad enough to work on Halloween.” The reporter came to a halt outside Stone’s cafe and turned to his friend. He reached out a hand to balance the camera as it rocked with Jake’s sudden deceleration to keep from running into Carson.

For the first time, Jake noticed the dark shadows under the one eye he could see in Carson’s face. The man looked tired. No, more than tired—exhausted. Jake’s eyebrows creased in concern. “The headaches again?”

“Aye,” Carson said softly, and Jake knew that they had to be bad for him to admit it at all. Carson saw his concern and waved him off with studied casualness that would have fooled someone who hadn’t known him inside and out since high school. He probably hadn’t actually slept in days.

Still, now wasn’t the time, and this definitely wasn’t the place. So Jake gave in again, and hoisted the camera to his shoulder with another sigh. “Want to try a spot before Elizabeth gets here?”

“Too late!” a voice said from behind him. Jake turned to see Elizabeth Hollowitz, Springfield’s meteorologist, standing on the sidewalk.

Carson gave a low whistle of appreciation as they took in her appearance, and Jake was inclined to agree, even if Elizabeth still scared the crap out of him a little after their one disastrous date. She looked amazing; the cream-colored dress fit her like it’d been made for her, and her blonde hair was done up in an intricate curly knot thing that Jake had never seen before. If he didn’t know the real Elizabeth, he would have been charmed.

Elizabeth held out a red rose in her hand. “A flower for the gentleman?”

Apparently, Carson didn’t know any better. He stepped around Jake to stand in front of his fellow newscaster with a huge grin on his face. “Well, don’t you just make the right prettiest Christine I’ve ever seen.” He took the flower and neatly tucked it into his buttonhole.

Elizabeth gave him an elaborate mock curtsey. “Why thank you, kind sir.” She straightened with a wink in Jake’s direction. “The station’s due for a ratings pickup. The two shining stars of the evening news winning the couples costume contest should do the trick, don’t you think?”

“That depends on the competition,” Jake replied with a grin.

Carson scoffed. “That coming from the man dressed as a funerary director.”

“You gave me ten minutes to find a costume! This is the best ten-minute ninja costume Springfield has ever seen!”

“Alright, alright,” Elizabeth interceded with an eye roll. “Where are you boys off to?”

“Interviews,” Carson said with a sigh. “I got enlisted for on-the-street.”

She gave him a piercing look. “You mean you volunteered.” When he glanced away sheepishly, she smiled a little. “Well, it hardly seems fair to abandon my costume partner to a night of drudgery. I’ll help you with the interviews, then we can go do something fun with the night.”

Carson opened his mouth to object, but Jake beat him to it. “Thanks!” he said brightly. He hoisted the camera to his shoulder and thumbed it on. “So, our first interview of the evening: Springfield’s star newscaster and mostly-accurate–”

“Hey!”

“–Almost always accurate meteorologist! Carson Cramer and Elizabeth Hollowitz, I ask the question that everyone in Springfield wants to know after seeing you together tonight.” He paused for dramatic effect. “So, are you two going to break out into song at some point? Because if you are, I’m obligated to record it for posterity. And the viewing audience.”

He had to turn the camera off and duck out of the way to avoid Carson’s play punch at his shoulder, but it was worth it to see his friend lose the tired wrinkles around his eyes for a second.

Elizabeth just rolled her eyes again, but this time there was affection there. “Why do I get the feeling I just signed up for babysitting? Come on, let’s go find an unsuspecting citizen to interview.”

“The news never stops!” Carson proclaimed cheerfully, and ignored the groans from his friends as he led them off down the street.

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Springfield Halloween: The Pirate Ship and a Horse Named Sid Tuesday, Oct 20 2009

The first of a series of  Springfield Halloween  writing prompts, which will eventually connect together! The prompt for this one: “Where on earth did you get a horse?”

What’s going on? Check out the Previous Segment over on The Art of Observation!

—

“Hey Trudy, can you come out here for a sec?”

Trudy Hainz looked up from the blood-and-guts sundae she’d been preparing and took the opportunity to wipe some very red sprinkles off onto her apron. She glanced around the crowded soda fountain-turned pirated ship, trying to locate the source of the voice, before she realized it was coming from outside on the street. “Saul?”

Her voice was lost in the chaotic chatter of sugared-up customers and the sound of the door closing. “Brian!” she shouted to the closest costumed adult. “Is Saul out there?”

The math teacher straightened his eye patch miserably and gave a cursory look out the door. Trudy watched with interest as her friend’s shoulders froze, tensed, and then settled into that really stressed hunch that they did whenever their owner was about to lie. “Uh…no?”

Trudy sighed and quickly piled some green whipped cream onto the sundae. There was no reason for it to be green, but she’d had it left over, and she had to use it on something. “Tell him I’ll be right out!” With a flourish, she handed the sundae over the counter to Seth Mercury. “One blood-and-guts deluxe sundae!” She looked at the teen closely. “This really, really sugary desert wouldn’t be for Timothy, would it? Because it’s nearly seven o’clock, and he’ll never sleep.”

Seth’s eyes flickered from Trudy’s face to the sundae to the tiny bit of blonde mop just visible over the edge of the counter at his waist. “Uh…no?”

Trudy pretended not to hear the stifled giggle from under the counter and nodded sternly. “Good. Because any wizard worth his salt is wise enough to keep sugar away from hyper seven year olds after nightfall!”

“He’s a dinosaur wizard!” Timothy Green protested indignantly. His adorably ruffled head appeared from where he’d been ducked down behind the counter, giving up his hiding place out of indignation. The headpiece of his dinosaur suit was askew, and Seth straightened it out of habit with the hand not holding the ice cream.

Trudy nodded wisely. “A dinosaur wizard! Of course, I should’ve seen that. Well, Mr. Dinosaur, you better make sure that your wizard there doesn’t give you too much sugar, alright?”

Timothy nodded solemnly. “You bet, Ms. Trudy!”

The woman smiled affectionately and winked at Seth. “Have a good time.” She received a resigned smile just before Timothy grabbed his sitter’s hand and tugged them both out the door.

She heard the little boy’s voice say, “Hey, Mr. P, that’s awesome!” right before the door shut on the cool outside air again.

Interest officially roused, Trudy dusted off her hands again and swung open the counter partition to get out from behind the register. The sound of laughter from her right distracted her for a moment. She signaled to Brian to mind the register for a second and deliberately ignored the panicked look she got in return. “But Trudy–”

She held up a hand to stall his complaints. “No buts! You promised you’d help if I covered for you! If you don’t want to take the register for a couple minutes, then you can go right over and take your turn in the dunk tank!”

Brian was defeated, and they both knew it. With a belabored sigh, he marched over to the counter. Smothering a smug grin, Trudy carefully straightened the ruffle-trimmed bodice of her pirate barmaid costume and gathered up the ends of her full skirt in one hand before turning to see what the noise was about.

The crowd over in the barber shop had lessened for the moment; Mr. B was entertaining a few people in the apple bobbing line with his authentic pirate accent. He caught Trudy’s eye and winked at her. The huge red cockatoo on his shoulder chose that moment to squak loudly, shake out its multicolored tail feathers, and announce, “Awk! Shiver me timbers, matey!”

It still made Trudy laugh, even after three hours of listening to the bird talk. She made her way over to the barber and gave the bird’s head a stroke. “He really is something, Mr. B. A talking bird! You went all out this year.”

Eugene grinned proudly at her. “That I did, lassie. Whatcha be needin’ from the Dread Pirate Bud?”

Trudy giggled again and mocked a curtsy at him. “Just wanted to come pay tribute, Captain! If you and your first mate need anything tonight, you’re welcome to hop behind the counter and get a drink. We’re doing good business tonight.”

“Speak for yourself, bar wench! No hair’s bein’ cut tonight, that I can assure yeh.”

“Still, the place looks great. You and Ian did an amazing job.”

This much was certainly true. Bud’s Barbery and Trudy’s soda fountain had been converted into an impressive rendition of a pirate ship, wood planks and all. The barber chairs had been cleared away to make room for the apple bobbing barrel, and the far wall was dedicated to an old-fashioned ring toss. It was only then that she realized that she and Eugene were the only pirates in the room. “Where’d Ian go?”

Eugene gave a theatrical sigh and pointed towards the cashier counter. It took Trudy a moment to realize that Ian Rollands, barber assistant extraordinaire, was actually folded up underneath it. Ian was a tall guy, but he’d managed to work his way into the space, and now sat folded in on himself. He had a book on his knees which he studied with feverish intensity. His lips moved soundlessly, and Trudy was pretty sure he was plugging his ears with his fingers. He was using the fake pirate hook on his right hand to turn the pages. She looked over at Mr. B questioningly. “Midterm?”

“Midterm,” Eugene agreed. He lowered his voice, and for the first time all evening he dropped the pirate speak. “His social perspectives class. Worthless teacher gave them the review a week late. Normally I’d make him walk the plank for leaving me with the apple-bobbing mob, but he’s worried about this one. I’ve got him running the ring toss when people ask for it.”

Trudy smiled at him knowingly. “Why Captain! You’re nothing but a big softy!”

“Arr!” Bud growled, waving his parrot-free arm threateningly. “Be gone, yeh scurvy cur, before I make yeh walk the plank!”

“Awk! Walk the plank!”

Trudy laughed and did as she was told, finally making it to the door to step outside. She worried that Saul might have already left because she’d taken so long to get away. For a moment she only noticed the cold October air against her skin and the noise of the laughing crowds moving up and down the sidewalk.

But then she saw the horse.

It was a huge, black thing with slim legs standing patiently in the road outside the shop. Trudy didn’t know much about horses, but she thought that this one was beautiful, all glossy flank and shining hair in the streetlights. For a moment, Trudy only stand there aghast, staring up at the caped, black-masked man on the horse. He tipped his hat to her, and a little light glinted off the brim that came down over his eyes. She had to admit, it was pretty impressive. “Where on earth did you get a horse?”

Saul Poplar grinned at her and flourished with an arm, showing the red lining of his cape. “Good evening, Senorita,” the man intoned in a bad Spanish accent.

“Hi, Saul,” she said rather weakly. “I mean, Senor Zorro.” She cautiously approached the second grade teacher and his horse.

Saul dismounted with the fluid ease of someone who was naturally comfortable with horses. He patted the beast’s flank affectionately. “He’s really something, isn’t he?” he said in his normal voice. He reached out and grabbed Trudy’s hand, reeling her in until she could touch the horse’s silky mane. “I only have him for the night. Figured Sid here could help me win that couples’ contest, isn’t that right, boy?”

Trudy was now stroking the horse’s neck with reverence. “Sid?” she asked curiously. It seemed like an odd name for such an impressive animal.

“His full name is Black Obsidian,” Saul said with a shrug. “Kind of a mouthful if you have to shout it every time the posse catches up with you.”

For a moment the two of them just stood there smiling goofily at each other, their fingers only a few centimeters apart on Sid’s flank.

“Wow, Mr. P!”

The moment was abruptly shattered as two of Saul’s students rushed up. Their teacher had to reach out a hand to steady the horse. “Woah! Easy, guys. Sid here is a real show horse, you have to be a little quieter around him. Don’t want him spooking from all the noise.”

The boys clustered around the horse excitedly, and Saul and Trudy exchanged an ironic smile. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Look, are you free later? I’d love to take you on a ride.”

Trudy fought down a blush, but just barely. “I’d like that,” she agreed, almost despite herself. “Maybe once the crowd dies down?”

“I’ll swing by,” Saul promised with a grin. Then, with a sigh, he turned to the excited boys. “Alright, who wants to go first? Just one quick ride, up and down the block!”

Over the enthused yelling that followed, Trudy heard Brian’s voice from behind her as someone opened the door to the shop. “Trudy! Help!”

With a sigh of her own, Trudy turned her back on Saul and his horse, and went to go pry Brian’s fingers from the sticky register.

—

Want more? Read the Next Part over on The Art of Observation!

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Bargain Shopping Tuesday, Sep 8 2009

Ian Rollands is working on his masters in sociology at community college, works part-time for Eugene Bud at the barber shop, and spends his free time doing homework and swimming. He is also a superhero. As Ambush, he has the ability to duplicate himself. This story takes place early on in his supercareer.

–

He’d never been able to say no to a sale.

He could blame his mother for that, really. She’d brought him up with a love of bargain shopping, yard sales, and thrift stores. It had been necessary for them, really: living with little meant learning to spend little. But even though they hadn’t always had everything they needed, they had always had a sense of class that was miraculously supported by extremely savvy purchases. Bargain shopping was a great ally. Still, he also knew full well that bargain shopping often meant stupid shopping.

With a heavy sigh, Ian Rollands leaned back in his desk chair and clicked through the catalog again.

See, that was the problem with buying things cheap: you started buying things because they were cheap. Walk into a thrift store with no clear purpose or intention, and you came out with stained glass fish and broken wind chimes. Ian’s mother had taught him how to avoid the trap that so many people fell into when confronted with inexpensive items. Know your goal, achieve the goal, and leave as soon as possible.

The motto worked pretty well for superwork, too. Ian had muttered the words to himself more than once when stopping a bank robbery.

Which led him to his current predicament, really. Because he was a superhero now, and a dang good one, if he did say so himself. And any decent superhero needed a costume. One that could be bought with the barely-existent remains of his paycheck from the barber shop, after things like food and utilities and rent had been accounted for.

That only left him a few options. Cheap options. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, extending the motion to run his fingers through his shaggy blonde hair before staring at the computer screen again, as if hoping that the gaudy purple logo would have changed in the last minute. It hadn’t. It was still there in the corner, rotating and sparkling and looking completely tacky.

“Superquick!Costuming,” he muttered to himself, still slightly incredulous. He could even hear the exclamation mark when he pronounced it. It was bargain shopping at its worst. You could get everything on this site. They offered basic outfits, capes, gloves, utility belts, visors, even a design-and-print logo service. An entire superhero look, available for Ian’s mix-and-match pleasure.

It seemed…wrong, somehow. He’d heard stories about how the great superheroes like Galileo got their suits. Those outfits had been works of love, made by hand, designed specifically for the person wearing them. They became the superhero, and the outside world couldn’t recognize one without the other. Buying pieces of a suit from a bulk company seemed…

Well. Cheap. And depressingly practical. Which was the whole point, really.

Ian wandered aimlessly through the Superquick!Costuming catalog again. The “2 for 1!” heading on the cape section drew his eye for a split second before he hurried on to another page. No capes. He’d been very firm with himself on the subject, because any hero he had ever made fun of had a cape. He had standards. Besides, they would be a pain and a half to replicate accurately. No, he needed something…simpler. More basic.

He went straight past the accessory section, which advertised utility belts, mustaches, and golden halos. Somewhere in the back of his cranium where the remains of his pride lived, he could feel a headache forming.

With a sense of impending resignation, he clicked over to the bodysuit section. The colors of the modeled suits on the first page hurt his eyes. Who wore that color of purple? Especially in spandex? It boggled the mind. He refused to look like Old Glory in his twenties. Apparently, paisleys were in this season. Ian spared a moment to consider the ramifications of killing off a “fashion designer” for the sake of the poor, oppressed, aesthetically-concerned superhero. He could use the catalog as evidential support in court.

It was worth thinking about. But it didn’t solve his current problem. Ian clicked to the next page of basic bodysuits, and the next, feeling more and more frustrated with every pass. Was it always this hard? Had Galileo and Stone and the other great superhero icons of the age had this much trouble finding something in a color they liked? Finally, with a sense of desperation, Ian scrolled down and hit the very last page number in the section.

Two items appeared. One was a bright pink suit with fake abs painted onto it in red. There was a cracked heart design over the chest. Ian stared at it for a moment with the morbid fascination usually reserved for car wrecks and couples fighting in public before his eyes finally slid over to the very last bodysuit item available in the Superquick!Costuming catalog.

Oh. That was…not half bad, actually.

It was black. And that was all, really. Just a black bodysuit. He did a quick scroll through the specifics. Hardened polymer, not spandex. Gloves included. No frills, no logos, no painted abs. Easy to replicate, hard to see in a dark alley, and completely without pretension.

And on sale. It could be his, for only $13.99, plus shipping!

Almost without realizing it, Ian began to smile. Well, it was no stunning fashion statement or anything, but it would do. With a renewed sense of purpose, he returned to the accessory section. Feeling led by a kind of inspiration, he once again clicked to the very last page, and once again found exactly what he was looking for.

He’d need something to cover the eyes. His duplicates’ milky blue gazes had to be covered up for any kind of ruse to be effective. The simple black visor would do just the trick.

With a sense of accomplishment, Ian rushed to place his orders, plugged in his credit information, and bought the two items. The sense of adrenaline stayed with him, as if he’d just beaten someone in a race.

He had a supersuit. It was simplistic, yes, and completely without any distinguishing marks or significant style. But it was efficient, and understated. And…well. Cheap.

It was him.

Sitting there in his tiny little Springfield apartment, listening to the furnace turning on and the traffic outside, feeling cramped and tired and overworked, Ian Rollands became a genuine superhero. He was no superstar, but he’d do the best with what he had, and he’d be good at it. Somehow, he didn’t think that anyone—not even Galileo– could do more than that.

In that moment, Ian Rollands truly became Ambush.

It was time to save the world.

Right after he called his mom and told her about the great deal he’d just gotten. He’d never been able to say no to a sale.

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Dreaming, Eyes Open Monday, Sep 7 2009

Some kind of storm was building out on the horizon. She wasn’t sure why there should be a storm at all, really, or even where the horizon ended and the nearness began. But she did know that the huge, massed, yellow-bellied clouds were slowly, oh so slowly, coming towards her. She felt an odd reluctance at the thought, and she deliberately lifted her eyes away from the dull flashes of lightning deep within the belly of the stormy beast.

The view above her was much more pleasant, in any case. She leaned back to settle on the grass and took a deep breath of the warm, sweet air. The sky above her was all dark purple-black, and shiny with stars and galaxies, soft with the velvet of half-formed wishes. It was like looking into a pool of water that never ended, that just consisted of ripples all the way down, deeper and deeper into…something. Or maybe nothing. She thought, for a moment, that maybe it was supposed to be both. Almost despite herself, her eyes twitched to watch the coming thunderheads, just for a second.

It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to leave this place. Whatever it was. Better than where she’d been before, anyway, of that she was sure.

Where she’d been before was…she didn’t want to think about that, either. Besides, not thinking about it was easier. She couldn’t remember much of it anyway, except for a big blast of light, and a sound almost like a voice. Maybe hers? She wasn’t sure; she’d never heard it. She didn’t really want to know anyway.

Her eyes drifted towards the storm again. It was getting closer; she could feel the first wisps of water in the wind that tugged playfully at the ends of her hair.

A nightmare.

The word wandered through her head and stuck on the big, black-yellow bruise of a cloud moving in from the horizon. Yes, that seemed right. Nightmares, coming to block out the pretty swirl of galaxies and nebulae in the sky that seemed just a breadth away from her outstretched fingertips.

Well. That would make this a dream, then. The idea didn’t disturb her as it probably should have. It did seem a bit like a dream. A good one, at least. Her head lolled back and she watched the stars again. She noted absently that they moved a little; the swirls and whorls of far-off stars and planets glided silently in concentric circles, meshing and moving and somehow never meeting.

Never meeting. Lonely. Secluded and held in warm, comforting blackness, with only the light of other bodies for context and company.

Like her. She understood them, and she wondered if that was part of the dream too, or just part of her.

Maybe this wasn’t her dream at all. Maybe it belonged to someone else entirely. That thought gave her pause for the first time. Maybe the nightmare coming towards her on the wind was there for someone else. Even as she considered this, she knew that it couldn’t be true. It was coming for her, alright. She could feel it, behind her eyes and in the small place in her mind that wondered if she was sleeping or awake.

There was an ominous rumbling in the distance. The sound was more felt than heard. Thunder in her bones, and surely that would wake her up, wouldn’t it? But nothing changed, except that the wind grew colder.

Maybe she really was awake, then. It didn’t matter, in the end. Or maybe it did. Maybe dreams were all there was to begin with anyway.

Maybe she was always asleep. Maybe everyone was.

That must be it, she decided. This could be her dream, and still be someone else’s, everyone else’s, too. It was both.

The storm was nearly on her, now. Somehow, getting up and moving, running, trying to outpace the great outpouring of the dooming clouds never occurred to her. This wasn’t that kind of dream. She looked up at the sky again, but now half of it was covered with the dark gray storm. The thunder grew louder, and the rain began to pelt her face.

She was forced to squint a bit in order to see the stars, now. They were being blotted out, one by one. She wondered if the clusters and galaxies of lights still moved in their vast, tireless circles far above her, or if they ceased to be as soon as they were blocked from her sight.

For a moment, she wished she knew the answer. Then she would know if this was her dream, or someone else’s.

As the lightning started to crackle overhead, she had one last look at the huge, firefly-twinkling sky of revolving stars, and she had a strange, still feeling that she was looking at herself. Perhaps that was it. Maybe each of those lights, those stars floating up above her just out of reach behind the clouds, were all just girls sitting on hills. Maybe there was someone just like her, staring up and watching as one light in the thousand million grayed out, swallowed by an unseen cloud of nightmares.

In a way, that gave her comfort. At least it meant that someone was watching. Someone, at least, knew her. Even if this was just a dream. She hoped it was going better for the other lights in the sky.

And then the nightmare broke over her in lashing wind and pounding rain, and lightning scorched the sky and hurt her eyes. In the midst of the deluge and the roaring sound, she saw a bright light and heard a horrible sound, and she wondered if this wasn’t the real nightmare after all.

She closed her eyes and curled up in the wet grass, and hugged her knees to her chest and began to rock.

She remembered, now.

“Please,” she whispered, lost in the unhearing clouds and the faraway sky and the strength of the storm. “Please, don’t wake up.”

But it was too late. Because this wasn’t her dream after all, and even as her eyes began to droop, she fought the inevitable long enough to watch the clouds above her dissolve, fade away, blow into the something and the nothing of the starry sky.

And then her eyes closed, and the dream ended.

Somewhere on another hilltop, a boy looking up at the great wheeling of the cosmos saw a tiny little star go out, and wondered why the sight of it made him shiver.

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The Secluded Scholar (a sonnet) Tuesday, Aug 18 2009

The shadows on the wall grow long and dark

as golden afternoon begins to fade

and dwindle to a gray and wat’ry mark

that dampens now the joyous noise of day.

Do you remember, dearest, when you bade

me to fill up those shining afternoons

by making for my yellowed books a trade:

dust for air and twilight dark for bright noon?

Those lovely days have left us far too soon,

as treasured daytime bold creeps into night.

Oh, if your joyous love I could exhume,

the coming dusk would be no fearful sight!

I long for your bright laugh and golden looks,

for I am choked at night by dusty books.

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Sleep Saturday, Jul 25 2009

Sleep (sleep),  v or n :

An elusive tug on the corner of the mind. A slow warmth that creeps into the bones by way of fingers and toes. The goal of heavy quilts, soft blankets, hot cocoa. A child’s companion during a bedtime story; the soothing hum beneath low voices and murmured sounds. The gradual closing of the world to the eyes; the vision going all to glowing pink, and then to black. The slowing of the mind and hand. A film of cotton over the harsh, bold lines of the wakeful day. A slow gray mist that clouds the senses; alternatively, a heavy black weight that traps and smothers its victims. The passing of time and consciousness from the mind. The fog-dark stage for the colored lights of dreams; at other times, the shaded realm stalking fears and nightmares. Sweet relief from reality; a natural reset of perspective.  The quiet faith that one will wake tomorrow.

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Detention with Mr. Meeps Tuesday, Jun 23 2009

From the writing prompt, “Louder isn’t always better.”  I loved being able to focus on Oliver. And though he doesn’t appear much in this (in human form, anyway), it was also fun to introduce Lex.

—

The sound of something large and heavy being tipped over made Oliver Meeps pause for a moment outside the classroom door. He waited there for a moment, listening intently to the clamor of voices inside. A male voice was raised in anger and then abruptly cut off; something resembling a girlish scream rang out, and then Oliver heard the familiar sound of someone being tossed into a large wastebasket. This was followed directly by a loud flatulent noise that sounded very much like an angry octopus trying to extricate itself from a mound of paper and pencil shavings.

If Mr. Meeps had learned anything from fifteen years of hero work and another five of substitute teaching, it was that timing was everything. Straightening from leaning on his cane, he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders as best he could, and entered Springfield High’s after-school detention room.

Unsurprisingly, he was immediately greeted by the guilty-looking expressions of six football players. They were all gathered around the industrial-sized trashcan over in the corner, doing a good job of blocking his view of it. The desk directly next to the trashcan was knocked over, and if there hadnt’ been two notebooks scattered like debris around the desk, a worse observer than Oliver would never have known there was a seventh student in the room.

But Oliver was a good observer, and he also had the advantage of being able to physically see the moral character of every individual in the room. He took a moment to indulge in what he privately called the “soul searching” of the room’s occupants. The small balls of color he saw coming from each of the boys all had distinct shades of very guilty purple around the edges. He knew their types well. They weren’t necessarily bad at heart; they were just unruly, disrespectful, and rarely disciplined. A few of them even had the potential to do something quite impactful with their lives, if they picked better friends to associate with.

Still, they’d been caught red-handed, as it were, and for a split second Oliver knew he had their attention. He cleared his throat softly and looked at them over the tops of his glasses with gentle, if not innocent, brown eyes. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

They were clearly thrown by his mild manner. Another good thing he’d learned from his many experiences was to keep your voice down. Even after all these years, he could practically hear his mother’s voice murmuring, “Louder isn’t always better, dear. Sometimes the best response is the one they can barely hear.”

Oliver took a few careful steps forward, trying not to rely on his cane even though his hip was twinging painfully from an oncoming storm front. He smiled at them, quite calmly, and reached up to dust an imaginary speck of lint from his hat. “I believe,” he continued in that same even tone, “that you’ve put Mr. Laurence in the trashcan again. And unless I’m very much mistaken, that’s quite against the established detention-time rules. If you’d just remove him, then I won’t have to write you all up another detention.”

One of the boys (Oliver thought he was probably the quarterback) regained his composure and stepped forward. “Oh yeah? How you gonna make us? You’re just a substitute!”

For a moment Oliver very much felt their differences in stature; Meeps himself had always been something of a small man, even before he relied so much on his cane, and the boy before him was a good foot taller, not to mention at least a hundred pounds heavier.

If this had been a question of physical violence, Oliver would have beat a hasty retreat at this point. Fortunately, it wasn’t, and he knew full well that the poor boy had no idea who—or what—he was dealing with. He could tell just by looking at the way the boy’s colors shifted to a kind of gaudy yellow that he was bluffing, and not particularly well. He’d gotten away with this one too many times.

He’d clearly never had to deal with old Mr. M. Oliver smiled up at him without an ounce of trepidation. “Ah, I see. Just a substitute, of course. I can’t really do anything, can I?”

“That’s right,” the boy agreed with a smug look back at his friends. There was a soft popping noise from inside the wastebasket, followed by what sounded like a rat trying to claw its way up a smooth plastic wall.

Oliver nodded agreeably. “So you say. I’m sorry, what was your name?”

“Mayes,” he said proudly, in the same tone that other people used when they’d just won awards. “Billy Mayes.”

“Ah.” Meeps took some satisfaction in knowing he’d been right. “Our school’s famed quarterback, I think I’m correct in saying?”

“That’s right,” he said with a grin. Oliver could literally see his yellow-green arrogance swelling to ridiculous proportions in his chest. Several of the boys still at the trashcan made affirmative noises, and one even stepped forward to slap Billy on the back.

Oliver continued to smile, but now his eyes narrowed a bit. Someone that knew him well would have been wary of the glint that was forming at the back of his gaze. Billy Mayes had picked the wrong day to try and bulldoze the substitute teacher. Especially this substitute teacher. “Alright then, Mr. Mayes. If you can tell me why you have the right to stuff poor Lex into the trashcan, then I suppose I won’t have to give you a detention.”

Billy stared at him blankly for a moment. He was used to substitutes and teachers alike bowing before his superior athletic record. This wasn’t the out he’d been expecting. Still, he made an effort, his face screwing up in concentration until he finally answered, “…Because the guy’s a twerp?”

The noises inside the trashcan promptly ceased. Oliver only saw the tiny ant that appeared on the rim because he was looking for it. He watched the insect for a moment as it made its way to the classroom floor, and then returned his attention to Billy. He took a moment to really consider the boy’s colors; Mayes wasn’t innately evil, but the generally scarlet tones overlaying his character spoke of natural tendencies towards cruelty and domination.

“A twerp. I see.” Oliver paused a moment to consider which tact was best, but in the end, there was really only one option. The boy’s own soul gave Oliver all the information he needed to make his point. With a long sigh, he leaned forward slightly and spoke in a low voice. “You know, Billy, when I look at you, I see a lot of things. An accomplished athlete, a natural leader. You have quite a lot of promise.”

Mayes grinned widely, but Oliver wasn’t finished yet. He looked at the sickly yellow-green color radiating from the boy’s edges and identified it easily for what it was. “I also see someone that feels like he has to impress his friends, because he’s not all sure himself that he’s the kind of man he wants to be.” A petulant flair of bruised-purple color somewhere near the middle of Billy’s chest allowed Oliver to continue, “And I think that at the end of the day, Mr. Mayes, you know full well that you’re not fulfilling your potential. And you’re angry; at yourself, or maybe your parents, or just the world for not giving you the breaks it should have. But shoving fellow students into trashcans is not the way to solve these problems, Billy.”

The boy stared at him in shock, his arrogance silenced totally by the perceptive little man before him. It was likely nothing he hadn’t heard before, but something in the quiet delivery this time seemed to have hit home. He shook his head a few times, as if trying to dislodge Oliver’s words from his brain.

Meeps looked him squarely in the eye, and though he actively chose not to fully utilize his ability to show the boy his own colors, his words had more or less the same effect as he finished, “One day, Billy, you’re going to have to face yourself in the mirror and decide what your real colors are. Why not start now and make them ones worth looking at?”

Billy stood there a moment longer, clearly thinking hard in the silent room. No one noticed when Oliver glanced down and smiled at the ant now sitting on his left shoe. When he looked back up, he was just in time to catch the moment of decision on Billy’s face as the boy reluctantly turned to the others and said, “Alright, guys. Enough is enough. Let him out.”

The right tackle went to do so, but as he glanced into the trashcan he made a startled noise and jumped back. “Hey, he’s not in here! Where’d the punk go?”

Oliver felt a dangerous shifting by his foot and groaned. “Perhaps, under the circumstances, insults wouldn’t be–”

There was a tremendous popping noise down by the floor, but instead of turning into a raging hippopotamus or an angry bird like Oliver expected, the ant merely transformed into the despondent form of Lex Laurence.

The boy looked up through his fringe of badly-gelled hair and scrambled to his feet, nearly tripping over his far-too-baggy pants. Oliver took a moment to assess the boy’s colors, but they were no different than the other times he’d seen them: angrily embarrassed pink practically lit him up like a neon sign. Without a word, the sullen young man trudged over to his abandoned desk, scooped up his scattered things, and resettled at a spot across the room, glaring daggers at his temporarily-distracted persecutors.

“Right then,” Oliver said softly. “Maybe we should all return to our seats and get on with this detention?”

Amazingly, all seven of his students did exactly as they were told, spreading out to sit in desks again. Most of them stared absently into space, the atmosphere turning thoughtful.

Eventually, though, Billy Mayes broke from his reverie. With just a quick glance at Oliver, he cleared his throat and turned instead to Lex. “Hey, uh…Lex.”

The other boy looked up out of reflex, wincing like he expected a punch. He watched Billy with wary eyes.

But no punches or insults were thrown. With careful motions, Mayes leaned over and held out his hand. “I’m…uh. I’m sorry about the whole…you know, trashcan thing. And the…the locker thing. And the pool thing. It’s not that I don’t like you or anything.” He blinked at hearing those words come out of his mouth and quickly backtracked, “Well, I don’t, but only cuz I’m popular and you’re…well, you, you know?”

To Oliver’s bemusement, Lex nodded as if that made perfect sense.

Billy continued. “It’s just…it’s kind of fun to watch. That animal thing that you do. That’s kind of cool, you know?”

Oliver held his breath for a moment, fully aware that this was as close to an attempt at reconciliation that the quarterback would ever come.

After a long beat of careful study, Lex eventually extended his own hand and gave Billy’s a quick and furtive shake. “…You think it’s cool?”

Billy shrugged. “Kinda, yeah. At least it’s not some stupid power like…like…”

“Like turning people green!” one of the other football players chipped in helpfully.

“Yeah!” Billy agreed, obviously grateful for the help. “Animals are way cooler than turning people colors!”

Oliver smiled and sat back in the teacher’s chair. He knew that, in all likelihood, this moment of inter-clique student harmony wouldn’t last. Boys would be boys, after all. But for now, he took a deep breath, and settled in to watch over the frames of his glasses as the colors in the room shifted to a shade that was almost, but not quite, the blue-gray calm of understanding.

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The Sensational Mr. Poplar Sunday, Jun 21 2009

From the writing prompt, “Careful, I’ve heard they can sense fear.”  (Saul is a new addition to the Springfield cast of characters, but I quite like him.)

—

“Alright, everyone! It’s time to go home!” Saul Poplar clapped his hands enthusiastically. The sound was mostly lost in the raucous cheering of eighteen second-graders who’d just been told their weekend was in sight. In the ensuing rush of packing up, Saul made his way across the classroom to take his customary station by the back door.

He waited patiently until all eighteen students were lined up, more or less in single-file, all watching him expectantly. Timothy Green was practically standing on his teacher’s toes. The boy bounced a few times until Saul put a hand on his head and firmly anchored him to the ground. “Let’s say thank you one more time to Mr. Cramer for taking a whole day off to come tell us about being a TV personality!”

As one, the students looked over their shoulders to wave enthusiastically at their guest speaker of the day and chorused “Thank you!”

Carson Cramer waved back and beamed at them. “Thank you all for having me! And remember, no matter what Mr. Poplar tells you, being a news anchor is hard work!”

“Because news never stops!” several kids piped in, quite proud that they remembered his catch phrase.

Carson winked at them, which caused several of the girls to giggle, and then turned to start packing up the things he’d brought along to help with his demonstration.

Saul rolled his eyes affectionately, and then he reached for the coats. This had become something of a ritual for him; his empathic sense let him get a bit of a read on each kid’s mood through their possessions, at least since lunchtime when they’d last put their things on. And since the items had been sitting for a few hours, the vibes were mellowed enough that he didn’t get a headache from running across someone’s bad day, either.

He reached out and grabbed Timothy’s hat from its peg. He was completely unsurprised by the pang of sadness that echoed somewhere deep inside his chest as he pulled the hat all the way down to cover the boy’s eyes. Saul put one hand on Timothy’s shoulder for a second and re-straightened the hat with the other. “You did great today, Timothy. You were a big help to Mr. Cramer. I bet your parents would be proud of you.”

Timothy looked up at him and smiled, mind clearly on getting out of the classroom to do all the fun non-school things he had planned. “Thanks, Mr. P.” Saul knew full well that the words wouldn’t make up for Timothy’s need for the parental affection he got so rarely from his often-absent parents. But he felt the boy’s mood lift a little through the hat he still touched. It was something, anyway. Hat now properly adjusted, Timothy dashed off to his weekend.

Saul smiled after him, and then turned to the next student in line. Penny Dabbs looked up at him expectantly, and he smiled. “Hi, Penny. Have a good weekend! Eat a donut for me, alright?” He felt the brown-eyed girl’s pride in being picked as hall-monitor today still lingering in the purple wool of her scarf. Saul bent to be eye-level with her as he tied the scarf into place around her neck. His brow creased with worry; the happy emotions otherwise present were dulled, as they were so often lately, by Penny’s chronic tiredness. He spoke a little softer as he looked her in the eye. “Do your parents know you didn’t sleep very well this week?”

Penny shook her head, unusually silent. Saul nodded in understanding. “Maybe you should tell them.”

“Thanks, Mr. Poplar.” Her smile was small, but genuine. She took her purple hat as he handed it to her and put it on without her usual vigor as she left the classroom.

And so the line went, as Mr. Poplar spent a moment of time with each of his kids on their way out the door. The occasional word of encouragement or gentle reprimand, always spoken at the right time in the right tone, had a marked effect on each student as they left the room. At long last, all the second-graders were gone, the classroom empty except for its teacher and its guest speaker.

With a long sigh, Saul popped his neck and then crossed the room to Carson, pausing to straighten chairs and pick up trash along the way.

His friend watched him with a thoughtful expression, and the Scot’s blue eyes twinkled with something like admiration. “You’re right brilliant with the little ones, Saul. I’ve never seen a herd of seven year olds love someone like they love you. How d’you put up with ‘em every day? I’d go mad if I had your job.”

Saul gave an easy shrug as he reached the other man’s side. The truest answer–that he could read people’s emotions through inanimate objects and thus correctly gage their mood—wasn’t really a viable response. To buy time, he spun on his heel and tossed a wadded ball of construction paper in a perfect three-point shot to the trash can in the far corner of the room. “Ah, they’re great kids. Besides, Career Week gets them all excited. They always behave better when they have speakers to impress.” He reached out his hand. “Thanks again for coming in, Carson. I know you’ve got a million things to do.”

Carson clasped the teacher’s hand with a strong grip and a smile. “Ach, it was the least I could do. Besides, this was the easy lot. I have to show a bunch of misbehaving high schoolers around the set on Monday as a reward for some science fair.”

Saul snorted at that mental image. “Careful, I’ve heard they can sense fear.”

The TV anchor shook his head a little as he snapped the final microphone case shut. “In this town, I wouldn’t doubt it. It’d be a right handy skill, though, in my business.” He chuckled to himself. “And probably in yours too, come to think of it.”

There was really no way for Saul to answer that but with a very honest, “Yeah, it really would.” He went over to collect the last two jackets on the pegs. He put on his own jacket and scarf before scooping up Carson’s long gray coat.

He actually had to close his eyes and lean against the wall for a second as a muddled ball of confusion, exhaustion and maybe a little bit of fear expanded from the center of his chest and spread out to leave his fingers tingling. His head hurt for a moment from the echoes of what must have been the killer tension headache Carson had been fighting when he donned his coat this morning.

Saul shook his head firmly and the emotions faded to a dull unease. It all took less than a few seconds, and when he turned and handed Carson his coat, his expression was clear of the emotions he now knew his friend had been feeling all day.

He handed Carson the garmet silently. The other man accepted it with a smile. “Thanks, lad.” He put his cases on a nearby desk to slip it on.

Saul watched him with new attention. Now that he looked for them, he could just see the lines around the other man’s mouth and eyes that told of his suffering through a monster headache that would have made the average person stay home from work. He could see the tiredness in Carson’s frame now, too, a slump to his normally straight shoulders that Saul felt guilty for not noticing before now.

If Saul hadn’t felt the maelstrom of unpleasantness from Carson himself, he would never believe that someone could be in that much turmoil inside and barely show a trace of it to the outside world. How the man managed to pull it off was a mystery. Impulsively, he reached out to straighten Carson’s jacket collar where it stuck up on one side. He took the opportunity to look his friend squarely in the eye. “Hey. You doing okay?”

Carson blinked, genuinely surprised by the worry in Saul’s voice. “Aye, ‘course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

When he only received a raised eyebrow in response, he sighed, and his shoulders slumped a little more under Saul’s hand. “I’m alright, really. Just haven’t been sleepin’ well, is all. You know how it is. Doctor says it’s just stress, I’ll come through it eventually.” He gave a wry grin and shook his head. “Never can fool you, can I?”

Saul let go of him to button up his own jacket. “Someone’s got to keep you on the straight and narrow. You’re too good at acting for your own good, but I could practically feel that headache from across the room.”

Carson’s mouth twitched into another smile as they headed for the door. “Are you sure you can’t sense things a wee bit after all? Because I could use you as a news story. Saul Poplar, the Sensational Second-Grade Teacher!”

“You must be having a slow news week. You’ll have to try harder than that, my friend.” He let Carson precede him through the door and paused for a second to look over the rows of desks, each one still radiating with the emotions of their occupants. To Saul, it was almost as if his class was still in the room.

The Sensational Second-Grade Teacher. Well, maybe he was. But it wasn’t only because he just happened to be able to feel his student’s emotions through their hats. The thought was a comforting one. With one last look around the room, Mr. Poplar turned off the lights and went to walk Carson to his car.

The classroom stilled, warm and empty, and though he didn’t know it, a vague outline of Saul’s compassion lingered in the doorway long after he was gone.

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