Hurting A Fly

She told me she was a pacifist, a vegan, and a dozen other things when I saved her from bandits. I would have ridden off without her, or just taken her to the nearest village, but she was small enough for my steed, and I needed company.

Plus she was a decent cook, at least with the plants she'd find. But slowly I introduced her to meat, and hoped that I could eventually get her to a point where she could kill if need be.

The day I needed her to save me, she couldn't kill.

But she could maim.

Melting Snowflake

I took my time shaking the snow from my jacket as I stood in the doorway of her house. If you're going to be breaking up with someone, the least you could do was not dirty her home while you did it.

I paused for a moment before knocking. I went over what I wanted to say, what I wanted to explain to her.

Then I knocked.

She opened the door wearing a cropped jacket. And nothing else.

I paused, trying to remember what I had decided I had to tell her a moment prior.

But it had melted away.

The Peninsula

The peninsula was settled by the animals because of the food, either the plants or the other animals there eating the plants.

The peninsula was then settled by humans for similar reasons.

The village was slowly formed over the years, the need to have a place to raise children, store food, and then somewhere to praise the Gods.

The village became a tribe, the tribe became a society, the village became a capital.

It was built up into a bustling city, exposed to the sea.

And the ships of other societies.

Eventually, the plants and the animals reclaimed the land.

Orders

She ordered coffee, I had tea.

We made small talk, which mainly consisted of large parts of our identities, where we were born, how we made money, what labels we applied to ourselves.

She ordered a double scotch, I had a cider.

We spoke more in-depth, which mainly consisted of small things, our stances on the use of symbolism in Hitchcock, if Monty Python was overrated, how we judged each other compared to societal standards.

She ordered one last drink, I hailed a taxi.

We spoke only in orders and declarations.

She ordered breakfast in bed, I just had tea.

The Owed Money

"I don't have the money!"

The gunman moved his hand slightly to the right and pulled the trigger, the sound deafing both of them for a moment.

"Actually I do have the money!"

The gunman spun his hand and thus the gun, indicating to hurry up.

"But I don't have it here!"

The gunman pulled the trigger back on his gun.

"It's in a safety deposit box! At the bank! Down the street, you just need the key-"

The gunman was surprised when the gun went off, but at least he had the key now.

Too bad he needed two.

Growing Numb

At some point you grow numb to this.

There's only so many times you can ride into a village, kill the men, enslave the women, burn the houses, and do all the things that the Leader needs us to do to win the war. Eventually you stop seeing them as people, stop seeing them as families and communities. Eventually they are vermin to be eradicated, a plague to be dealt with, a simple problem with a simple answer of the blade, the flame, the righteous fury.

At some point you grow numb to it all.

Right? Eventually? Hopefully really soon?

Getting To The Point

It was an unusual problem, trying to work out how to tell someone that you've worked out their secret, and that is that they are immortal. Or near enough to make no difference.

We'd been travelling together for a couple months by then, and she'd lived through the worst beatings and spells imaginable. She said she could dodge well, but that couldn't be it.

So I decided to wake her up with a sword through the belly to prove my point.

My original problem was thus solved, and then I had a new one of where to dump the body.

Keep Skipping

I can't even remember my home timestream anymore. I've skipped into so many different worlds, seen so many variations, I don't think anything could truly shock me.

Russia winning the Cold War? That's small potatoes compared to humans having three heads, all light being ultraviolet, or the millions of dead, cold microuniverses.

But I'll keep skipping, keep searching. Because no matter how many free love timelines or worlds made of chocolate I come across, one thing remains true.

I may not remember my original world, but I remember you.

And one of these worlds must have another you in it.

A Justified Jerk

I arrived after midnight. The old crone was in a rocking chair outside her shack, threading one last prepared piece of meat onto a drying rack.

"You could have come in the day. But at least I got some winter preparations done."

I went to speak when she shook her head.

"I don't need justifications."

She tossed me a small jar.

"Just a few drops will kill."

I considered this, and then unscrewed the top and tossed some drops on her.

I probably should have wondered why she hasn't seen it coming, certainly enough not to steal the poisoned meat.

The 21 Story

He sat there for a dozen or so hands, just staring at his stack of chips, before finally shoving them all into the betting square, the exact upper limit bet.

He was in the middle seat, so everyone could see him get the ace.

They didn't know his story, but they could sense that this was a moment that would change his life, and there was a silent willing for him to get a face card.

He got a five, but everyone somehow knew he'd draw another one to get 21.

Except the dealer hit blackjack so he lost automatically.

The Moment She Was Chosen

What was she doing? Maybe tossing out her coffee at a bum? But after avoiding the charity collector, she came up to the corner, still focused on the phone in her hand, when He appeared.

He took hold of her wrist. She began to scream, but it died on her lips when she saw the look in his eyes, as if she was looking into all of existence and it was looking back.

“You. You get to live.”

She always assumed that it was some sort of compliment, until everyone else dropped dead, and she realised it was a punishment.

The Piano Perfectionist

He never stopped mid-song.

It was a point of pride for him. No matter how badly the patrons were behaving, his hands didn't leave the keys until the song was done.

Drinks thrown in his face, brawling idiots rolling across his piano, or even worse, drunks thinking they had a voice or ability matching his own, he could keep his cool and get to the end of the song no matter what.

This could have ended badly for him, had someone wanted to ruin his record deliberately.

The gun wasn't aimed at him though, and he was playing 4'33" anyway.

Bloodmage's Talk With Glory

I found him sitting on top of Everest. I brushed some snow off my jacket's shoulder as I sat down next to him. After a few moments of just the wind blowing, he finally spoke.

"So am I a supervillian now?"

I chose my next words very carefully.

"Not if you come back with me now."

He chuckled.

"Hence the soulbound cuffs?"

He reached up my sleeve and pulled them out, then concentrated and disintegrated them. I took the moment to drag my recently soulbounded fingernail across his throat.

"That made you a supervillian." I told him as he died.

Space Samurai

We aren't all human, there are Andorans, Quinlions, any race you can think of, there will be at least one Samurai in some solar system out there.

We don't have a unified code of ethics, some of us have strict moral stances, but many more have no qualms about doing anything immoral, illegal, whatever.

We don't use swords, laser or otherwise, at least not exclusively. We don't pledge ourselves exclusively to one noble, we don't kill ourselves over failure, we don't even dress like them.

We just kill people for money. And it's a cooler name than assassin or thug.

Pinch Me

I thought I knew what he was going to say as he sidled up to me in a baggy jacket, I assumed he was going to talk through some meaningless small talk then ask if I needed any ‘supplies’.

He surprised me twice, first by skipping the small talk, and then by what he offered.

“Hey man, you want a dream?”

He flicked back his wrist, the jacket sliding back to reveal a row of small vials, each one containing some colored, glittering mist.

I pinched my arm, but I wasn’t sleeping. So I distracted him then pinched the dreams.

A Bad Clip

The gun lay between us, smoke drifting from the barrel. Both our hands were shaking, one from shock, the other from blood loss.

I looked up at her, blinking back a tear. "I'm so sorry... I didn't mean for this."

It took her a few attempts to find her voice. When it did come, it was a hoarse whisper.

"Really? You didn't mean for this? Oh well that's fine, you're forgiven."

"Sarcasm? Now?"

"Well what the fuck do you want from me? I've just shot someone, that's a new experience for me!"

"I want you to get help."

"Oh, right."

The Root Of All Evil

From an early age, I trusted money, and nothing else.

I didn't try to make people love me, didn't paint myself as some sort of saint worthy of adoration. I had businesses, and to work in them I paid people. I paid them well, and they did as I asked.

Money gave me a roof over my head, food in my belly, and a series of women in my bed, before I settled on one who would tolerate the required arrangement.

And in the end, money didn't betray me. The 'tolerate' woman's lust for money is what did me in.

Windowless

There’s plenty of reasons why a room may not have windows.

The simplest reason is that it’s inside a building. That doesn’t automatically preclude windows, but it certainly lowers the chances. There’s the related issue of being below ground level, too.

Or maybe it’s about controlling some aspect of the room. If it has to be kept cold, or dark, or quiet, any number of variables that a window would mess up, for perfectly legitimate, normal reasons.

But when you wake up in one tied up and gagged, even if it wasn’t designed for that, it’s still clearly been adapted.