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| Feeny and the Sparkles | |
| By Emmuttmax | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 05 August 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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This is another partial long short story I'm working on. I haven't decided whether to compete "The Snail Pyschiatrist" or this one first. Any suggestions?
Feeny and the Sparkles
Spellbound, Feeny Lambert watched from under a towering maple tree as bog sparkles hovered above the cranberries. A dull, blue, neon fog circled the bog, waiting to crawl into its moist bed atop the berries, but each time one of its smoky tendrils reached beyond the bank, a sparkle darted over and slapped it back. Feeny Lambert was a nightman, a forest spelunker who seldom foraged this close to civilization. He preferred to keep to the world he had created in the primeval coastal mountains, a world of pristine wonders and savage beauty where survival and entertainment were synonymous. But tonight, he and Stella, a Roosevelt elk cow, decided to probe the outskirts of Salmon City, Oregon in search of a new pair of pants for Feeny and a brush for Stella. Seven years had passed since they had ventured this close to what passed for civilization, and as Feeny tried to make sense of what he was observing, he reconsidered his need for new pants. As Feeny mulled his options, a muted sucking sound slurped from the ground nearby. He slowly turned his head as Stella came up beside him, her hooves puckering the moist earth as they withdrew from the indentations her steps caused. Feeny raised his index finger to his lips silently telling Stella quiet was called for. Stella, a quixotic yet highly intelligent elk, shook off his admonition and let out a faint snort. A plume of chilled air rushed from her nostrils. Instantly, three sparkles jetted to where the nightman and his companion stood, hovering approximately 18 inches from their faces. A warm burst of flatulence burst from between Stella’s flanks, but otherwise she appeared unfazed by the sparkles’ attention. Feeny, on the other hand, took a quick step backward. The massive elk looked at him in surprise; she had seen him in perilous situations before, and he seldom, if ever, reacted with anything but calm, assertive energy. Feeny’s minor withdrawal evoked movement among the three sparkles; two of them circled his head while the third approached within a millimeter of Stella’s large, black proboscis. This time, the elk and her forest friend stood their ground. From the center of the bog, a half dozen more sparkles gathered in a “V” formation and slowly made their way to the other three by the banks. The nine sparkles suddenly began to pulse, changing from the dull, neon-blue color into a diamond-blue and back again. The only sound was the wind caressing the canopy of the copse at the edge of the bog. Just as Feeny was about to open his mouth and attempt communicating with the sparkles, a brain bladder popped inside his head, sending an audible ping bouncing off his eardrums. He heard a voice, an upper-range baritone voice, within the confines of his cranium. “I’ll answer that,” the voice stated. “I am one of many, and many of one. My companion and I sleep beneath trees and dine on the good. We appear very different, but are designed much the same. We prefer dark among many and light where there are few. My friend requires pants; he has little hair, and cold comes soon. I seek a brush with which to groom my coat. Comfort and survival compel us to be on this path. So, what’s up with you?” Now, in all the years Feeny Lambert had known Stella, he had never once heard her speak. In fact, he wasn’t sure if she had just spoken, but the content of the sentences suggested she had. He looked at Stella, who was looking at the sparkles, who began to hum like a low-voltage transformer. As Feeny opened his mouth to ask Stella if she had indeed spoken, he was interrupted. “Yeah Feeny, it was me,” the voice rattled inside his head. “I’m not really sure what is going on, but I can hear you in my head, and I can hear these bright, round things too. So far, they are just curious about who we are and what we’re doing here. They don’t seem hostile, but obviously things have gotten a little weird, so let’s just be cool and let me do the talking…or thinking…or whatever it is I’m doing.” Feeny wasn’t about to argue with a telepathic elk, even if it was his best friend, so he simply nodded at Stella. Sudden movement drew his eye back to the nine sparkles who had now begun a rhythmic air dance, a graceful electric slide, formal in design but chaotic in execution. As the terpsichorean orbs busted a move, Feeny thought to Stella, “Did they say why they’re here?” “Not yet. When I asked them ‘What’s up,’ they started all the gyrating.” “Well ask them again.” Stella gave a short snort and then turned up the volume of her thoughts to attract the sparkles’ attention. “Uh…excuse me…you guys, excuse me.” The air dance came to an abrupt end, and the sparkles gathered in front of Stella’s large, elongated snout. “Listen guys,” said the elk, “We don’t mean you any harm, we’re just passing through, but quite honestly, my friend and I have never seen anything like you that didn’t have an electrical cord attached. So, we were just wondering who you are and what’s going on here? Don’t take that wrong, I mean you’re free to do what you want; it’s just that we are curious. It’s not everyday we run across…uh…things like you, and since I’ve never been able to talk before, I’m guessing you had something to do with that, which I appreciate. If you feel like telling us about yourselves, that’s cool, if not, we’ll just head on down the path towards Salmon City.” About a hundred and fifty yards south of the cranberry bog, Calliope Prescott turned off Leopard Street onto a one-lane dirt road leading to her Grandmother’s house. Calliope tended bar at the Driftwood Lounge adjacent to the Red Roof Inn in Salmon City, and tonight she worked the late shift. She was dressed in a short, denim skirt, tie-dyed t-shirt, and ostrich-skin cowboy books. The coolness of the evening caused her to borrow a blue, hooded sweatshirt from one of the bouncers at the club. Calliope enjoyed the three-mile walk between the town and the house she shared with her maternal grandmother even under the darkest skies and heaviest of fog. Walking alone on a lone country road in the daytime could be risky for a young woman her grandmother often told her, but at night it could be perilous. Calliope was not unaware of the dangers that could arise, but she felt safe enough; she was accompanied on each trip by a 50,000-watt stun gun. As Calliope approached the stretch of road that ran closest to the cranberry bog’s southernmost bank, she noticed the fog seemed to be glowing near the area around the bog. Puzzled, she stepped off the road and carefully made her way to the bog’s edge. Clearing the veil of water vapor, she, like Feeny Lambert and Stella the elk, stopped abruptly and stood awestruck staring at the sight before her. A churning mass of round, sparkles danced and weaved silently over the middle of then bog. She didn’t know what to think, so she didn’t think; she just took the spectacle in. Out of the corner of her right eye, Calliope sensed movement. Slowly turning her head, a small group of nine sparkles came into focus; they were about 20 yards to the north. As her eyes adjusted to the not-as-bright periphery of the bog where the detached sparkles floated, she noticed a man in tattered jeans and longs sleeve military-style jacket standing before the sparkles. Next to him was a female elk. “Holy crap,” Calliope thought to herself, “This is some weird shit.” As soon as her thought was complete, three of the sparkles before the elk and the man sped over to her and hovered three inches from her forehead. Calliope tightened her grip on the stun gun in the pocket of the sweatshirt. With the departure of the three orbs, Feeny Lambert and Stella the elk followed their trajectory and were startled when their eyes landed on a woman. “Who is that?” thought Stella.” “I don’t know,” Feeny answered, “but by the way she’s holding herself, I’d say she has a gun in her pocket.” “That doesn’t sound good. Do you think she’s a hunter?” “Hell Stella, it’s the middle of the night. I don’t believe she’d be out hunting. She looks more like a lumberjack hooker.” “What’s a hooker,” Stella wanted to know. “It’s a….never mind, we’ve got other things to think about. Look, she’s coming this way.”
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