A quote: “Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.” ~~ Albert Schweitzer
I’ll start with a story …
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He had hung up on the doctor so he wasn’t surprised to see her climbing up the path and stopping at the front porch.
“Sarah.”
“Jim, I’m here for Becky …”
“No, Sarah. Becky isn’t going anywhere. You of all people should know …”
“Jim! Wait …”
“… that, after I had to take her out of school 3 years ago … after her mother …”
“Please listen …”
“I don’t have to listen to anything, Sarah. She’s my daughter, not some piece of equipment you get to waltz in here …”
“Dad! Stop”
Jim turned, startled as Becky came out. She looked pale, pained, “I called her, Dad.”
Becky glanced at Sarah, “It’s true, right? Not my imagination?”
“Yes, rescue is on scene, but we could really use you.”
“It’s a bus, Dad. Ran off Old Frontage Road. I heard them. I can hear them now.” She grasped his arm.
Becky’s mom Touched him like this, that time after he broke his arm… like a light sweet melody soothing away the pain, mending him. But Becky’s a 100-piece orchestra. Dear God, how her power had grown!
She let go, voice low, “I got this, dad. I really do. You need to let me go.”
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
Cameron says: My wife held up her hands and showed me the creature she was holding. I sighed inwardly. “All right. Bring it into the house.”
I made a small shelter for it and we fed the pixie over the next two days. Its strength returned and it was soon flying around the house, nearly causing a lot of destruction. I opened the door and stepped back as it zipped out without a backward glance.
The next day, we had a visit from an actual Fae Noble. He bowed to me and my wife then indicated the pixie at his shoulder.
“My messenger said that your wife found him dying in the field and that you nursed him back to health.”
“He’s telling the truth,” I said cautiously.
“I wish to repay you for your deeds, mortal.”
“Nothing is required.” Before the Noble could object, I pointed out where he was standing. “This land is my domain. It would be boorish of me to demand recompense, especially since I was not sure your servant would live.”
“Indeed,” the Noble said thoughtfully. “Then if I may offer something else?”
And that is why my family’s bed and breakfast gets so many supernatural guests.
Darleen Click says: ooo… Love this!
Cameron says: Thanks! I enjoy the modern day magic idea.
I’d been miserable from the moment the Kitties delivered us to this world. Angry because we’d had nothing to do with those idiots in Watts who thought they could go up against a civilization that could fly between the stars as easily as we did from LAX to Sydney, but we got swept up in the mass scruffing just because we were in the same geographical area. But it was more the sense of everything being wrong — the air, the water, the gravity, even the light. You think you’re miserable when you have jetlag from a flight across seventeen time zones, but it’s nothing like being dropped on a distant planet as an involuntary settler.
The first month or so I just slogged through the days, going through the motions of living. Claim some land at the edge of town, put up the prefab buildings they provided all settlers, voluntary or not, and try my hand at raising some rabbits and the rodents that looked like capybaras and were a major part of the Kitties’ diet. But my heart wasn’t really into it. I wasn’t one of those people whose families got pushed out of agriculture in the big shakeouts of the 80’s and 90’s and never quite adjusted to town jobs.
And then came the day when I was wandering down a trail, more of an animal track, and noticed something odd about the light here. Not exactly like the light back home, but still brighter, more lively, different in a way that I couldn’t quite put words on.
Curious, I walked closer, and realized I was standing in a partial circle of dressed stones. Ancient ones, weathered enough that the tool-marks had faded.
Someone had lived here, centuries ago — but according to what we’d heard, the Kitties had only discovered this planet a few decades ago, and just completed the pre-settlement survey to ensure there were no indigenous sophonts. Could even their telepaths be mistaken about the presence of intelligent, tool-using beings?
Long before we humans had the ability to fly in space, we’d written stories of what we might find out there — including the possibility of failing to recognize the presence of a species whose life-cycle might include long periods of dormancy, or forms that had only the potential to become sapient, until the settlers had done terrible harm to the rightful owners of the world.
Time to let the Kitties know they might have made a big mistake — and hope they didn’t consider me an impertinent simian for telling them.
Darleen Click says: Thank you! I always enjoy these stories of “Kitties”.
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