Invisible Man

This is a reworked redux of one I posted a couple of years back for a Daily Prompt. It fits right in with today’s Daily Prompt. Hope you enjoy it.

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“Wadda ya mean you can’t see me? I’m right here in fronta yer face!”

“I said I can’t see you! My ears tell me where you should be, but you’re not there. You’re not here! You’re not anywhere! There’s nothing where my ears tell me the sound of your voice is coming from.”

“Aw, come on, quit foolin’ around. Look. I’m wavin’ my arms around.”

“Yeah, maybe you are, but I’m not seein’ it because you’re not in the room.”

“What, have ya gone blind? I told you that you needed to go to the eye doctor. Now maybe you’ll listen to me.”

“I’m listening to you right now and I can see just fine! I’m in the living room of our house, but you’re not! There’s a ceiling fan in the center of the room with an oiled bronze finish and dark oak blades. It’s turning on low speed right now. It has two chains extending down with oiled bronze finials, one for the light, which by the way is on, and one for the fan. The couch is a muted floral print in tan, green and rose, with rolled arms and three green accent cushions. The chairs are upholstered in a solid rose color and pick up the rose in the couch pattern …“

“Oh come on, you could do that from memory. You bought all this stuff anyway. You really need to go to the eye doctor if you can’t see me here!”

“…and the cat just walked into the room carrying her favorite stuffed mouse toy. There, how’s that?”

“Ah, that cat always carries around that mouse around. It’s like a security blanket. That’s true any day at any time … oh, sorry kitty. Didn’t mean to step on you.”

“Yeah, you see her, and it looked like something spooked her, but there’s nothing there to spook her! Because she can’t see you either! And now she’s really spooked!”

“Mrreeooow! Hsssss”

“Oh come on. You’re going crazy here. There I just touched your hand.”

“Yeah, I felt you touch me, but I didn’t see you touch me because you’re not there!”

“Ok, I’ll prove it to you, come on with me and let’s stand in front of the hallway mirror. Jeez, you’ve really got to make that eye appointment.”

“There you go smart ass, I see me, but there’s no one else in the mirror!”

“Oh, holy crap. The WP people gave me a superpower today. I could disappear and reappear at will. But they didn’t say how long it would last, and I forgot to ask. I must have disappeared and forgot to reappear before the power wore off.”

“See, I told you that you weren’t here! What are you doin’ messin’ around with superpowers anyway? And especially superpowers from the WP people! Serves ya right.”

“Yeah, I guess it does. But there’s a bit of a problem here.”

“Oh, and what would that be, Mr. Invisible Man?”

“Well, they won’t repeat the prompt for another couple years, so I won’t get the superpower back till, sheez, 2018?”

“Ha! Guess I won’t be ‘seein’ ya around’ then, eh?”

“Yeah, I guess not.”

“Now you see what I’m talkin’ about!”

“Yeah. Invisible“

Passing the Time

The summer seemed to last forever. The heat and humidity, the worst anyone could remember, even oppressed the passage of time.

“Gonna be another scorcher, huh Bub.”

“Yep, reckon so Jimmy.”

Time inched forward on Bub’s front porch, Bub in his rocker, Jimmy on the steel glider. Flies buzzed, birds chirped, cicadas sang. Creation’s symphony.

“Never known it like this for such a spell, have you Bub?”

“Nope, don’t recall the likes a this’n.”

Leaving Every Day

The train was there again, on the sidetrack, by the water crane. Steam escaped with sighs of relief. Molly watched from her perch as the fireman loaded the tender’s water tanks. Coal-black clouds swirled when the fuel bunker filled.

She knew the fireman would soon disappear into the locomotive’s cab to stoke the firebox. Thick black smoke would curl idly through the fire tubes, into the smokebox, escaping through the stack. One long whistle by the engineer meant the boiler was back to pressure, followed by an enormous belch of steam and smoke and cinders, and the train would move.

It would build speed again, each steamy huff arriving sooner than the last, and Molly would wonder, as she always did, where the train was going. She would try to imagine what that place was like, how it felt to be on the train, going somewhere other than Clay County. She’d been to Iola, and to Louisville, the County seat. But she knew there was more than Clay County.

The train disappeared over the horizon, the only reminder a ragged stripe of dark grey puffs swirling in the summer breeze. Molly sat while her imagination finished its journey to all the places she knew she would never see. She roused, slowly returning to Clay County, and started the long walk from the hill overlooking the railroad tracks to the chores that waited for her on the family farm. She’d come to the hill tomorrow, to let her imagination travel again.

[Author’s note: this is a stab at short fiction, it came in at 250 words. Feedback?]