Flash Fiction: Psychic Kitty

My entry for The Fairy Ring Writing Contest over at Yearning For Wonderland. Because I could never pass up a chance to write about fairies, right?

Psychic Kitty

“Hey dude, you ever wonder what your cat’s looking at?” asked Amy.

Lil took a sip of wine, “You think my cat’s schizo?”

“Or what if he sees things we don’t? Cats' eyes are always focusing on 'imaginary' stuff. Even chasing it. What if he’s seeing things on another level?”

“What like, ghosts?” Lil looked at her innocent grey tom.

“Nah, a cat wouldn’t chase ghosts around –”

“Maybe the ghosts of mice.”

“Mice don’t get ghosts.”

“Look who’s suddenly an expert on the supernatural,” Lil snorted, “Please, what’s my cat seeing? Bunnies from parallel dimensions?”

“I’m thinking more like fairies.”

“I’m thinking you need to get your head examined.”

“Why not?" said Amy, "Animals have better instincts than humans… what about those goats who know when earthquakes are coming?”

“Well, since you’ve brought up the irrefutable scientific evidence of the goats who know when earthquakes are coming, I guess I have to submit to your premise.”

“You can get all sarcastic, missy!” Amy grinned, “But life’s full of weird shit.”

“The weirdest shit this cat’s ever done is somehow convince himself that I enjoy seeing dead birds on my doorstep in the mornings,” Lil scooped up the tom and looked into his green eyes, “Are you psychic, my fluff? Are you a psychic kitty?”

“Well, obviously he’s not gonna admit to it…” said Amy cheekily. 

The cat had decided he’d had enough of this patronizing cuddle-fest and squirmed out of Lil’s lap.

He strutted outside into the pale light of the new moon, raising himself up on two legs which quickly became straighter, more humanoid, as he effortlessly morphed into his true form: a proud faerie prince with a plush grey fur coat.

Smirking, he decided it was a good night to hex some sparrows. 

(Words: 306. Doh!)

Here are the contest details, and other entries!

Short Story: A Girl And Her Skeleton

 Inspired by The Skeleton Song by Kate Nash. Since this is basically a fanfic, let's have a disclaimer: these characters are not mine and I'm not making money off them. Cool? Cool.

 Everyone thought Kate was strange. She didn't look or act particularly strange, but someone who's friends with a skeleton can't be that normal, can they?

Everywhere they went, people would ask Kate about the skeleton.

"Is that a real?"

"Does he talk?"

"Why's he wearing clothes, then?"

"Where'd you find him?"

"How does he talk? Where's his voice box?"

"Don't you like real people?"

Kate didn't know how to make people understand that the skeleton was always kind to her. When her parents got divorced, the skeleton listened to her cry and patted her back with his bony hand. When the kids at school teased her and threw prestick in her hair, the skeleton would cut out the sticky mess with such care that you could barely see the difference, and soon they'd be laughing about buying a silly hat for every day of the week.

As she got older, Kate became more conscious of herself, and of her skeleton. She used to stick her tongue out when people sniggered at her friend without flesh - now she'd blush and edge away from him.

"What's with the bone-bag?" A boy called as they walked down the street, "if ya want a real boning you know where to look, sweetheart."

The skeleton simply pulled his spine a little straighter and ignored the calls. But Kate crossed her arms and wished the skeleton didn't insist they always walk together. Didn't he have any other friends?

After she left school, Kate realized that skeletons lived a long time. The indulgent smiles some strangers gave her happened less and less – a little girl or moody teenager with a skeleton for a friend might be seen as a phase. But after she'd grown out of pigtails and later out of black nailpolish, her skeleton began to look more and more like an ominous sign of upcoming spinsterhood.

At night, Kate would lie awake and wonder how different her life would be without the skeleton. She could walk down the road with nobody bothering her. She could go to the shops and not have to deal with the awkward explanations that every passer-by and curious shopkeeper forced her into.

One night, Kate was still awake as her room began to glow with pre-dawn light. She rolled over and stuffed her pillow over her head, as if that would drown out the voices in her memory, all those worries she wished she could do something about. She quickly thumped her head on a cold metal object - a hammer. Underneath her pillow? She hadn't the faintest idea how it'd gotten there.

Writing Wednesday! Extract from 'The Singing Diamond'

Clear. Something like birdsong, almost like a voice. The diamond sang and would always sing. 

Nobody knew how or why. 

They say it was found by a rogue traveller in the rainforest, who had walked past the trees and his eyes had been blazed with a beam so white and so strong he turned towards it. He marched out of magnetism he took for curiosity, and found it perched in a tree amongst birds of paradise. It was flawlessly cut and heavy as a pebble in his hand, and as it pressed against his palm he could have felt the tiny vibrations of the throatless voice, if he'd stopped to notice.

Many people stole it and sold it, and their lives felt quiet and cold when they let it go. 

It was a myth and a curiosity. The bloated aristocrat who owned it for twenty years and wore it in a pendant to every party (where she had to talk over it) held it in a room on the very farthest tip of her estate. She hated the sound and loathed wearing the damn thing, and even so far away she'd swear she could hear it, taunting her, interrupting the self-obsessed whirl of her thoughts with its lilting song. 

When the opportunity came to pass it on came, her greed gave way to her frustration. Her son's new wife, whom she hated only slightly more than the diamond, was suffering under the truth of the aristocrat's disapproval. The aristocrat saw the gorgeous opportunity to both appear vastly generous while making the new girl's life secretly miserable with this sparkling curse, and she gave the diamond to her daughter-in-law with manic flourish. 

As the aristocrat lay down in bed that night, knowing full well the damned thing was traveling further and further away in a padded box in her daughter-in-law's arms, she wept. Because she knew the diamond was gone, but she could still fucking hear it.

 *

The Singing Diamond is a completed short story that I'm not sure is strong enough to put into my collection. It's hard to make a compelling story from the point of view of an inanimate object. It's gone through several edits and... I still don't know.