A Gut Feeling
Flash fantasy
I try to reserve my flash pieces for paid subscribers, but I wanted to share this with you.
The moon dangled low like a pocket watch, and its hour hand fell, golden and dented upon the cobbled street where it pointed from the moon’s heart to Aeryn’s, whispering that her time had come. She stood at the stoop of a shop—small, crooked, and wrapped in ivy—and the world shimmered gray and silver in the moonlight. Behind the window, shelves lined with glass bottles reflected her own ghostly image.
The old woman at the counter glanced as she entered, the tap of her finger counting away the seconds. "You’ve come for a wish.”
Aeryn nodded. "Just the one."
The woman gestured to the rows of dimly glowing vials behind her. "Choose carefully. A wish must be earned."
As Aeyrn focused her attention, the glow brightened. One pulsed with the warmth of dawn, another shimmered with the deep blue of ocean waves, but her gaze settled on the smallest vial—twilight-colored, whispering with trapped starlight.
"You wish for truth," the woman said. "Are you certain?"
Aeryn paid her coin. The old woman uncorked the bottle. A wisp of light spiraled into the air, and the world split open. Shadows swirled. Whispers rose. A cascade of buried lies unraveling at her feet.
With trembling hands, she staggered from the shop and into the moonlight. A horseman passed by, screaming something Aeryn couldn’t understand. She felt the whip of horsehair and heard the receding gallop.
She saw herself dead upon the street and saw herself alive and raging at the would-be, incidental assassin. She saw every variation of herself. In one, she found the tavern, drank herself drunk, and never made it home. In another she ran to her husband, her mouth full of apologies, her heart full of fear.
The truth in her gut spoke. Every road before her was a dead end. None led to hope, and in none would she find rescue.
Then she looked back at the shop, saw herself enter, heard herself say, “Teach me.”
The bottles glowed brighter than the moon and cast a second hand across the floor, pointing from truth’s heart to Aeryn’s.
The time had come. She stepped inside.
-END-
Thaddeus Thomas
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