Summer Break

Summer is calling and I'm listening. My brain needs to marinate in the x's of sun's rays and the brine of ocean waters so I can pull together life and writing and creativity in the fall. I will be back in September with new stories, and meanwhile, I hope your summer is amazing :).

Love, Elm

Spilled Ice

Tess was high--high on the noise, high on the crush, high on the energy that coursed through the hall and kept her writhing with the nearest body to the music.

She flowed her way over to the bar and ordered a drink, wishing the nice boy who had purchased her drink earlier was still around. Maybe he'd come back. Maybe they'd meet again on the floor. Or not, it didn't matter. She had enough.

Trembling, she raised the glass to her lips and chugged.

"Hey," she heard the voice in her ear, and her fingers slipped. The drink spilled down her dress, ice cold and shocking. It numbed her high.

"Sorry, babe, let me buy you a new one."

She glanced up at the voice. He had come back. "No, it's all down my front. I have to go clean up."

"Can I help?"

"Not unless you have a spare dress in your car," she said.

He shook his head, smiling. "But I can give you a ride home."

It wasn't a good idea. Janet, her own ride, was somewhere canoodling. Stack had ditched them both up front to play cards in the Circle. That left no other options. She'd just have to show some self-control. She'd promised herself a whole month of living clean. She still had twelve days to go.

But he'd just dowsed her high.

"Try me," he said.

"All right, then. It's your funeral."

"I don't mind a little peace and quiet after this place."

"It is loud," she agreed, happy. For an Exo or extrovert, leaving early was a dirge. For an Ino aka introvert, it'd be the opposite. Either was fine with her, but what you kept your eye open for were the Inos that Exos brought with them. Exos offered more energy in a group, but Inos were deep wells when you got them alone. When they passed out, you simply blamed it on overexertion at the club. Maybe she could just start over after this one.

He smiled and helped her scoop the ice from her lap. He really was sweet. And something about him made her think that there was lots more sweetness inside him, just waiting to be tapped.

She allowed him to take her arm and keep her close, weaving the two of them through the crowd, finding the empty threads of space like he depended on them. A blast of chill night air blew the hair from her face and the remainder of her exhilaration vanished. Her companion waved down the valet and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, rubbing at the goosebumps along her skin.

"You have friends here?" she asked, leaning into him. She toyed with the energy he offered. Sometimes, you could get Inos to offer it up without sucking.

"I came to meet someone but they took off." He shrugged and winked at her. "I confess I found someone I like better."

The car came around and he opened the passenger door for her. She slid inside and relaxed into the leather. So far, so very good. Her companion tipped off the valet and pulled away from the curb, guiding the car under the flashing lights of the empty street.

"Where is home sweet home?" he asked.

"Not too far," she purred. "In Lambton."

"Lambton's a nice place."

"What about you?"

"I'm from Belmont."

"Belmont's a long ways away." That made it better.

"My friend lives closer."

"You must be a good friend, then," she smiled at him.

"Sometimes you have to have excuses to get what you need. I imagine he found it."

"Are you okay with that?"

He nodded. "Everyone needs relief once in a while."

She laughed. "He sounds like me."

He glanced over. "Maybe. Maybe not. Are you disappointed? I really was sorry."

She shrugged. "Not a lot I can do about it now." True enough, even if not strictly true.

The darkness wrapped around them as he pulled onto the freeway. The freeway was the long way home, but she didn't mind. The farther Inos got from civilization, the more they opened up. She had to get him to talk about himself. "So what do you do in the sunlight?"

"I do research at the university in Belmont. I'm a grad student in psychology."

"Psychology?" she cooed. "Tell me about psychology."

"More particularly, I study energy flow."

She stiffened but made herself laugh. "What kind of energy flow? Chi, or whatever it is the Buddhists believe in?"

"Something like that. Mostly, I look at where people get their energy from. Do they get it from other people, or from the natural world around them?"

Maybe he hadn't been the best ride to take, after all. Her mom had warned her about Inos who could take out Exos, leaving them high and dry. She had to know what he intended and try to talk him out of it. "Sounds interesting, but I don't believe in energy flow."

He looked at her curiously. "You don't?"

"My dad ridiculed anything that wasn't scientific. How do you prove chi? But maybe you know something he doesn't."

"I'd have to talk to your dad."

"He'll be up waiting for me," she said.

He smiled. "You have a good dad. Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be seeing him tonight."

She cursed both him and her wet dress. The cold wouldn't help her to get home. "You don't understand," she said, "I'm clean. It was my goal. Only use the energy from group gatherings."

His smile lengthened. "I thought you didn't believe in that stuff."

"Yeah, well," she muttered, "kids often find their own paths when they don't meet up with their parents' expectations."

"I felt your buzz. Was it your mom who taught you what you know?"

"A little bit. Mostly just experimentation." Maybe there was still a way to get the upper hand. She reached out with her remaining energy to keep him talking. "What about you? Was it your friend?"

"My friend," he grimaced, "got sucked dry. They left him out on the freeway."

The freeway. She withdrew and sank low into her seat. "It wasn't me," she said.

"How do I know that?" he asked.

"They leave an aura. You have to know that from your research," she said. "They remember what the person felt like, if you can get them to meet the right person."

He smiled and parked the car on the side of the road. He slid to her side of the vehicle and pressed her hard against the door. "That's why I took him to the club," he whispered loudly into her ear, running his hand down the back of her neck. "He remembered you."

He yanked on the door handle and shoved her onto the street.

She rolled to her feet in the wake of his dust and sighed. She didn't regret last month's binge nearly as much as she thought she had.

If she could get home without expiring, she was going to have to find this hottie again. It sounded like they had a lot in common, and a lot to even up on... least of all, his friend.

___

Please forgive my absence last week--instead of composing flash-fiction, I accomplished the unthinkable... I finished the draft of my novel!! Yes, the last page reads "THE END OF BOOK 1." It took a year-long revision after workshopping it in WIFYR 2013's full novel course (with a spectacular Mette Ivie Harrison as teacher, not to mention brilliant classmates), and it's now getting reviewed by writing buddies for a last revision or five. Wish me luck!

Meanwhile, my visiting sis-in-law and I were discussing extroverts and introverts this week, and the relative benefits of each. Which category to you fit in, Ino or Exo? How do you recharge?

Spark

"Stop crowding," Spark snapped at his sister. "You're taking my oxygen."

"Mom," Sprat whined. "Spark isn't letting me have any air."

"Hush, now," Mom said. "We all need to work together. That's how you achieve the most burning glow, one that is beautiful and gives the stars in the sky hope."

Sprat let out a pop in Spark's direction. The pop caught an updraft that vibrated the wooden house above them, and the logs crumpled and caved into their pocket. Spark yelled as a stick pinned him in a pile of his squirming sisters.

"Hold on," his father chuckled. "I'll burn you out, it'll only take a second." He emitted a bright heat that enveloped Spark in the glow, and his sisters cheered. "There you go, Sprat," he said.

Always Sprat. Spark sizzled and slipped off to the other side of the log. He climbed it and let the draft carry him up to the tips of the flames. It was colder up here, and the wind sprites played games with the fire, teasing the elementals apart. They always managed to stick together, flexible in their glowing chains.

He gazed at the stars. Were they really elementals, stuck all the way out there? Mom said they were souls who'd strayed too far from the flame and could do nothing except wait for help to get home.

A sudden breeze carried him into the air and he yelped. An elemental from the chain reached toward him. "Careful, there, little spark," he said, but the wind sprite buffeted him and carried him high up into the air.

"Mom," he yelled. But he couldn't hear a reply as the wind laughed and tossed him to another tumbling sprite.

They shot him toward the great shadows that were blacker at night than coals. The shadows loomed large and close, gaping mouths ready to swallow him whole. He slammed into a surface and pulled himself together, gasping as the giggling sprites retreated. This wasn't the mouth of a monster, it was a piece of wood they'd tossed him against, so huge it formed an entire platter of food. Mom and Dad and his sisters could feast on this for forever, they would never have to rely on humans for food again. Was that what the winds had been trying to tell them?

But how could he let his family know? He wrapped himself around a splinter, chewing at the tough wood, encouraging it to give way. This wood was more bitter than the sweet, dry pine the humans fed the family. He could hardly get it to spark. Discouraged, he crawled along the surface instead until he found a knothole, and huddled inside. Home was a flickering flame a long ways away. It glowed bright and familiar, and Spark wondered if this was how the stars felt. He felt so cold. He fell asleep, shivering and tiny.

Dawn touched the knothole and woke him. Spark spread himself flat as a pancake against the wood to absorb the heat that crawled along the sun's rays, gifts from the Great Fire Elemental himself. He began to sizzle, and energized, looked for home. The stones surrounding it seemed closer by day, a manageable journey with the sun guiding him, and he slid down the wood wall carefully and lit on the tender grass. For all that grass tickled like good food, his dad's warning echoed inside him. Grass held water inside it, and if burned still green, let off horrible fumes that choked you out. He floated respectfully above the blades, saving his heat.

A human's shoe crashed down and a breeze whisked Spark to the side. "Careful," it whispered as it passed.

"Psst," he heard, and he flickered at two eyes that gazed at him from a plump stone. "In here. He'll smother you out if he sees you."

Spark darted behind it. "Thanks," he said. "That was close."

"That's what we're here for," the stone said. "I'm Puk."

"I'm Spark."

"What are you doing so far from the fire? I thought fire elementals stuck together."

"We do, usually. But I got separated by a wind sprite."

"They're trouble, but not with us rocks," Puk said.

"It was my fault. Too many sisters. I wanted a bit of space."

"You come from a big family?"

Spark flicked toward the fire. "We're twenty thousand at night."

"Huh. The earth's bigger than that."

"All the stars up there are ours, too," he stretched toward the sky.

"Shush it down, he'll see us," Puk said.

Spark turned his attention back to the human. It bent over a wooden bench, pouring tiny stones inside cylindrical houses, then sealing them shut and placing them into wooden crates. "What is it doing?"

"Collecting. I'm lucky it hasn't spotted me yet. It puts the ancient ones in those boxes. They all keep complaining how squished they are. But the human tells them they'll be free, soon."

"It tells them? It can talk to them?"

"Nah, I think it just talks to itself. They don't like it much, though."

"Why not?" Spark watched the human. "Isn't it like before they were born? I heard Mother Earth incubated them, and then spoke to the fire elementals inside her belly and we shoved them up toward the sky." It was the story Mom told of why the stones encircled the home fire. Fire and stone watched out for each other.

"The stones asked for help because they didn't like the pressure. That's why we grind under the surface all the time. Better not to be crushed down."

"Yeah," he thought of Sprat. "I can understand that."

Spark tucked behind Puk as the human rose and left. Without all the noise, Spark could hear the stones' voices, now, faint and desperate. "What are we going to do?" he said.

"Do?" Puk said. "What is there to do?"

"There's gotta be some way to help."

"You go over there, you'll be caught up in the whole shenanigan yourself. Stay here with me. I'm a rock, you're a flame. We'll look out for each other."

"I like the sound of that, but..." Their pleas made him burn with anxiety. What did the human think it was doing, messing with elementals? "I think I can help. Those boxes are just made of wood."

"Wait," Puk said.

"I'll come back."

He hopped over the earthy ground toward the boxes, and the cries grew louder, a siren that he couldn't resist. His mom was right, elementals helped each other out. Maybe he couldn't handle his sisters and their pushy glow, but he could help these rocks. If flames stuck together all the time, all close and protected, how could they help everyone else?

"Psst," he said, and abruptly, the stones' clamor hushed. "I'm going to chew through the box."

A hum grew around him, excited and expectant, and Spark felt it fill him. He fell onto the wood and began to chew. The wood was the same pine that fed his home fire, and he spread himself over it, hungry in a way he hadn't known before. He sizzled and hummed a chorus to the rock elementals' tune. He flared, feeling powerful.

A shout sounded behind him and darkness shrouded him. Spark gasped and tried to breathe in the . sudden lack of oxygen. He drew himself back together and crawled into a little hole in the wood.

"A bit too close for comfort," the human said. "Not sure how that happened, I keep them out here in the shed for a reason. But let's get these babies outside and see what they can do now that it's dark."

Oxygen spread around him again and Spark gulped with relief. He crawled farther into the hole to the rocks. "I'm here," he whispered. "I'm going to try again."

He lit on the end of a skinny thread of wood and chewed it quickly down, feeling his energy grow. He spread his body around the larger housing and dissolved at it eagerly, and then a great shudder sent him flying--cold, gasping, and incredibly high in the air. He clung to the house, afraid, but the rocks around him cheered.

"Little flame, you've saved us," they said, and Spark felt heat reflect back on him, warming him.

"You're welcome," he spread and touched them. Something flared at the connection.

A pressure filled him, greater than any he'd felt before, growing so great he couldn't contain it or he'd burst. He released his flame into a thousand pieces and sang as his new sparks, born from the combination of stone and fire, spread out into the sky.

He hoped the winds would carry some of them back to his home fire to tell his mom and dad about his discoveries, and that another would return to Puk.

The rest of him flew toward the stars to warm them with hope.

___

Happy Independence Day to the US, and happiness to the rest of you beautiful wide world :).