Short stories in short form...enjoy! Current episode: Which List for the Mrs.?, a holiday detective noir spoof. Twitter contact info: @lonelypond
Mace was missing and The Minotaur was in town. I could smell him; they had that much in common and a little more history behind them than she ever really got around to telling me. Mace had never really been much of a talker. That was the great thing — you sit at the counter, you drink your coffee, you watch her knit…occasionally, the ameythst gleam softened a little and you got the feeling she might like having you sit there, but it was never a regular thing, just an occasional gift. But now, the Minotaur was in town, hat hooked on his horns, attitude caught in the door, warnings on the wind. Mace must have caught the scent early, but I’d never known her to leave. So I checked into it. Nobody was paying me enough not to be curious. As usual, nobody was paying me at all.
I just wanted coffee…and maybe a little bit of friendly chat, a nod in my direction, an acknowledgement of my existence. You’ve had ‘em: nights when the wind in the alleys cried lonely and the streets were so empty and the sky so dark that your footsteps whispered instead of echoing…nights were you were certain that if someone didn’t nod at you soon, you’d be back at the mirror, making sure there was still some sparkle twinking back at you. You know and I hate to admit it, there are nights when you need people and there are people you find on those nights. It’s part of the magnet of being human, when the dark and the dire pull at you, there are people who pull back. And that night, I was staring into a vortex. So I locked up the office, turned off the phone and headed down the street — a little warmth, a little less lonely.
Do you make plans? Don’t. I’m telling you. Just don’t. Plans are a bad habit, a crutch, a weak place for the universe to sneak up and kick you. It’s coming now, quietly…your plans see it and they’re fleeing in the other direction, down that alley with the flickering light at the end of it, leaving us here. So we go get coffee — sure, I’ll pay — and then the real trap is sprung. There wasn’t even a closed sign or a be back in ten minutes notice on the door…just a chain.
No Mace…now, this, this was a new lonely.
I tipped back my hat and pulled my trench tighter…too darn bad I’d given up smoking, might have helped me think a little, agitate some of the sharper, smarter brain cells into a brighter state of being. I tried pacing, sniffing the air, Mace leaves a fairly strong scent but I’m no bloodhound…I’m not even a detective, really. I just wander around until someone tells me what they want and then I wander until I trip over it. Or Mace tells me where to go. I stopped, the brighter breathing oxygen brain cells nudging me a bit….you might not know Mace…well, I have this theory that she knits together skeins of time while serving whatever liquid you might need at the moment if you’re lucky enough to find her. Might be skeins of destiny, threads of time, colors of fortune…this is a world where myths drop into modern gear if you wander the right hours. And here we were again, after midnight, on Attic Row, and having once found my Fortune, I’d lost her. Accuracy required (in language only, you’re pretty safe if I’m shooting in your direction): Mace had lost herself.
Could I find her?
