I was late for Intro to Magicking Inanimates.
Three women sat side by side at a single long desk. The first wore glasses. The second had a mole. The third’s fingers were long and spindly. A quiet lull of papers flitting, pens whipping, and fingers tapping grew as I approached. Their faces were timeless, the plaits in their hair similar but not identical, and they gave me the impression that they either were sisters or had posed as them at least once during Halloween.
“Hi. I was wondering if I could get some directions?” I asked. No one even looked up. I cleared my throat and tried again.
“I’ve been looking around for a map for awhile but I can’t find one. Do you know where 390 Le Faye is?” The one in the middle smacked a piece of gum, mole dancing atop veneers.
“Hello?” I stammered louder. I swore the first one’s pen got louder.
“Are the even three hundreds accessible from here?”
A stack of long fingers smacked a stack of thick files to the right, and a smiling face that told me it really did not want to be smiling looked me straight in the eye.
“Did you say something?”
“I’m just wondering if the three hundreds are on this floor.”
She gestured to her left with a twig of a falange. I considered asking further (as one does when their binary question is met with some type of third answer) but her gaze and attention were already gone. Rather than waste more time thinking I decided that it would be better to enter class late and flustered than late and nonchalant anyhow.
As I passed the edge of the desk Glasses grabbed my wrist, spinning me toward her. It hurt. Her voice was solemn, older than I expected, and steady.
“Beware of deep ruby.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“I’m sorry?”
She let go, raised her eyebrows dramatically, and returned to her memo.
“Your lipstick. It’s washing out your face.”
Fantasy
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OK it’s obviously deeper than I could follow if there is a moral, plot, or purpose here. It was fun, and I enjoyed the light read. I got lost on a couple vocabulary terms; “Falange?” “Veneer?” But that didn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things. I could loose a good half our escaping into this bizarre world if you took it further.
Thank you for your kind words!
This was written as an excerpt from something longer I’ve been working on, so definitely understand if it felt somehow “bigger” than what you read and was in that way confusing. However, no larger meaning or plot intended here. In fact, I was going for a subversion of expectations – you’d expect the fates to say something deep and life changing…but instead they’re just petty 🙂