Flower and the Dragon (short story)

Flower and the Dragon

(Random 2-word prompt- dragon, quiet)

 

            The dragon wasn’t quiet; it snored.  A deep and sonorous rattling wheeze.  Syncopated.  But Flower was still careful.  He only dared to move when the room was filled with the cacophonous snorts of the sleeping dragon.

            Flower managed to roll from the comfy bed to his feet, the floor was cold against his bare soles, without disturbing the six-foot scaly creature that he’d lay next to all night.  Never again.  Never.          

            Of course, the sleeping man wasn’t really a dragon, just a bit of a monster.  He’d had a short fuse.  Snapping and barking at the waitress.  Blowing up at the chef, who’d been kind enough to come over to the table after the dragon had complained about his food.  He’d chatted with his mouth full, chewed agape.  Chain smoked through the meal and screamed at anyone who’d asked him to smoke outside instead.  The man had been inconsiderate and abrasive.   Flower had been mortified last night, the whole night.

            This morning, he was full of regret.

            ‘Dragon’ had felt like a very apt internal nickname for the man, and Flower had forgotten the man’s real name.  He was handsome, but cruel.  Muscular.  Penny-pinching and greedy.  He hadn’t even left a tip for the staff, though Flower had snuck a little extra to the waitress on the way out.  And as for the man’s scales?  He clearly didn’t moisturise.

            Flower hastily pulled on his underwear just as the latest snore disguised his movement.  He retrieved his trousers and shoes during the next.  Found his shirt draped over a lamp during the third gurgling rattle.  He dressed himself with each consecutive thunderous crackle from the man’s throat, almost tripping over his own leg while trying to squeeze back into his shoes while he stood.  He stumbled forward and caught himself, just in time.  He’d almost crashed into the bedside cabinet.

            The snoring stopped.

            Flower froze.

            His head crept along the axis of his neck, his eyes tiptoed over his shoulder, and he snuck a glance at the slumbering monster.  Its prostrate form was sprawled, tangled in the duvet it’d hogged all night.  Flower studied the dragon, trying to work out if he’d woken it, but his terror was lessened by the return of the unmelodious raucous snuffling.

            He sighed.  He’d been holding his breath.

            Sunlight had begun to slither in through the edges of the curtains, and Flower slinked along the line it left across the floorboards.  He headed for the door.  Escape was in reach.

            He stole another look at the dragon.

Still sleeping.

Still snoring.

Flower smiled to himself.

He was almost there.

He reached out for the handle of the door, wrapped his fingers around the metal, slowly turned the mechanism.  The hinges whispered as they moved, and Flower was careful not to elicit squeals by moving too fast, rushing; he didn’t want to cause any premature arousal of the sleeping creature.  The door opened in crawling degrees, inch by second.  It came toward him.  He took a step back as the empty hall came into view.

Yes!

Flower raised his foot, a final step into freedom, and…

He realised the voluble death rattle of the dragon had ceased.  He heard the click of a lighter instead.

“Where are you going?”  The monster breathed its smoke and ash, filling the room with its grey and noxious clouds.  “Stay.”

“I… er…”  Flower faced the foe, fighting back the cough already tickling his tonsils.  “I’ve got work,” he said.  He didn’t but…

The dragon made a face.  “Aww, spoilsport!”  The man sucked on his cigarette and exhaled more billowing fumes into the small space.  “You owe me,” he sneered with a wink.  “I paid for dinner.”

Flower started to say something but stopped himself.  He just wanted to leave, not argue; he didn’t want to face the wrath of a dragon.

“Oh come on,” moaned the man, feigning an exaggerated frown.  “Please?”  And when Flower shook his head in response, he threw his arms up in frustration and sighed almost as loudly as he’d snored.

And that action, casting his hands into the air with a lit cigarette betwixt his fingers, would have been a boon as a dragon, but was a curse as a human.  A spark from the tip of the cig flicked free and floated, drifted down, a patient plummet, until it reached its destination and fulfilled its blazing destiny.

Flower was surprised by just how quickly the flames caught, how quickly the dragon screamed and leapt from the fiery duvet, the red-hot breath of the fire expanding along the rest of the bed in an instant.  The naked creature, expelled from its nest, fell forward through the thick smoke that was already subsuming the feeble smoke from its cigarette.  Flower caught the bare man in his arms.

“We gotta go,” coughed Flower.  The bedroom was already half consumed by the fire, though the grey sludge swelling in the space blurred and obscured the orange and red rage.  It was getting hard to see anything, hard to breathe.

Flower dragged the nude man into the hall, exposed scaly skin pressed against his clothes; the man didn’t object, just let himself be carried.  The smoke chased them.  So did the fire.  They hurried to the exit, burst through the front door, and out into the street.

He dropped the man to the floor against a shop window opposite, then took off his shirt so his charge could at least cover his dignity.

“Oh my god,” cried the dragon.  “My… my… house!”

It was already fully enveloped in flames.  Fire and fumes poured from every egress, licked at the bricks, tickled the tiles on the roof.

“This… is… your fault,” growled the creature.  He pointed at Flower, his fingers still clinging to the now spent cigarette that he’d been smoking.  “If… if… if you’d come back to…”

“No,” snapped Flower.  “We’d be dead.”  There was a crowd of gawking pedestrians beginning to gather, splitting their attention between the scorching house and the partially nude arguing pair.  “Both of us would be dead.”

“But…”

“I’m going home,” he sighed.

And Flower left, ignoring the man’s tears and protestations, surviving the dragon whose breath had been its own downfall, and decided that it was the last time he ever went on a blind date.  It had been an awful night; Flower hadn’t even managed to pilfer the dragon’s horde…

The End.

Next Flower story

 

Foggy Flower (short story)

 

Foggy Flower

(Random 2-word prompt- inspector, grounds)

 

                The mist was thick and cold.  So was he.  Cold, that is.  His clothes were soaked with a penetrating and perpetual damp that sank right down to his bones.  Flower shivered, his breath caught by the icy air, condensing around his lips with every exhale.

                His torch did very little to help his visibility in the dark of the night; it’s narrow beam only caught misty grey walls closing in on him… and yet, he could still somehow feel the wide-open castle grounds around him.  It was both claustrophobic and agoraphobic.  He felt vulnerable.

                Flower kept walking, a quick pace; he wanted to get home.  His dull footsteps, and their accompanied syncopated echo, were the only sound of life in the gardens, though a gentle breeze tussled the bushes intermittently too.

                He’d heard that ghosts haunted the castle grounds.  George, the old guard, had regaled him with terrifying tales and supernatural stories all evening, and those eerie yarns had spooked him.

                Flower’s torch flickered.

                George had told him of headless knights stalking the paths, vengeful wailing maidens in white dresses with slit wrists creeping through the bougainvillea.  He’d spun fables of gruesome beasts hiding under the hedgerows, creatures with long red claws and creepy grins, waiting to grab unsuspecting victims by their ankles and pull them into their lair.  He’d told Flower about the evil witches and warlocks who, hundreds of years ago, used these grounds for their dark rituals and blood sacrifices, and who, while being tortured and burnt at the stake, swore a cursed revenge in their afterlife as spirits.

                His torch flickered again.  And again.

George had told Flower that the witches and warlocks could still sometimes be heard, crying out their pained curses in the middle of the night, casting malevolent spells on those with fear in their hearts.

Of course, Flower didn’t believe any of those fictional fables…

The torch died, and Flower came to a sudden stop, the echo of his footsteps following suit almost immediately.  The walls of grey mist were replaced with walls of blind darkness in an instant.  There was nowhere to go.  He couldn’t see anything in front of him.  He shuddered in the cold.  His clothes deepened the icy feeling on his skin, sodden by the damp air, and goosebumps stalked up his arms.

The wind crept around him, and the flora of the gardens whispered secrets to it.  Flower’s heart quickened, so did his breathing.  He was alone, hoped he was alone, in the quiet dark.  He began to see the grey of the mist as his eyes adjusted to the dark; it did little to improve his vision.  He looked at his feet; he could just about make out the path.

And then, a high-pitched cry in the distance broke the silence of the night.  The whinny of a horse in the castle stables.  Or was it a witch, a warlock, cursing him?  Was it a gruesome beast in the hedgerows?  Or a wailing maiden?

The silence retuned just as quickly as it’d been disturbed.

And…

Flower broke in a run, boots thumping against the stone path, eyes straining in the dark.  He ran and he ran and he ran.  He could feel it behind him.  Something was there, following.  It echoed his steps, chased him through the fog.  His legs strained to move faster.  His heart thrummed hard.  He ran.  His lungs struggled.  He tried not to scream, but fearful utterances escaped his lips.

A rock or a branch caught his foot.  He cried out as he fell, his body slammed into the dewy grass, his face collided with the earth.  He was winded and hurt.

                He didn’t move, couldn’t move.  He shivered in the dirt, but not from the cold.

                The pursuing footsteps came to halt, and Flower could sense the presence standing over him.  He could hear it wheeze and groan; it gurgled a death rattle.

                The supernatural creature was about to pounce.

                “Flower?” came a breathless, yet familiar voice.

                Flower twisted onto his back and looked up into a light that now shone on his prone body.

                “You forgot your keys,” wheezed George the guard, pointing his torch down at the man.  He tossed the keys to Flower.  “Why did you have to run so fast?  Silly bugger.  I could barely keep up.”

The End.

Next Flower Story

Flower-stein’s Monster (short story)

 

Flower-stein’s Monster

(Random 2-word prompt- toss, specimen)

 

                Thunder boomed.  Lightning crackled across the gloomy clouds, and lit up his small, dingy room.  The sounds of the storm were short and sudden respites from the torrent of rain that hammered against the walls and roof of the castle, and a distraction from the howling winds that roared through the forest and found their way into all the cracks and cavities of the large stone building.

                “Gwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

                The manic laughter filled the lonely and empty halls.  It echoed against decrepit paintings, rotted furniture, and neglected rooms.  Candles flickered at its touch… or maybe that was the wind.  It was the song of a crazed and genius mind.

                It continued.

                Flower thought that the Doctor didn’t know when to stop; the laugh always lasted longer than it had any right to.  He stood up and closed the book he’d been squinting through; it was too cold and too dark to read, and he’d persisted as long as he could, struggled through the anticipation of tonight’s coming events.  And now was the moment he’d been waiting for… almost.  The Doctor would be calling for him any second now, given the intensity of the crazed cackle.

                The laugh continued, and then a breathless voice called out: “F…F… Flower!  Flower!  I’ve done it!  Ha hahaha!  The time is now!”  Flower heard the Doctor break into a coughing fit as he headed out and up the steps to the tower.  “Come hither and help me change the very definition of life itself!  Gwhahaha!”

                “Doctor Smithenstein.”  Flower bowed his head to the tall and skinny man as he entered the lab.  The Doctor was hunched and bald, only a few scraggly white hairs poked from his scalp; his body bore decades of wear and tear from late nights in the lab where he’d focused on a singular purpose, his life squandered away like the fortunes he’d inherited.  He was as decayed as this old castle.  It remained to be seen if it was all worth it.

                “Ah Flower,” he said with a dramatic flourish of his rubber-gloved hand.  His white coat, a little too small on his bony frame, strained against the movement.  “Ready the switches, open the circuits, and release the chemical mix!”  He laughed his maniacal laugh.  “The storm is nearing its apex!  We must be ready!”

                “Yes sir.”  Flower hurried to the large haphazard machine pressed up against the left wall; it’d been put together from all sorts of things, found things and reclaimed things, and the recycled LEDs and bicycle lights blinked and flickered.  An old ship wheel turned and pulled ropes attached to several car wheels, churning a spectrum of coloured liquids in vials and containers of various sources and sizes.  Flower flicked a row of switches, each different, and mechanisms whirred into life behind the recycled metal chassis.

                “Gwhahahaha!”  The Doctor ducked beneath the cloth covered table, the table where the small specimen had been lain, and adjusted the wires and pipes.

                Flower opened the circuits, pulling the big lever on the side of the device, ducking from the sparks, and moved to the other side ready to release the chemicals.

                The storm raged above, and the clouds, visible through the skylight, thundered and roared.  Rain beat against the glass in sheets.  Lightning flashed, and for a second the dim lab was lit by more than just candles and flickering lights.

                Flower opened the valve on the first pipe, and a glass milk bottle emptied its thick red liquid.  He opened a second.  Yellow liquid drained from an Erlenmeyer flask.  And a third, green from an upturned vodka bottle.  Fourth, purple from a glass orb.  Fifth, sixth, seventh, and so on, different colours from different containers.  Liquids poured and mixed into a vat near the Doctor and his specimen, and a huge metal arm stirred and blended the concoction.

                Doctor Smithenstein laughed as he stood.  “Gwahahahaha!”  Did he ever stop laughing? “The time is at hand!” he exclaimed.  “Flower, raise the lightning rod!”

                Flower shuffled across the room, and he watched as the Doctor filled a large syringe with the chemical mixture from the vat.  He placed his hands on the crank and began to wind it as the scientist worked on the small creature under the sheet; blood would be replaced by the chemicals, electrodes connected to its neck.  Flower wound the handle.  It was hard work.  The long metal pole rose higher and higher as he sweat and strained, the skylight opening on cue, as rain drenched him and the stone floor around him.  The storm was getting worse, as expected.  Thunder quickened, lightning arced.  The rod locked into place and Flower stood back.

                “And now, we wait,” grinned the Doctor.  He stared up at the night sky, eager anticipation upon his brow.

                Nothing happened.  Flower watched as Doctor Smithenstein became more and more anxious as the minutes ticked by and more nothing happened; the scientist wrung his hands in the candlelight, struggled to hold his grin, cast regular furtive glances at the dead specimen hidden under the cloth on the table.  The weather was as angry as ever; it had to happen soon!

                And it did!

                Lightning struck the rod with a loud zap, the room flashed with a bright light… and everything went dark, candles blown out by the storm.

The room smelt of blood, or was it just the aroma of electricity?  Thunder rocked overhead, and the only other sounds he could hear were the thrash of the rain and the thrum of his heart.  He held his breath; he didn’t know what to expect.

And then the maniacal laugh broke what remained of the silence.

                “Gwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”  The Doctor’s face was lit by a small flame, a match.  “I’ve done it!” he shouted.  “Life!  I’ve created new life!”

                Flower moved around the room, relighting the candles as the laugh continued, bringing dim light back to the damp lab.  The scientist’s arms remained raised in triumph as the assistant approached the table, ready to see the results of the Doctor’s experiment.

                “Flower,” said Doctor Smithenstein, eyes charged with lightning.  “Remove the sheet and let us see what magnificence my brilliant mind has wrought.”

                Flower did as he was ordered, whipping away the fabric with the theatrical embellishment expected of him.

                “Oh.”  The Doctor’s shoulders dropped, his hunch hunched lower, and a frown fell down his face.

                On the lab’s table lay the specimen.  Dead.  It had been dead to begin with.  Roadkill.  Flower had felt sorry for it, and that’s why he’d brought its corpse to the Doctor, for a new life, but somehow the baby deer looked even deader than it had been before, with metal bolts in its neck, and stiches on its head and limbs.  It had been enhanced by science and technology, and had been failed by it too.

                The poor creature remained dead.

                Doctor Smithenstein cried out, hand to his forehead like a betrayed lover, and he fell to his knees and sobbed.  “F… Flower… I’m useless.”

                “No sir.”  Flower couldn’t stop looking at the corpse on the table.  Poor thing.

                “Toss the specimen,” bawled the Doctor.  “And take the rest of the night off; I… I… need to be alone.”  He placed his head in his rubber-gloved hands and broke into more tears.

                Flower knew better than to stay, especially when his boss was in this sort of mood.  He quickly scooped up the dead specimen in his arms, holding the cold baby deer close to his chest, and headed out of the lab and down the tower steps.

                He could hear the Doctor’s manic crying, no longer a laugh, echo through the lonely and empty halls and amongst the sounds of the storm, as he descended further and further down the stone steps.  He felt a little guilty for bringing the deer to the Doctor.  And though it had been dead already, he’d allowed its corpse to be desecrated and mutilated in the hopes that science could resurrect a young creature whose life had been cut short.

                Flower would bury it in the forest; he couldn’t just toss it away like Doctor Smithenstein had suggested.  It deserved better.

                He held the specimen… the baby deer…  tight against himself as he unlatched the door and crept out into the squally night.

                The rain and wind hit him hard, soaking him through as he fought his way into the cover of the trees.  He was cold, freezing.  His boots squelched through the mud, and he struggled to see a clear path.

                Flower tripped in the dark, catching his foot against a stray branch, and the deer fell from his arms.  Its small limp body rolled across the ground before coming to a halt.

                “Noooo!”  He stretched out his arm to the body, but it was just out of reach.  He crawled along the muck toward it.  The little thing deserved more than being left out in the rain alone.

                The baby deer twitched.

                Flower stopped in his tracks, rain pouring down his face; he wiped water from his eyes.  Had he imagined it?

                The baby deer’s legs kicked against the forest floor.

                Flower’s jaw dropped.  He could taste the mud, the rain, the electricity in the air.  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing; the Doctor’s experiment had been a success.

                It lived.

                The specimen, the formerly dead creature, clambered unsteadily to its feet.  It appeared to tower over Flower’s prone body, despite its diminutive size.  The baby deer stood defiantly against its death.  It was alive.  Thunder and lightning careened overheard, and for a moment, the bolts and metal stitches glinted in the sudden illumination.

                “You’re alive!”  Flower laughed, fighting the urge to mimic the Doctor’s manic cackles.  “You’re alive!  You’re really alive!”

                At moments like this, he knew what he was expected to do, what he’d been employed to do; he’d need to recapture the specimen and return it to the lab.  But his heart won out.  He couldn’t do what was expected; he had to do what was right.

                “Go,” he said.  He gestured at the baby deer to move.  “Run, run away from here.  Go.  Now!”

                The creature stared at him with a deep intelligence.

                “Go!  Just go!”

                The deer ran.  It stopped several metres away and looked back at Flower.

                Thunder.  Lightning lit up the sky.

                It stood there, and he felt a sudden unease.

                The specimen’s eyes glowed red and it shrieked a blood-curdling cry against the storm.  It disappeared into the night, and Flower’s empathy became terrified regret.

The End.

Next Flower Story