This is a piece that was started by J.D. Fitch, then continued by Doreen Queenand Paul Baughman, and Joanna Horrocks. This is for Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge where 5 people each write 200 words of a story. My portion is at the bottom.
God,
how she hated dance music. Tony blared that crap every day at work, and after
four years, she couldn’t take it anymore. Most had their I-phones or mp3’s and
earbuds to stuff in their heads. The rest of them had to suffer. Her fist
smashed the bread dough with a vengeance. One fist beat the soft, yeasty mass
over and over.
“Screw this.” Gloria reached and ‘touched’ the electric plug
that asshole’s antique radio was plugged into. Sparks crackled from the outlet,
the acrid smell of burnt plastic ripped across the room.
“Judas Priest!” The shift super rushed over and yanked the cord
from the wall. “Tony, this piece of crap is gone. You understand me? Three
times in one week? Burn it, burn your own house down, but keep it out of my
bakery.” Allen rammed the offending device into Tony’s chest before stalking
off.
Gloria could not help the smile that crossed her lips. Then
common sense took over. Shit. Why did magic have to be so unpredictable? Two
years, and she still could not predict the outcomes, not like her teacher. Who
would no doubt taste the magic in the air around her.
Life sucked chunks.
^^^^^
She had to be more careful or else be caught by the Authorities.
They might taste the magic she leaked after tweaking the radio.
Most kids were screened by preschool to see whether they had
talent – somehow Gloria had been missed.
Good thing Claudia had seen her magician’s performance at a
child’s birthday party. Everything had gone wrong that day – instead of a
rabbit, she pulled a python out of the hat. Of course, the party had been for
boys, so that went over well. But it didn’t go over with the parents when her
bra and panties had pulled out of her sleeve along with the handkerchiefs. Not
sure how that happened.
Claudia had tasted the taint and offered to tutor her if she
promised to stop playing magician.
Gloria needed to control herself first if she wanted to control
the magic. Otherwise, some Telemage would catch a whiff and she would be
slammed into a Control Chair. Then some Docmage would fry out her brain section
that created magic – and they weren’t too careful about what else was around,
like body functions or reasoning. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life
drooling in the corner of a closed ward, finger-painting.
^^^^^
It hadn’t always been this way. Once magicians had been an
accepted, if not welcome, part of society. The Magic War was hundreds of years
in the past, but the results had echoed down the years into the present. The
old saw about bad apples still applied.
Time to try out some of Claudia’s tutoring before a passing
patrol sensed what she had done. Gloria let her hands continue working the
bread dough on autopilot. She let her mind drift until she could sense the
magic crackling in her skin, vibrating in her bones, and even curling off the
end of each hair. When she had the feeling solidly nailed down, she sucked it
all into her hands and grounded it to the earth.
The sense of magic vanished. It worked! She smiled happily. It
was the first time she had successfully used one of Claudia’s techniques on her
own. Maybe now she wouldn’t have to worry so much about getting caught.
The happy, proud feeling faded as she realized the bread dough
she was working felt odd.
She opened her eyes and looked down to find her hands buried to
the wrist in the finest cake she had ever seen.
^^^^^
Every other baker and apprentice in the shop saw it too, a
multihued, multi-tiered swirl of impossibly delicate buttercream butterflies
and roses. Gloria licked a finger and found the rich filling studded with
blackberries and pears. She smiled in spite of herself. She knew she was screwed,
but at least she was going down in style.
Gloria looked up; her coworkers were staring at her with terror
in their eyes. She wondered how many seconds it would take before someone would
start to scream, how many minutes after that until a patrol arrived with their
magic-damping nets and their wands set to stun. She wondered whether
finger-painting would turn out to be fun.
A deafening blast of dance music rent the air. Gloria grimaced
along with everybody else, involuntarily shutting her eyes against the pain.
When she opened them again, the cake was just an ordinary lump of bread dough
again, and everyone else had gone back to work as if nothing had changed.
“Babe, that was one crazy spell you threw there,” she heard
someone say. “Don’t ever do that in here again.”
She turned and found Tony standing next to her.
“And stop frying my radio, hear?”
^^^^^
“Cause
if you do it again, I am going to tell Claudia. I know she is going to be
displeased.” Tony said.
“How…”
Gloria stuttered.
“Didn’t
you think that Claudia would allow you to work in such a public place without surveillance?”
“No I
guess not, But why must you insist on playing that damn music all the damn
time. It is so repetitive.”
“I happen
to like this music, plus it gives Claudia plenty of chances to watch you in
action and see if you can handle yourself, I must say that the cake looked
quite scrumptious. You forgot one thing, you need channel the energy through
your feet not your hands. Feet are magically dead and safe to channel through
without setting anything off.”
“Of
course, Claudia keeps going over that and I always forget.”
Just
then the door opens and a Telemage walks thru the front door. The color drains
from her face as the mage approaches.
“I am
here to pick up an order for Parker,” the mage says.
Gloria
breathes a sigh of relief as Tony helps with the customer. Later Tony starts up
the music again, but for whatever reason, Gloria doesn’t find it so bad this
time.
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