6 Minutes

6 minutes, I have 6 minutes. How am I going to finish this and be in my spot in 6 minutes? I willed my fingers to work faster. The work wasn’t technical, just intensive.

The woman who had this job before me, worked for 36 years, never missing the deadline. Until she did. Merely a breath over and she was shot.

5 minutes. I’ve been doing this for over a year now and I need this job, I have too many arrears to take care of. Usually I have everything done by now. This job hasn’t been a problem up until today.

4 minutes. “Faster! Faster!” I scream internally at my hands. They seem to have slowed down despite willing them to go faster. I have to stop and breath.  

Deep breath, clear your mind. I snort internally, sure, clear my mind when I might be shot in 3 minutes. This isn’t helping.

2 minutes. I’m almost there! I just have to fine tune everything. It has often surprised me how fast I can move. I used to think that I should always leave myself a 5 minute buffer no matter what I was doing. Then I took this job and learned that every second counts.

1 minute. I have to use my kinetic running to make it in time.

“BONG!”

I’m late!

“BONG!”

I slipped into my spot and followed the the other characters onto the cuckoo clock stage.

Gold

The year is 2025, the event, The Gold and Black Tie Gala to celebrate the centennial of The Great Gatsby.

Everyone who’s anyone was invited. She was incredibly lucky to score a single ticket. Before the limo pulled up she double check her bobbed wig and slid her hand down the beaded gold dress, ensuring her thigh knife was in place.

The flash of paparazzi greeted her at the entrance.  A necessary evil, and one that should play into her plans nicely.

As she stepped into the event she was nearly blown away by the sheer elegance that surrounded her. Obviously the depression hasn’t hit everyone as hard as it did most of the world.

It was a good thing that she had dressed to match to occasion. Her elegantly beaded gold dress was the same hue as the gold that accented the hall. The midnight black bobbed wig framed her angular features and her splash of wicked red lipstick completed the alluring look.  

She wasn’t here for the party, she had a mission to complete. Twitching a nerve in her eye she triggered her facial recognition software contact, she gracefully drew the attention of those around her so it could locate her target.

There he was, standing in his onyx black tux, next to the champagne fountain. She slid up to the refrigerator sized man, dropped the package into this side jacket pocket and disappeared into the crowd.

Bleeding

“Why is he bleeding?” Stephanie asked, slight panic edging your voice.

“Because he’s an idiot.” Tracy snapped as she tried to stem the bleeding.

Stephanie stiffened in frustration and laced her voice with sarcasm, “I didn’t know idiocy caused people to spontaneously bleed.”

Taking a deep breath Tracy knew she had to do something or this would go badly. Making sure that his bleeding had stopped she rocked back on her heels, “Well It’s an unexplained phenomenon really. You’ve heard of the flight or fight response right?

“Hasn’t everyone?” Stephanie groaned.

“Well sure,” continued Tracy, “but what you might not have heard of is the bleed or make bleed phenomenon.”

Stephanie snorted

“You laugh, but it’s a real thing. Most people have a great instinct to stay away from things that will cause them to bleed. But those who posses great idiocy also posses great puissant. The power to get themselves killed for no apparent reason.” Tracy gestured, “take this idiot for example. He thought it would be a great idea to rush two women and steal from them.”

“Thieves take things all the time from women, why would he have thought otherwise? That doesn’t make him an idiot” Stephanie interjected.

“He should have used his eyes! We don’t carry ourselves like normal women, we have warrior stances, we look like we mean business, you carry a knife on your belt!.” Tracy kicked his leg, “the guy is an idiot.”

Dream Catcher

Legend has it that dreams are carried on the wind. Sometimes it can be predicted when you will have good dreams or nightmares depending on the way the wind blows, but this is not a sure way of prediction.

Then dream catchers were invented, traditionally they are made of a round hoop, with woven thread creating a net to catch nightmares. They can be as simple as a twig circle with gut thread or as complicated as a spun silver loop woven with crystal strings.

What none of the legends will tell you is where those nightmares go. They don’t build up and break the dream catchers. Someone or rather something has to collect the nightmares.

Who better to do this than the spider.

If you have ever wondered why there are so many varieties of spider, this would be it. They are the bearers of nightmares. Just as there are thousands of nightmares, there is a spider to match.

Spiders spin their own web to gallivant through the world at breathtaking speeds in order to collect the nightmares from all of the dream catchers. Theirs is a thankless job, as they are mistaken for nightmares themselves.

They spin their own versions of dream catchers, beautifully spun webs that collect and funnel nightmares from the night's wind.

What do they do with the nightmares they catch? This is a questions that man does not want to know the answer to.