A quiet night in a small Italian town. One of the things she loved about Europe was the attention to detail, the art in everything
they made. Gargoyle rain spouts and fine
scroll work on every corner cried to all who would listen how much work, how
much care, went into every block laid here.
Even simple fountains were works of art.
She stopped to admire a beautiful stylized dolphin letting water into an
enormous shell.
She didn’t hear anything before sudden pain blossomed on the
back of her skull. Falling to her knees,
she caught herself on the fountain base.
Someone kicked her, completing her fall and grabbed her purse. She could hear him now. He seemed to think she was completely out of
it, nothing else could explain why he was rifling through her bag right there. Well, she would just have to show him that
she wasn’t your average tourist.
Mumbling quietly under her breath she looked around for the
right tool. Ah, just there. He finally noticed she was awake as she
shouted the last line of the spell pointing first at him then at the fountain
in the wall.
Nothing happened.
He stared at her for a minute then dropped her bag next to
her, pocketing the cash and credit cards.
He was halfway across the street when he felt a tug on his foot. Looking down there was nothing there. He tried to keep walking but the tug stopped
his foot from going forward. Then,
another pull on his other foot. He
couldn’t see anything but there was definitely something keeping his feet from
moving forward. He tried to move
forward. He tried to kick off whatever
had his feet. Slow enough that at first
he dismissed it, the thief started moving backwards. He was pulled faster until he lost his
balance and was dragged by his ankles back toward the woman he had just
robbed. She remained sitting next to the
fountain. She was looking at him and
pointing at the dolphin.
He screamed. He
kicked. He fought. Nothing seemed to do any good.
“Give it back.” Her
voice came out like an arctic blast on such a mild evening. He had stopped moving just inches away from
the fountain. He quickly pulled
everything out of his back pocket and threw it at her. She smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
“Very good.”
He screamed when his bones started to pop. He begged as they cracked. He sobbed when they crumbled. All his bones except his skull which
shrunk. Suddenly he was moving again,
this time lifted. It felt like his body
had been turned into gelatin. He
couldn’t move anything. All he felt was
the pain ripping through his body telling him something was terribly
wrong. Then he was being squished,
blended. How could you blend into
something as solid as stone? But he saw
his body begin to disappear into the very fountain which had distracted his
mark long enough for him to get the drop on her.
Finally the whimpering ended. She sat up to admire her handy work. It didn’t stand out as much as one might
think human remains ought. Still, she
was glad she’d had the opportunity to contribute to the art. Standing up, she gathered her things and
continued her walk, leaving the screaming face embedded in stone behind her.
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| from Carabou of Flickr under a Creative Commons license |
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