Part of this started a few years ago when I learned of the National Novel Writing Month. This is a challenge each November to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I learned about this in December or January, and thought it was a really interesting idea, but I didn’t want to wait until the next November. So I got ready and April 1st, I started working on my novel Cup of Joe’s. I ran into problems, got discouraged, had a family emergency, and ended up only 47 or 48,000 words short.

The other part of this results from my writing curse of having too many ideas. I’ll get a simple idea that can be taken in five different directions resulting in five novellas. Or, I once had this image in mind so I wrote three pages that would be a prologue to a novel, as well as a page or two outline for that novel as well as seventeen more. So believe me when I say I have a lot of ideas. (I recently went through my writing notebooks and found over 160 ideas just for short stories.) Most of them probably suck, but when has that ever stopped anyone?

How these two combine is that I have bragged that if I wrote a short story a day, a novella a week, and a novel a month, I would never run out of ideas. Partly from my vast backlog, but also from the Hydra-like nature of my ideas; for each story I write, two more come to mind. Recently, I started wondering if I should try to put my money where my mouth is and see if I could write a story a day. If nothing else, it would clear out the ol’ idea box, challenge myself to produce words, be a cheap trick to get people to go to my website, and be an interesting tidbit for when I start looking for an agent. Thus, my 30 Stories in 30 Days challenge was born.

The rules. I could have gone somewhat psycho and demand that each day I come up with an idea, write the story, and at midnight put up what I had even if it wasn’t finished. I’m not going to do that, for several reasons. First off, some of my ideas need to … fester (that’s probably the best term) for awhile before I can turn them into a story. Also, if I posted them at the end of each day, the stories during the week would suffer. (I unfortunately have a day job.) So, this is how I’m running this challenge. I can use any story idea I’ve ever had, as long as I have not worked on the story before. If I jotted down a brief, few sentence outline, that’s okay. If I wrote the opening paragraph, it’s out. (See my Reader’s Choice page where my readers will vote on a story I’ve started but never finished.) And my goal will be 30 stories in 30 days. I’ll probably do two or three during the week, and the weekends will be a flurry of typing. And most of these stories will be flash fiction, but there might be some longer ones mixed in. We’ll see.

So, let the mayhem begin.

September 2008 Stories

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

So Little Time

In a quiet, rusty voice, the old man said, “KITT, my bookcase please.”

His automated wheelchair replied with, “Understood,” and began wheeling the man through his home. It rolled into his study and stopped before the one neat bookcase; all the others overflowed with books and papers.

With a shaky hand, the man reached up to his glasses and rubbed the adjustment sensor on the side until the books at the top of the case came into focus. The man sat back and looked up at his life’s achievements: eleven stand alone novels, six trilogies, two tetralogies, a pentalogy, and sixteen anthologies of short stories. These took up the top two shelves and the two below them held the magazines most of his short stories had been published in.

The old author took a deep breath and pushed himself up. After a second he took a wobbly step forward. Reaching up he removed the first magazine on the shelf then flopped back into his wheelchair. He sat there and cursed his body for not withstanding the ravages of time better.

Rubbing the sensor on his glasses, he brought the magazine into focus. It was the second – and final – issue of a poorly produced and managed magazine. It was full of typos, moronic essays, and ill-plotted stories. But sixty-two years before, the author – not so old at the time – thought it was the absolute greatest thing in the world because they had published his first story. For years on every anniversary of when he received the letter informing him he was now a published author, he would take out the magazine and reread the story. Then his success went to his head and he couldn’t bear to read such amateurish material, hoping people would think an acclaimed novelist had just appeared out of thin air. But as the years wrecked his body, they also smoothed his ego until he could look without fear at his imperfect past.

The old man carefully opened the magazine and turned the yellowing pages until he reached his story. Settling into his wheelchair, he read; smiling at the stale dialogue and simplistic plot. When he finished, he closed the magazine. He took a few moments to compose himself, then returned it to the shelf.

When he was back in his chair he let his mind wander. For years he had asked himself why such a poor story had ever been accepted. He ended up writing a story about a successful author who researched his first sale, some twenty years after it was published, only to find out that the editor had been going through a bitter divorce at the time and would just grab a story at random to throw in the magazine. Looking up at the fuzzy bookcase the author wondered if he should try to find that story. It should be in one of the anthologies. He gave a dry chuckle and sat for a minute trying to remember if any of his other stories had generated as much hate mail.

As he thought through his controversial stories, a tiny voice asked, But how many are you forgetting? He ignored it at first, but in the end he had to admit it had a point. About twenty years earlier he was on a panel and someone had asked him about his inspiration for the main character in his first novel. He had sat stupidly for several seconds before admitting that he couldn’t even remember the plot of the novel let alone the origins of the characters. It wasn’t because he had a bad memory, just that he had written so much over the years that everything had blurred together. He stopped doing panels after that.

The old man shook his head. Funny, he thought, I can’t remember the name of my best friend in high school, or when I lost my virginity, or any other countless “good” events of my life. But that moment of foolishness, when I had to face the fact that I was getting old, is etched into my memory. Again he shook his head and gave his standard reply to such things, “Life is cruel.”

He shook himself from that road to depression and went back to his yearly ritual. On the anniversary of his becoming a published author, he would reread his first story, and then glance through one or two of his writing notebooks. When he was younger he had taken a small notebook with him everywhere. He would hide it in a drawer at a crappy job to write in when he had ten minutes or spread it on a little fast food table where he ate his heart attacks in a bun. Over the decades he went through scores of them. They were now shelved below the magazines, within easy reach of his wheelchair. He ran his fingertips along a few before pulling out a tattered blue one. Opening it checked the date on the first page and saw it was thirty-four years old. What the hell was I doing thirty-four years ago?

Before there was a chance he could get sucked into more depressing thoughts, he began reading the notebook, or at least reading what he could decipher. Most of the pages he only glanced at. They had red check mark on their tops meaning he had already typed them up. These words were most likely already in one of his books. After twenty or thirty pages, he came to a page without a red check mark and he shivered. He read what he could and saw that it was a beginning of a short story, but where it would have gone or why he started writing it had been lost long ago. And this was just one of hundreds. These unfinished stories, these unfulfilled dreams hurt more than the forgotten plots of published novels.

The old man closed the notebook and sighed. So many ideas, yet so little time. Even if he lived for hundred more years he could never catch up to his imagination. While that was a depressing thought, he looked up at his bookcase, adjusted his glasses to bring his books into focus, and asked, “But how few do this much?”

Freelancers

“Will you get away from that damned screen and do something?” Robert called as he drifted through the Clarke. His voice was more annoyed than bitter. He popped through the hatch into the “living room” and brought himself to a stop by catching his foot on a handhold. Just as he knew he would, he found Geoffrey floating before the view screen.

Without taking his eyes from the screen, Geoffrey turned his head and said, “You act as if First Contact with aliens happens everyday.”

“I know, but it’s been two days. Yes, it’s great, it’s fantastic, it’s,” Robert waved his hands, “the biggest event in the entirety of Human existence.” Taking a deep breath he added, “But we have a job to do. We’re coming up on 4082 and Caltech would probably prefer that we leave a probe there, since that is what they’re paying us to do.”

With his foot on the handhold, Robert started to pull himself back to the “garage” when Geoffrey spun around and asked, “Have you heard the latest?” Before Robert could reply Geoffrey went on, “Oh, of course not, you’ve been too busy to follow the greatest event in Human history. But these aliens, these Pentans, they’ve announced that in the spirit of friendship they will outfit any Human spacecraft that wants it with artificial gravity.” Geoffrey let that hang for a moment before continuing. “Just think, no longer spending hours every day exercising and taking those horse pills to keep our bones from withering away.”

They both floated silently for several seconds. Then Robert asked with a smirk, “What about sex?”

Geoffrey rolled his eyes. “We can turn it off. I think we should send them a message, let them come fix us up. Plus, we could be some of the first people to have actual contact with aliens. What do you think?”

Robert sighed. “I think we’re coming up on 4082. We’ll talk about this later.”

“What the hell is wrong with you? You’re acting like this is the worst thing to ever happen. What gives?”

Robert floated back into the living room. He took a few seconds, then looked at Geoffrey. “Look at what we do. We swing by the lunar factories and pick up a dozen probes and supplies. We then spend a couple years drifting through the belt dropping off the probes on whatever asteroid the universities are interested in studying for potential colonization or mining fifty years from now. It’s not glamorous, but we … we were at the cutting edge of Human exploration of space.” Robert paused for a moment. “A year from now, when we’re back at the moon, do you think there will be anyone wanting to hire our services? Why study another boring old carbonaceous asteroid when these Pentans can take you to whole other star system?” Taking a deep breath he added, “Yes, it’s great that we’ve finally met aliens, but now that we have, how are we going to make a living?”

For a long time neither said anything. Then Geoffrey stated, “The only constant in life is change.” Looking at Robert he went on, “So maybe we’ll no longer drop probes off for universities. You said it might be fifty years until humanity is colonizing or mining out here, but with the kick in the ass of First Contact, maybe it will only be five. Maybe when we get back to the moon there won’t be a university wanting us to put a probe into orbit around an asteroid, maybe there’ll be a corporation wanting to hire us to prospect or set up a mining claim for them. Who knows? It’s a brave new world, but we’re not all going to just ignore the aliens and go back to the way things were just because you’re a grumpy old man set in your ways.”

Robert took a deep breath. “The Clarke’s my ship, I can be grumpy if I want to be.”

Geoffrey smiled. “I think somebody needs a nap.”

With a clenched jaw to keep from smiling, Robert glared at Geoffrey. “All right, all right. Let’s get this probe set up, then we’ll send a message to your precious Pentans.”

Whiners

Joe did not want to go to work on Tuesday. His company gave the employees the Friday off before Labor Day as well as that Monday, so he had not been at work when McCain announced Palin as his running mate. He was sure his cubical mates would have a hell of a time discussing the turn of events.

Mike was a hard-core Republican, but for months he had been complaining that McCain wasn’t conservative enough; even saying he was almost as bad as a Democrat. Linda was a hard-core Democrat, but for months she had been complaining that Obama wasn’t the fighter the Dems needed; he wasn’t Hillary. The only three things they agreed on were that the Philadelphia Flyers were the best, the other party was wrong, and that their own candidates might not deserve their vote.

When Joe arrived they were already at it. For hours he listened to Mike go on and on about how Palin added the desperately needed conservative nature to the ticket, conveniently forgetting that for months he had been bashing Obama for his inexperience. Linda meanwhile when on and on about how sickening it was that McCain had chosen a woman just to win over the disgruntled Hillary supporters, conveniently forgetting that for months she had been bashing Obama because he wasn’t Hillary.

Joe didn’t even try to do any work; he just sat at his desk playing Solitaire. After he got bored with that, he sat looking back and forth between the two. Finally he said, “Will you two just shut the hell up.”

Mike and Linda, who usually forgot that Joe existed, stopped mid-rants to stare, open mouthed, at him.

“For months you guys have been complaining that your candidates aren’t perfect. McCain isn’t Reagan and Obama isn’t Hillary. So neither candidate shares all your beliefs. Tough. Look at me. I’m a white, middle-class guy who doesn’t live in a million dollar home – let alone seven – who supports the ACLU and the NRA. I’m Pro-Choice while believing that we shouldn’t pull the troops out of Iraq until the Iraqis can fend for themselves. And to top it off, I’m an atheist. No candidate shares my beliefs, but do I whine and go, ‘They don’t believe as I do so they don’t deserve my vote?’ No, because I’m adult enough to realize that only spoiled little brats bitch and moan when life doesn’t go as they want.”

Joe paused, then continued, pointing at Linda, “You hate Obama, but if enough of you brain-dead Democrats stay home because he isn’t Hillary, then there’s a chance McCain will win. Is that what you want?” Turning to Mike he went on, “And the same goes for you and the brain-dead Republicans. If enough of you stay home then Obama will win.”

Joe let that sink in for a moment before saying, “Both of you, stop whining about how you might not vote this November because neither candidate is perfect. Well duh. Actually – now that I think about it – if you’re stupid enough to think politicians need to be perfect then maybe it’s best that you don’t vote. Ever.”

War Against Time

When Mike pulled into John and Stacy’s driveway, he was surprised to see that he was the last to arrive. He looked at the clock in his car and saw it was 1:56. The plan had been to get together at 2:00, which usually meant Alice wouldn’t be there until 2:30 – at the earliest – but there was her little blue Saturn. Maybe John had told her they were meeting at 1:30.

With that Mike chuckled and got out of his car, taking the bag with a couple of DVDs, a board game, and a box of donuts. The gang’s standard weekend get together involved ordering some pizza, watching a movie or two, playing some games and BSing.

With a big smile, John opened the door just before Mike could ring the bell. “Howdy,” Mike said.

“Come on in.”

Mike stepped into the sun room, took his hat off and set it upside down on the table John and Stacy didn’t know what to do with. He then took out his wallet and keys and put them in the hat.

“Everyone’s in the dining room,” John told him.

Mike nodded. With another chuckle he asked, “Did you tell Alice we were getting together at 1:30?”

John’s smile faded and he said, “Something like that.”

Walking into the dining room, Mike saw the gang all sitting around the table with the two chairs on the ends empty. Down one side sat Alice, Linda and her husband Harry. On the other side were Stacy, Bill and his wife Nichole. John took the empty chair next to his wife, waved at the other chair and said, “Please, sit down.”

Mike raised the eyebrow over his right eye and replied, “Okay,” drawing the word out. He sat down between Nichole and Alice and noticed that everyone looked worried. “I have donuts,” he told them.

For a few seconds everyone around the table smiled, although they did look pained. John took a deep breath and said, “There’s no easy way to say this Mike, but this is an intervention.”

There was complete silence until Mike gave a snorting laugh. “What?”

“You need help,” Stacy said, “and we’re here to help you.”

Again Mike raised his eyebrow. “Help? For what?”

Everyone looked to John who answered. “Mike, you’re like the only person on the planet who doesn’t have a cell phone.”

Mike let that run through his mind for a few moments, then replied with, “So?”

“So?” Linda cried. “What if you had been in an accident on your way here?”

“Then the eight hundred people around me would have all whipped out their cell phones and called 9-1-1.”

“Maybe a good way to start this,” Bill broke in resting his hands on the table, “is asking why you don’t have a cell phone?”

“Because I don’t need one.”

“How can you say that?” John asked.

Mike shrugged. “Easily. Why would I need one?”

“So you can stay in touch with everyone,” Linda answered.

“I have a phone in my apartment that I rarely use. I have email. And I get together with you people for days like today. Why do I need to be more in touch?”

Before anyone could reply, Mike raised a finger. “Wait a minute. In the past month all of you together have sent me, like, thirty emails, but I don’t think any of you have called me. So, unless it is beneath you to call a land-line, how would me getting a cell phone keep us in touch?”

“We don’t call,” Stacy explained, “because we don’t know if you’ll be there to pick up.”

“But you send me emails, and it could be hours before I check my email.”

“Really,” Alice said, “a cell phone is for when we go to movies or out to dinner. “What if you got lost? We wouldn’t know what happened to you?”

“That’s why I usually bum a ride, or take someone with a cell phone.”

“But what’s the big deal?” John asked. “They’re tiny; you can fit one in your pocket.” To demonstrate, John pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“I don’t like having things in my pockets,” Mike explained. “That’s why my wallet and keys are in my hat out there,” he pointed over his shoulder with a thumb.

“They do make little pouches you can attach to your belt,” Nichole said.

“Enh, I think that would still bug me.”

“Would such a little thing bug you?” Alice asked.

Mike shrugged. “That’s part of why I stopped wearing a watch.”

Bill leaned forward and asked, “Really? What’s the rest of the reason?”

Sitting back, Mike said, “I was tired of being at the beck and call of the three-handed slave master.” Everybody looked confused, so Mike explained, “Time. From old clocks that have three hands. A couple years ago I was at lunch and it was a busy day, they were short handed, something, and it took a long time for my food to arrive. Once it did I started wolfing it down because I was afraid of getting back to work late, and I realized I was getting worried over nothing. I should relax and enjoy the moments of life, how ever long they take. I shouldn’t rush through them because somebody else says so. Part of why I hate mornings is I usually wake up tired. I want to go back to sleep but I can’t, because when the slave master tells you to get up, you have to get up.” Mike looked around the table and added, “I stopped wearing a watch as a rebellion, my little war against time.”

“Well, that’s nice,” John said, “but what does that have to do with not owning a cell phone?”

“I can wait a few hours to get home to call or email someone. I’m independent enough not to need to tell everyone every little thing about my day all the time.” Mike looked around the table and asked, “Are we connecting now?” A few of his friends nodded. “And we’re doing it without a technological doodad.”

“Okay,” Linda said. “You’ve made your point. But that doesn’t change the fact that a cell phone can help you in an emergency.”

“So I should buy one and throw it in my little emergency kit in my trunk – the one with flares, jumper cables, et cetera – to let it bounce around through summer and winter for a few years until I do have an accident and need it?”

Nobody had an answer to that, so Mike said, “I don’t have a cell phone because I have no need of one and one would not help me. Now, why don’t one of you whip out your cell phone and order us some pizza.”

Flight Into History

June 22, 2010

Most days Tom hated when customers came into the convenient store during his shift; it really cramped his magazine reading time. But today was worse. Of course he would have to work on the launch of the final space shuttle mission.

As the Endeavour sat ready to liftoff for the last time, Tom sat behind the counter watching it on a tiny TV. About every ten seconds, some schmuck came in to buy a pack of cigarettes, or get a cup of coffee, or walk past the large sign with an arrow telling people where the restrooms were to ask, “Where are your bathrooms?”

A few asked him what was going on and when he told them they would shrug or say, “That’s cool,” then leave. On one hand he could understand their lack of interest – the shuttles had been flying for almost thirty years – but on the other hand it pissed him off. This was a momentous moment in the history of spaceflight. Okay, it wasn’t Armstrong taking a small step, but one of the most complex machines ever built was being retired so we could move on to something better. That sense of progress just filled Tom with hope; hope humanity would carry on and not be buried in the crap that seemed to fill our lives.

A middle-aged woman came into the store, grabbed a Diet Coke and a candy bar, and asked Tom for a pack of cigarettes. As Tom was ringing her up, she nodded towards the TV and asked, “What’s going on?”

“It’s the last shuttle launch, their retiring the fleet.”

The woman nodded and throwing a twenty on the counter sneered, “Good. I always thought NASA was a huge waste of money.”

Trying to keep the anger from his voice, Tom picked up the twenty and stated, “Exploring the universe is not a waste of money.”

The woman scoffed. “All those billions wasted up there could be better spent on the problems here on Earth.”

“Yeah, then the people could spend their money on important things, like nicotine and empty calories,” Tom said, as he handed her back her change.

The woman looked at the items in her hand for a moment. Glaring at Tom she snatched her change and stormed out of the store.

Tom shrugged and turned back to the TV. “T-minus sixty seconds.”

The Grey Masses

“Thank you, thank you,” Joseph said as he stepped up to the podium. Over the light applause he added, “If I had known I would have received such a warm goodbye, I would have left years ago.”

As the laughter rolled around the ballroom, Joseph glanced at the faces of his family, friends, and coworkers. He held his hand out to the woman who sat to the left of the podium. “Another round of applause for Susan, who put all of this together out of the kindness of her heart, and because she’s been after my job for years.”

Speaking up to be heard over the laughter, Susan said, “It was no problem at all, I’m just so happy you’re finally leaving.”

Joseph waited for everything to settle. “Seriously, I want to thank all of you. The past thirty-seven years at D. A. Shearin have been some of the best and happiest years of my life. Of course that’s because I’ve spent all of them with my lovely wife, Abbey.”

At this there were more applause – and a few elbows into husband’s ribs – and a woman sitting on the right blushed a deep red and tried to hide her face behind her napkin.

Joseph smiled and chuckled, knowing he would pay for that latter. “Now, I’ve been to these things where the retiree just talks and talks and talks about days gone by, boring the hell out of everyone here. But I’m not going to do that.”

“Too late for that,” someone called out.

Cupping his hand to his ear, Joseph asked, “Do I hear the sound of a troublemaker?”

“Oh no, no, no,” the same voice replied.

“What won’t I miss?” Ticking them off on his fingers, Joseph counted, “The morning commute, the evening commute, Tom …”

When the laughter died down, Joseph continued, “Before I was interrupted I was saying that I’m not going to stand up here and bore you. I’m now retired, I should be enjoying myself. And if my family is any indication, I’ll be enjoying myself for many years. In addition to my wife, our kids Susan and Jeremy and our four grandkids, tonight we are joined by my father Martin who turns eighty-seven in a few weeks.” An old man sitting next to Abbey raised his hand and waved to the audience.

“And even more amazing,” Joseph went on, “my grandmother Margaret – who turned 105 two months ago – is here as well.” A very old woman sat in a wheelchair next to Martin. He looked at her, then turned and said something to Joseph. “What was that?” Joseph asked, and Martin repeated himself. “Oh.” Turning to the audience Joseph told them, “She’s asleep.”

Super M

The naked woman hung upside down from the ceiling; her ankles wrapped in heavy chains. More chains bound her arms behind her back. A strip of lead had been wrapped around her head as a blindfold with the ends twisted together. Clamps were clipped to both of her nipples and connected to these were heavy medicine balls which hung below her head.

She hung in the middle of a small, Spartan, cinder block room. Two closed metal doors led from the room and along one wall was a closed metal cabinet. The only other objects in the room were a small freezer, a step stool, and a hand cart near the cabinet.

After several minutes one of the doors opened and a figure entered. They wore a protective face shield, a chemical apron, and heavy gloves. With long tongs the figure carried a ceramic crucible full of a thick, silvery liquid. With their foot, they moved the step stool closer to the woman, then stepped up to the top. Without saying a word, the figure tilted the crucible and the liquid poured out upon the woman’s buttocks.

The woman gasped and squirmed as the liquid ran down over her flesh and solidified. Once the crucible was empty, the figure stepped down and set it aside. The woman squirmed and a chunk of lead slid from her skin and fell to the floor with a soft thunk. The figure waited for several seconds then, using the tongs removed the remaining lead from the woman. Once all the lead was back in the crucible, the figure picked it up with the tongs and left the room.

They returned after only a few moments and began taking off the protective clothing, revealing a middle-aged woman wearing a white blouse and khaki slacks. She looked as if she would not be out of place in any office. She walked over to the woman and rested her hand on the woman’s cooling buttocks. “What did you think of my warm up method?”

“It was lovely, Mistress.”

The Mistress smiled and slowly rubbed the woman’s butt, resulting in a content sigh. She then walked over to the cabinet and opened it, revealing numerous weapons. There were clubs, knives, swords, pistols, even rifles. The Mistress looked these over and glanced at the woman. Reaching into the cabinet she removed a set of brass knuckles and dropped them with a clang onto the hand cart. She then slowly – almost seductively – drew a Bowie knife from its sheath and dropped that on the cart as well. After a few seconds she picked up a 9mm with a silencer. She loaded it and set it and another clip on the cart. Pushing the cart over to the woman she hummed a little tune.

Still humming the Mistress walked around the woman a few times, then reached out a finger and touched it to the woman’s stomach. The woman jerked a bit and the Mistress smiled. “Jumpy, aren’t we.” The Mistress circled the woman tracing a line around her body. She took a step back and said, “What am I going to do with you.” Carefully – so as not to make a noise – she picked up the 9mm. She held the barrel only a few inches from the woman’s right butt cheek and pulled the trigger.

The woman let out a gasp which turned into giggles as the flattened bullet fell to the floor.

“Did you think that was funny?” the Mistress asked. Before the woman could reply, the Mistress emptied the clip, shooting the woman’s buttocks, thighs, and the underside of her breasts. The Mistress inserted the new clip and continued shooting, hitting most of the same spots. When that clip was finished, she returned the gun to the cart. The woman hung breathing heavier; the medicine balls gently swaying from her squirms.

Reaching up with both hands, the Mistress drew her fingernails down the back of the woman’s thighs. “I’m worried I might have gotten you too excited. Perhaps I should cool you down.” The Mistress walked over to the freezer and put on insulated gloves. She opened the freezer and took out a large thermos labeled “Liquid Nitrogen,” but before she could return to the woman a bell rang.

“Damn it,” the woman shouted. With a shrug, the chains on her arms shattered and she ripped her ankles from the ceiling. Back on her feet she undid the clamps on her nipples and let the medicine balls fall to the floor. She then removed the lead strip from her eyes. Running from the room she told the Mistress, “I’m so sorry.”

The Mistress put the thermos back in the freezer and took off the gloves. She walked over and glanced at all the broken chain links littering the floor. With a sigh she sat down on the stool and waited.

A minute later the woman returned smoothing her outfit. “I’m sorry, there’s a bank robbery with hostages. I need to go.”

“I understand.”

The woman sighed. “I really needed this.”

The Mistress smiled. “You’re abilities present quite a challenge, and I do enjoy a challenge. I will wait for you to return.”

The woman smiled.

“I will spend my time,” the Mistress added, “thinking of an adequate punishment for making such a mess,” she waved at the floor.

The woman blushed and looked at her feet.

With a pat on her butt and a smile, the Mistress told her, “Go on, the world needs you.”

The woman smiled, lifted a foot off the floor and flew out the door.