Lost in Transition
by Susan Anwin
For as long as he remembered (and that wasn’t long), Jack had always
lived on the streets, bumming cigs off the other hobos and occasionally
decent people if they deemed to answer him, dressing in an assortment
of filthy rags, eating whatever he found at the bottom of dumpsters. He
was fine with all that; he had never known any better. At least not for
as long as he could recall. And of course he was free to roam. He
drifted from city to city, living off temporary jobs, whenever he could
find someone willing to employ him – it wasn’t often. It wasn’t his
looks – he wasn’t particularly conspicuous, not in these realms with
their colorful vohiek population, them with their flamboyant variety of
sizes and shapes. Him with his blazing mane, clawed hands, with the
veins glowing white hot under the black skin wasn’t even that extreme
to look at. It was more the way things tended to burst into flames
around him, especially if he concentrated really hard or tried to focus
on more than one thing at the same time.
It’s your vohiek Talent, the other hobos told him. He didn’t feel
particularly vohiek-ish (he wasn’t quite sure what he was) but he
wasn’t one to argue.
He was staying at one of those homeless shelters specified to vohieks, the lowest of the low, the dregs of humanity.
"You have any Talent we should know of?" the administrator lady asked.
"Nah." He didn’t want to spend another night in some filthy back alley.
"No smoking inside, showering compulsory," the admin rattled on, as she handed him a form to fill.
"Oh." He didn’t like that, not one bit. Not the showering part (he had
an aversion to water), nor the filling out the form bit. He had to be
extra careful not to set the paper on fire, not to leave even a scorch
mark on it. That much concentration in itself was bound to cause an
accident, but it couldn’t be helped. He hoped he smelled of street,
rather than of burn; he really didn’t want to sleep in that back alley.
It said rain for tonight.
He did manage to fill the form out alright, (name: Jack, surname,
d.o.b., place of birth, he left all of that blank) he’ll figure
something out for the showering part; he always did.
The admin lady looked at him for the first time. "No family name? No date of birth?"
"No ma’am. Don’t remember any of that. Sorry," he shrugged.
The woman shook her head and filed his form with a sigh. "Canteen at the end of the corridor on the right."
She pulled out another sheet of paper. "What’s that smell?" she muttered as she opened a folder for the next applicant.
"Must be the folk in the kitchen, burned something," Jack offered. "Always just the trouble, them folk."
The admin looked back up at him. By that time she obviously already forgot he was there. He found it a better idea to scat.
*****
"You got a fag?" he asked one of his roommates, an old wino with a patchy bald head and too many eyes.
"This is a non smoking institution," another guy from one of the top bunk beds informed him.
Jack tsk-ed at him. "C’mon, noone’s gonna notice."
In the end he and the wino shared a fag by the window.
"Where you from, son?" Some of the old man’s eyes were focused on him,
some of them somewhere behind him. "Why you on the streets so young?"
Jack blew out the smoke, considering. "Dunno. Not sure I’m all that young, either." He shrugged.
The wino chuckled. "Another psycho, I see."
*****
He saw a vast, stormy sea (not good), flashes lit up the low hanging,
black clouds. The water opened to engulf him (even worse), but just
before he was plunged in it kicking and screaming he saw a massive,
scaly back deep under him at the bottom of the abyss.
He woke with a gasp. God, he hated dreaming with water. The
sheets under him and the bed above him were crackling merrily. His two
roomies were scrambling around in a panicked frenzy.
"He’s an arsonist, a fucking arsonist," the wino howled, as he barged out on the corridor.
*****
Another street in another town. He was sitting around, chilling with
some newfound mates. He was popular on the streets; folk tended to
freeze to death less if they teamed up with him.
They were passing around a bottle of moonshine one of them got off a
friend when the carriage passed. They didn’t think much of it; just one
of the decent people, after some urgent decent-people business.
Then the carriage stopped at the end of the alley, and the group
instinctively hushed, their muscles tensing as they prepared to
disperse.
The door of the carriage opened and a young man in a high priest’s garb climbed down the stairs.
Jack looked around and realized he was alone. The priest was a young
vohiek with tanned skin, part of his face was badly ruined in some past
accident. A namvöos, or burned one.
"Oh, drat," Jack muttered. He didn’t remember harming this fellow, but
that meant nothing. The priest headed straight his way, never taking
his one good eye off him. It was a startling shade of blue, the only
vivid spot of color in the drab environment.
"Ayy, dude, you’re in deep shit," one of the guys remarked with glee from a nearby doorway.
"Not that I know of," Jack sulked.
The priest halted a few steps away from him, boring his glance into him.
"G’day, mate," he spread his hands, the ciggy in his left trailed
smoke. "Look, I don’t know if I did that to you bro, but I’m real sorry
if I did, sorry big time if I did…" he offered his right in a
handshake, then reconsidered. Would not be in good standing with the
authorities if he burned this here priest. Again, by the looks of it.
The lad ignored his hand wavering in midair unsurely. "I can hear what you are," he started without preamble.
"Hear? Oh, that’s grand, mate, that’s mighty grand…"
"You don’t remember who you are, do you?"
Jack narrowed his eyes at him. "Are you from the authorities?"
"You are a destroyer of worlds," the priest said.
"Oh, am I?"
"You caused the downfall of an entire race of gods. You brought on the twilight of a universe."
"I did?"
"You sired a score of monsters," the priest went on relentlessly.
"Dude, none of that fits into my budget." Jack stretched out a hand,
claws like razors at the end of his fingers, veins aglow with liquid
fire. "Got some change?"
THE END
© 2017 Susan Anwin
Bio: Susan was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary, Her
flash-fiction Talk of Armadale trees was featured in the anthology My
Favourite Place, published by the Scottish Book Trust in 2012, and her
short stories Fog-People, Eddie's lousy Saturday, You'll die as fish,
People of the Green Cloud, Dragonfly-man, Daddy is Driving the Car,
Soul for Sale, Dark Sister and The Man Who Broke Time were published by
Aphelion in 2016 and 2017. She's been featured on the cover of Aphelion
in March and July 2017.
Website: Susan Anwin
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