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Moment of Fiction - Stella Ella - Part 5

Awakening from her daze, Tameka took a quick self evaluation. Purse, check. Keys, check. Hair, check. What had happened? Had she fainted? She felt strangely different.

She hated different.

“Damn!” she exclaimed as she positioned herself behind the steering wheel. “I’ve got this green goop all over my new shoes.”

As Tameka made her way down 51^st Street, she began to notice how differently everyone looked. She stared intensely. The bodies along the sidewalk appeared to slow down. She stopped her car. Three girls were jumping double-dutch when suddenly the rope stopped midair. The girl inside the twirling lines had one foot up the other down mid-hop. Closing her eyes, Tameka counted to ten. Surely, that fainting spell had had more of an effect that what she had thought.

She opened her eyes. The world moved again at its normal pace. 

 

Moment of Fiction - Stella Ella Part 4

Ella lay in bed feeling particularly heroic. What had she become overnight? More than all her years of education and struggle had produced. In one earth shattering instant she had become super.

For a moment she contemplated what that meant. Evidenced by prior events, she could see farther and with more precision than a bald eagle. She could be any place her mind envisioned in an instant by just forming the thought. Best of all, she could save others in distress. Yes, Ella James the wall flower, turned bookworm, turned workaholic recluse, had turned into something amazing.

Meanwhile on the other side of the tracks, Tameka Jackson sat in the beauty salon annoyed. She was a wisher-would kinda girl. She wished someone would start something with her today. She wished Carmen, the new stylist, would mess up her blond extensions. She wished someone would cut her off in traffic. She wished a stranger would look at her crazy. Because if they did, bam, she was gonna let someone have it.

A Moment in Fiction - Part Three

Ella’s feet barely touched the sidewalk as she made her way home. Mid-stride, she removed her jacket and tied in securely around her neck. Her arms spread as she spun around soaking in the new world. She suddenly felt the urge to touch the sky, high beyond the city’s influence.

In an instant, she was airborne. Fright and excitement tumbled around inside of her. She was flying. Her right sandal fell from her feet. The aluminum roofs were shiny chess markers as she mapped her way around the neighborhood. Three squares over and one square up, Ella spotted to dark figures in an apparent struggle.

“Ah! Help!” one of the figures screamed. Ella took off in its direction.

As Ella landed, she could clearly make out a woman being accosted my a masked man.

“Hey, you. What are you doing?”

The figure pointed a dark object in her direction. In the twinkle of an eye, Ella was nose to nose with him ripping the gun from his fingers. With one punch, he was thrown in the air and into the open dumpster.

Ella helped the woman on her feet.

“Thank you, oh Lord I am glad you came along. How did you do . . .?”

In the blink of an eye, Ella was gone.

As the night wind carried Ella off into the distant sky, she pondered the night’s events. Next time, she thought, I’ll have something more clever to say than ‘Hey, you.’”

A Moment in Fiction

Ella pulled herself from the cold concrete. She spun around again and again desperately searching for the old hag that had blinded her. A young man with a Yorkshire jogged by. Stella grabbed his arm staring wildly.

“Did you see her? Did you see her?”

“Hey, lady, watch it!” the unsuspecting stranger exclaimed as he jerked his arm away, running faster down the trail.

Ella wanted to yell back, “I am not the crazy one!” There was no one left to listen.

As Ella walked toward her home three blocks away, she noticed a bounce in her step. She stopped, inspecting herself to see if she was hurt unaware. She did a quick self inspection. Her head was fine. Neck, back and limbs were in check. But she felt different. She looked around the park one last time searching for a trace of evidence that she wasn’t just losing it.

Then she noticed it. The white park lights did not have the familiar haloed ring that her lenses gave them. In fact she was not wearing her glasses. Yet, everything was in focus. She looked down the concrete walk and could see the playground in the distance. The more she concentrated the clearer the image became. As she stared harder, she could even make out the wings of the green glowing light bugs that circled the swings. She raced toward the glowing wings. Before the thought could move her limbs to action, she was there.

What magic had the old woman wrought? What was it she had said, Ella thought? ‘You’re the one.’

A Moment in Fiction

Ella James sat on the splintered wooden bench on the South perimeter of Halo Park sipping her caramel iced coffee as she had done every Saturday for six years. Shadows danced against the white park lights. She wrapped her arms against a sudden chill that seemed to come out of nowhere and adjusted her glasses.

A dark figure lumbered along the sidewalk headed in her direction. Why had she worn heeled thonged sandals, she lamented. Ella's fear slowly subsided as the light defined the figure as a woman draped in rags. Shuffling past with baby steps, she suddenly stopped. Her wrinkled toothless mouth pulled wide into a grin. Fear leapt into Ella’s gut but she was unable to move.

“You are the one,” a raspy voice uttered.

“Ma’am, I am sorry I don’t have any change,” Ella nervously responded.

The strange woman continued to smile that haunting grin as she rummaged through her rags and extended her closed fist.

“Come closer. I want to show you something.”

Ella wanted to run but remembering her sandals. She acquiesced. Squinting, she tried to make out the object in the wrinkled smudged hand. As her fingers released to reveal their treasure, a puff of dust was blown into Ella’s face.

Coughing and gasping, she fell to the ground, unable to breathe. The white lights blinked on and off, on and off, and on and off.

Ella’s eyes opened as she lay on the cold concrete walk in front of the splintered wooden bench. There was no one in sight, just the shadows dancing wildly in the white light.