There’s a touch of magic in everything we do and experience. Some of it is subtle, like the sight of newborn fawn on your drive into work. Some of it smacks you over the head, like a dancing leprechaun clanging pots and pans together. Tonight’s story is a blend of the subtle and the not-so subtle. Join us, as authors Eva Newcastle and Joe Nelson spin a strange story this summer’s night.
Good evening humanity (and hopefully something groovier!) It’s time for another episode of #GenresNotIncluded, the Best Typewriter Improv on the planet!
Tonight, esteemed woman of letters @EvaNewcastle, will be starting the story.
Are you ready? I am! Let’s go!
The silver figure appeared in her peripheral vision as if by magic, dancing on an unseen current in the dark, a silent marionette.
Left to right and back again it fluttered, hoping she would notice.
“That’s a bat.” She pulled her head back inside, afraid.
“Wait a minute.”
The summer night was sticky and hot. The trailer she called home was oppressive, so outside was her sanctuary for the night.
But she wasn’t getting a bat in her hair. Screw that.
Except…bats were dark little flying rodents.
This was shimmery.
Deep breath. Step out.
If a bat flew in the trailer, that was the end of her, flying overhead and spreading rabies while she slept. The odds of surviving were less than slim.
But bats don’t dance. Bats are dark, fast, and stealth.
Amazed, she watched two wings dangle. A luna moth, luminescent.
“Carol!” The voice was squeaky, like a cartoon mouse whose trademark was defended by a fleet of lawyers.
Luna moths, graceful and beautiful, did not talk.
“Carol! I have traveled a dozen nights to find you!”
She gaped into the night. “Did someone lace my cigarette with LSD?”
That was her imagination igniting, the life span of a luna moth seven days.
“Pandora. That’s what I’ll name you.”
The luna moth’s wings doubled in size. “Then follow me,” the moth said without speaking.
Pandora fluttered into a crevice, six inches wide, infinitely deep.
Definitely LSD, she thought dispassionately.
The crevice seemed to yawn before her. Was it growing? Was she shrinking? Was this heat stroke?
Either way, this beat the hell out of the double she was supposed to work at Mighti-Mart tomorrow.
“Pandora?”
“This way! Follow me!”
“I can’t fit in there,” she called after the moth. “Hello?” Her voice echoed in the chamber she’d never seen before.
This chance wasn’t going to escape. Determined, still afraid, she squeezed between the rough bricks and concrete. And impossibility. She felt her way in, blind.
The crevice was narrow, impossibly small, and yet she made it through.
Beyond, she found herself in a large space illuminated by a light far above, and with dozens upon dozens of flittering moths.
“You came!” This call was repeated a hundred excited times. Excited. Desperate.
She extended her arms, hoping one thousand moths would land on her, weight unfelt. Unsure, they came, one by one until the light dimmed.
“What have I done wrong?” The moths tightened, rose, and rocketed away.
A wind. A fury. The blackness — the original fear — had returned.
One remained.
Pandora.
“The darkness…we cannot fight it.”
“But…the switch?”
“We have no fingers,” the squeaky voice said sadly.
She did. And with one click, the light came back. And they celebrated.
And she never bummed a cigarette from her friend Penny again.
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