Five Drabbles
AFTER
He was mauled by a rainbow that got out of hand. Occasionally, one comes upon a rainbow that has too much sass, the colors collide too angrily into each other. He goes now on jobs the union hand picks for him – light work after a misting, honing suspect rainbows birthed by holiday waterworks. It would not do to assign him the towering arch of a behemoth that leapt from a counties-wide thunderstorm. He understands his role, is glad there is a disability provision that keeps him occupied. Still, some nights he fingers his practice prism, imagines what once he was.
***
ALTERNATIVE VALUE
Our original harvest method was to cull all the spiders at once, scraping all sizes and species into the collection bins, selling them by weight. That produced revenue, but we have noticed of late the smaller spiders working in groups to surround and restrain the larger, perhaps more gourmet, spiders. These can then be picked selectively, boxed and sold half as many by weight for the same blanket price. The smaller spiders must think they are part of the harvest process, and thus might be spared. Not as long as the larger bulk containers still sell. Profit spares no one.
***
APPETITE OF A CROWD
These are not active rainbows he wrestles, but retired ones. That does not mean they are diminished. They simply are not likely to run off with the rain. Once they enter the ring, they are there for the duration. The crowd can be assured that, mid-match, there will not be a sudden evaporation, resulting in a called draw. No, the man will be singed and charred, the rainbow will be chipped and in places recast as poly-chromatic light stressed to monochrome. There will be a winner. The crowd does not care. They are here for a full length of struggle.
***
COMMON CAUSE
Rumor was that McClellan's highway-side scarecrow had been pulled apart by birds. It would take a mighty number of birds; yet, perhaps separate species working together, it might be done. He was an irascible workmate, anyway. Off-duty tending to complain about his length of arm, the brim of his hat, how few buttons remained on his shirt. Companion idle scarecrows passing would pretend to be so absorbed in bird watching as not to acknowledge him. And then he showed up, new shirt and hat and two broom handles for arms. Stunning, but we can still make pact with the birds.
***
TRIBULATIONS
Since our hero has gone bust, extra care has been our order. No last minute saving the endangered maiden. No evildoer thwarted miraculously just in time. We have contracted the hero from one town over, but he is only part time, and places responsibility for his home town first. We take pot-luck: in our hour of need, he may be there or he may not. Increasingly, we are learning to fare on our own. How long our hero is going to remain in the shop, no one knows. Despite the occasional mishap, we are learning to appreciate our natural destiny.
Author Bio
Ken Poyner has ten available collections of poetry, flash fiction and micro-fiction; the latest, Science Is Not Enough, is speculative poetry. He spent 33 years herding computers, and now helps with his wife's power lifting efforts. Individual works can be found in Mad Swirl, The Amsterdam Review, Grey Sparrow and dozens of others available on the web. www.kpoyner.com. His stories have appeared in The Cafe Irreal fourteen times previously, most recently "Excising Our Holes" in Issue #94.