THE BANE OF BAD THINGS (The Lovely Grounded Faeriez)

CHAPTER 3 -- DESTROY-A-LIZE IT

    Having been pierced by burning talons, Joe sinks into a dreamy, near unconsciousness.

"Am...am...I dead?" he wonders. His mouth now rests to let his intangible thoughts talk. They are more articulate than his weary lips. 'Oh, I had just got my ducks in a row,' he notes. 'Just getting started. Alex, Alex, my little leprechaun, Alex. I'm so sorry. I was going to give you the world.' He sees the scratch on her rosy cheek he had dabbed. Her face fades away backward. He cracks his eyelids. A tiny glow awakens between two milky right-hand gloves. His eyes close. 'a firefly,' he thinks. 'Send it to Alex to give her a message from me.' His eyes crack open and the "firefly" has grown brighter. He closes wet eyes. A tear falls to the cold, hard, cement. 'Tell her for me...tell her goodbye for me. Tell her not to be afraid to fall in love again. Tell her to have a long happy life. And tell her...Alex,

     I love you. "

***

In the bright sunlight the freaky fowl circles in the clear globe. The door to the stair access opens. Joe rushes out. A warm tone has returned to his once ashen skin. He is healed and he is clean; no holes, no rips, and no gravel. Why, he has even tucked his shirt into his belt; a strapping, healthy, young man. It is as if the attack had never happened. But he remembers it nonetheless.

"There's the barmy parakeet that nearly killed me!" he growls. He turns his glare from the oversized fowl to search the roof. "Staves, gravel, and wood!" he notes. "Or else my bare hands will have to do." He returns his gaze to burn into the creature. The fiend turns to him. Its bamboo-wind-chime quills are muffled in the bubble.

But, one of the fae, an emerald-eyed leprechaun with a flaming red fountain of a ponytail on top, snaps her gloved fingers. An ornate picture frame appears above her little hand. She finger-swipes the glass and then she shows the final scene to the sky-blue-maned, portal generating Baby Joe who nods in agreement. The flame-haired, emerald-eyed fae has the uncanny ability of extra vision and foresight.

 "Thank you, Baby Eyes," Baby Joe says to her. "Mister-Sir, you have guests at your shop waiting like hatchlings in a warm nest," Baby Joe informs.

"Shop? How? What? More lolitas? Is there a convention? A play?" he wonders. "How..." But, her sapphire eyes smile.

"I had best send you to safety Mister-Sir. We had just fixed you after all," she giggles. She forcefully gestures a horizontal portal into existence above Mr. Joe. In the sky, the warm hues of his bar are inside, like a mirror reflecting another place. Her hand lowers and the aperture engulfs him. Then, at roof level, it collapses. Left is a dark-gray circle devoid of man and gravel.

***

Back at the bar, a young couple wonders at the empty shop. There is a bit of kindling on the floor; what once was a chair. Not a soul is about. The light from the door suddenly dims. They turn. There Joe stands on a circular patch of gravel. He smiles wryly. He reaches for a stone under his feet and toys with it in one hand.

"Hello," he warmly greets his customers in his English accent. "Let me guess. You would like something...hmmm....something...on the rocks," he chuckles, tossing and catching the large pebble. He then smiles to himself. "Wait till Alex gets a load of this."

***

On the roof, two humble girls walk into the sunlight. Though dressed like the other girls, their garments appear drained of a bit of color. Their hair are a natural hue; both dark as inky satin. Schnoz notices one girl finger her dark bobbed hair over a blunt, very human, ear. The other has round ears too. Their sad eyes are each a deep maple-syrup; a common color of human eyes. But, hurrying to them is Baby Chic, with pointy ears jetting from her pastel-blue silky mane with its paint-brush end. Her aquamarine eyes are burdened with concern.