I Know You

Wrote for five minutes with a grand total of 217 words. The dialogue slowed me down quite a bit.

“I know you.” The voice came from behind me, startling me from my reverie. I turned.

She was blonde, almost tall, wearing a long black leather coat, belted over what seemed to be a red sweater dress. I didn’t know her. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, miss,” I turned back around and kept walking. Night was falling, and I didn’t want my German shepherd to worry about me. He liked his kibble promptly at six, no later, and I swear that dog could tell time.

Her footsteps followed me. “No, I know you! You’re that writer from Bookman’s. I see you there every weekend, typing away, drinking your cappuccino.” She smiled brightly. “I see you there, and I’ve always wanted to know what you were writing, but I was too shy to ask. You looked busy.”

“So I am. You a writer too?” A comrade in disguise, perhaps. I could use someone to talk to about my plot probl—never mind, I thought, she’s just a girl, not a real student of the craft.

“Yes, I am a writer.” She smiled proudly—to proudly, I though ruefully, to be serious.

“What do you write? Romance novels?”

“Hell, no!” She surprised me with her rough language. “I’m a creative writing student at the university. Literary fiction primarily, but…”

One of Them

They always looked at me strangely during the day. Like I was either something to be abhorred or something to be laughed at, I could never discern which. It used to bother me. I used to cover my body with a dark cloak and walk with my head bent, eyes looking to the ground. It doesn’t bother me anymore. Finally, I am one of them. At night, I am allowed out, because we are the same.

I am grateful for my evolution. Despite my new responsibilities, my life is now easier. Before now, every morning I would look at my hands, hoping fervently that I’d finally changed. I was only allowed out during the day, because the night belonged only to them. At five, I would have to return to my solitary quarters, and feel their gaze upon me as they laughed silently and whispered about the retarded one, the Never-Change. Now, despite their distrust of me still, they have accepted me. I am no longer doomed to the life of a Never-Change.

It began as something to occupy my mind through the night when I was not allowed out. I could not sleep. Not because it was too loud to sleep—after all, their work was completely silent—but because the restless nature of my mind was such that it was completely impossible for me to stop thinking. Anyway, laying there in the dark solace, I began to wonder if my situation, my retardation was permanent. I had not changed at the age of sixteen, and the last five years had brought no change for me either. My hive-mates had determined that I was a Never-Change, destined to be human forever. Destined to be retarded, never evolving into the catlike form that all of my kind are supposed to take. Instead of being able to protect the humans that share our planet, I was forced to live like one.