Samantha J Bryant (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
samanthabryant) wrote2019-02-09 09:05 pm
samanthabryant) wrote2019-02-09 09:05 pm
Entry tags:
Saturday Scenes
#samanthascenes #saturdayscenes In celebration of my re-release of the Menopausal Superheroes series last Thursday, here's a favorite bit from book 1: Going Through the Change.
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Helen tossed off the covers. She couldn’t sleep. It had only been a few hours since Cindy had dropped her off, after yet another all night session testing the limits of her abilities, tipsy on wine and drunk on power. She had stumbled to the bedroom, thrown away her burnt-up clothes, and flopped into bed. She fell into sleep like a diver into a pool.
She hadn’t expected to resurface again so soon. She checked the bedside clock. Four-thirty a.m. Too late to be called night and too early to be called morning. But her eyelids were up, and she shook with a restless energy. She knew this feeling. It was excitement.
The round of experiments with Cindy last night had shown her what she could do. And she wanted to do more. It had been a long time since her limits had been stretched, since the world had seemed new and exciting. God, what a rush! It was like being in love.
She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment and then padded to the closet and pulled on a long T-shirt. It had been her husband’s and proved more durable than he had. She wondered if it were possible to buy fireproof clothing.
Moving quietly through the apartment, she made her way to the kitchen and to the patio doors at the back. She stepped through into the patch of grass that had sufficed as a yard for Mary’s barbecue party a week or so ago.
Helen looked around. The windows of the two apartments above Mary’s overlooked the yard, but they were dark. The back of the yard was bordered by some kind of industrial strength hedges, probably to protect the homeowners behind from having to see the seedy, little apartment dwellers smoking their cigarettes and drinking their beer.
Helen willed a ball of fire into her hand and made it roll. She tossed it from one hand to the other, rolling it across her arms and laughing. She balanced it on one finger like Wilt Chamberlain and made it spin, first one direction and then another. She made a second and a third ball and tried to juggle them. Whenever she dropped one in the grass, she stomped out the small fire with her bare foot and made a replacement.
When she tired of fire juggling, she decided to try other shapes. She made a sort of spear, a long thin flame. She bent it around itself until it was a ring. She spun it in the air and then around one wrist, like it was a hula-hoop. She thought about spinning it around her waist, but knew the shirt would never survive it. She didn’t want to end up naked in her daughter’s backyard.
God, this was fun. She hadn’t had this kind of fun in years. She lined up a couple of beer cans and soda bottles in various parts of the yard and, making her finger into a gun, shot them with small blasts of fire, leaving smoking piles of melted tin can and broken glass.
She was trying to decide what to do next, when she froze, stopped by a small squeak. The sliding door squeaked in its track. Helen turned, just in time to see her wide-eyed daughter poking her head out the small opening she had made. Her voice sounded almost childlike, like she was afraid. “Mom?”
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Thanks for reading! You can learn more about me and my writing at http://samanthabryant.com or follow My Saturday Scenes collection here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/Y5kMoB There's also a collection for ALL the Saturday Scenes by ALL the participating authors here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/4XjIWE
_______________________________________________
Helen tossed off the covers. She couldn’t sleep. It had only been a few hours since Cindy had dropped her off, after yet another all night session testing the limits of her abilities, tipsy on wine and drunk on power. She had stumbled to the bedroom, thrown away her burnt-up clothes, and flopped into bed. She fell into sleep like a diver into a pool.
She hadn’t expected to resurface again so soon. She checked the bedside clock. Four-thirty a.m. Too late to be called night and too early to be called morning. But her eyelids were up, and she shook with a restless energy. She knew this feeling. It was excitement.
The round of experiments with Cindy last night had shown her what she could do. And she wanted to do more. It had been a long time since her limits had been stretched, since the world had seemed new and exciting. God, what a rush! It was like being in love.
She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment and then padded to the closet and pulled on a long T-shirt. It had been her husband’s and proved more durable than he had. She wondered if it were possible to buy fireproof clothing.
Moving quietly through the apartment, she made her way to the kitchen and to the patio doors at the back. She stepped through into the patch of grass that had sufficed as a yard for Mary’s barbecue party a week or so ago.
Helen looked around. The windows of the two apartments above Mary’s overlooked the yard, but they were dark. The back of the yard was bordered by some kind of industrial strength hedges, probably to protect the homeowners behind from having to see the seedy, little apartment dwellers smoking their cigarettes and drinking their beer.
Helen willed a ball of fire into her hand and made it roll. She tossed it from one hand to the other, rolling it across her arms and laughing. She balanced it on one finger like Wilt Chamberlain and made it spin, first one direction and then another. She made a second and a third ball and tried to juggle them. Whenever she dropped one in the grass, she stomped out the small fire with her bare foot and made a replacement.
When she tired of fire juggling, she decided to try other shapes. She made a sort of spear, a long thin flame. She bent it around itself until it was a ring. She spun it in the air and then around one wrist, like it was a hula-hoop. She thought about spinning it around her waist, but knew the shirt would never survive it. She didn’t want to end up naked in her daughter’s backyard.
God, this was fun. She hadn’t had this kind of fun in years. She lined up a couple of beer cans and soda bottles in various parts of the yard and, making her finger into a gun, shot them with small blasts of fire, leaving smoking piles of melted tin can and broken glass.
She was trying to decide what to do next, when she froze, stopped by a small squeak. The sliding door squeaked in its track. Helen turned, just in time to see her wide-eyed daughter poking her head out the small opening she had made. Her voice sounded almost childlike, like she was afraid. “Mom?”
________________________
Thanks for reading! You can learn more about me and my writing at http://samanthabryant.com or follow My Saturday Scenes collection here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/Y5kMoB There's also a collection for ALL the Saturday Scenes by ALL the participating authors here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/4XjIWE