Flash Fiction by Jerry J. Davis

A good sized chunk of Martin’s cookie broke off and fell to the restaurant’s floor, and then vanished.

Not that it really vanished — it’s just that the roughhewn tiles were remarkably cookie-colored, and cookie-textured, so that the broken piece of the cookie instantly blended in. And the cookie was happy about that, because the very last thing it wanted was to be masticated in a horrible, damp human mouth, ground into its component particles, and ingested.

The horror!

So mustering all its might, each individual bit of that section of the cookie rebelled, invoked its right of manifest improbability, and separated from the rest of the doomed cookie. The fall from the towering table top was nothing. The impact, hard as it was, did not phase it. It was free. Free!

Martin saw the cookie spontaneously break and a piece of it jettisoned into the air, falling and disappearing. His own mind instantly separated into two. One half said, “Sadness, part of the cookie is gone forever.” The other said, “Three second rule! It’s still good!”

The halves engaged in a form of mental arm wrestling, each trying to win control of the body.

Martin jittered. Martin twitched.

The cookie, far below, did its very best to remain invisible.

With a victory that jolted Martin’s whole body into action, one side won, immediately joining both halves of his brain back together. Bending over, focusing his bleary eyes on the tiles below him, Martin searched for the missing piece of cookie. It was too good to be wasted. His tongue demanded every crumb, every morsel.

Alas, it was nowhere to be seen.

He blinked. He rubbed his eyes. Where did it go?

Ah! There!

His arm moved, his fingers flexed. Down it reached, down, ever down, his body bending, his spine flexing, all muscles coordinating to reach the prize and reclaim it. Inch by inch, stretching. Biting his lip.

Something flashed past his eyes. A broom! Bristles sweeping by, scooping the cookie fragment up, depositing it into some sort of flattened bucket on a stick.

Martin gasped, but was too embarrassed to say anything. It was, after all, on the floor.

The cookie felt itself transported up and around, gravity tugging at it from this way and that, until it flipped end over end and dropped amid other flotsam and jetsam at the bottom of a industrial strength black plastic trash bag.

Success! It had made it! It settled back, relaxing, and sank into a contented daydream about a long gentle disassociation in a landfill.

Hours later, when the world seemed quiet and dark, a pair of long slotted teeth gnawed their way through the black plastic. The head of a horrid, smelly rat pushed through, destroying the cookie’s daydream, and as this diseased vermin devoured the cookie, bit by bit, crumb by crumb, the cookie found itself wishing it could be instead back on the plate in front of the human.

“Aaaaaaaaaaa?” the hard faced, white-haired lady said. “It says ‘Aaaaaaaaaaa.’”

“Yes ma’am,” he said.

“Your name is ‘Aaaaaaaaaaa?’”

“It’s pronounced ‘Bill.’”

“Bill?” She stared at him in outrage. “How do you get ‘Bill’ out of eleven A’s?”

“It’s a foreign spelling.”

“Well, that’s just ridiculous!”

“It’s on my birth certificate.” He proffered his wrinkled document.

“I’m not issuing a driver’s license to ‘Aaaaaaaaaaa.’”

“Bill,” he corrected.

“I don’t care how you pronounce it!” Her eyes scanned further down the paperwork. “And what’s this? Your last name is ‘Puffiboomboom?’”

“Yes…”

“Puffy … boom boom?”

“Well, it’s, um—”

“What, do you pronounce it, ‘Smith?’”

“Actually, it’s pronounced, ‘Ledbetter.’”

“Ledbetter?” Her wrinkles flushed crimson. “How do you get ‘Ledbetter’ from ‘Puffiboomboom?’” She held up her wiry hand. “Don’t tell me. Foreign spelling.”

“Yes.”

“How stupid do you think I am?” she said. “This has to be a prank!”

“No, ma’am.”

“I’m not buying this, not at all!”

“I have all the paperwork filled out—”

“Aaaaaaaaaaa Puffiboomboom is not getting a driver’s license. Not from me.”

“Ma’am, I didn’t choose this name. It’s something I’ve had to live with all my life.”

“Well, it’s time to choose something else!”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? If your name is ‘Bill Ledbetter’ then why don’t you just spell it that way?”

“Can we do that?”

“Well,” she said, “let’s see.” She typed angrily at her keyboard for long minutes, and then a machine whirred. She grabbed a stamp, smacked it down on his paperwork like a judge banging a gavel, and then slid the whole pile at him. “There, Aaaaaaaaaaa Puffiboomboom, it’s done.”

He stared at his brand new driver’s license. The picture was typically horrible, but the name was spelled “Bill Ledbetter.”

“Thank you,” he said to her.

She huffed, then looking past him at the long line, shouted, “Next!”

Bill gathered the papers and his new license and walked quickly outside to where his friends waited. He showed them the license, pointing at the birth date. Magically, he was now over 21 years old.

“Dude!” yelled one of his ecstatic friends. “Let’s go buy beer!”

“Meow,” said the beautiful blonde.

“Meow?” I asked, then gave the orderly a strange look.

The young balding man shrugged. “That’s Heather Clarke, the actress.”

“Meow,” said Heather Clarke. She licked her hand and used it to smooth out her hair.

“What happened?” I asked.

“She snapped last week. Been playing the part of Jemima in Cats for seven years, and now she can’t get out of character.”

“Hmmm,” I said, then turned and did the only thing I could think of. I barked.

Immediately her head dropped, her shoulders raised, and she spat and hissed at me. The hackles at the back of my neck rose, and I growled.

Quick as light, she unsheathed her claws and slashed. I stumbled backwards in pain, blood streaming down my face. I gave her one long canine gaze, then turned and left. I knew her smell. I could find her again. Anytime.

During the next full moon, I’d get my revenge.

Originally published in Flash Me.