Welcome to this week’s installment of many micro stories, ranging in length from 100 words to 500 words.
With each story we hope to deliver a little whimsy into the lives of our readers.
THE WRONG END OF THE STICK
Emmric was the oldest guard on the city wall. Still fit enough to climb the stairs, yet the only guard to be issued a chair on his watch. Still turning up for duty, he’d been there since before anyone else currently serving, and none had the heart to retire him.
His uniform was probably what aged the most, a tabard of the city guard dutifully darned and patched by his wife’s skilled needlework. Along with an internal pocket to conceal a jar of bean tea she brewed to keep him awake. Overlooking the road leading into the city, he sat on his rickety stool with a three-inch lip for a backrest, folding his arms with his spear leaning on the rampart.
He caught his head sinking into an attempted slumber but quickly caught himself and straightened his neck. It happened a few times. As he began to doze, he felt a finger brush his nose, tickling him awake. He opened his eyes wide and looked around. The nearest guards to either side were more than a dozen yards away. He ran his fingers over his nose and resumed overlooking the road below.
A little later he felt a finger brush the tip of his nose again and a voice whispered “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said aloud in response, buckling his chair as he grabbed at his nose and looked around again. “Hey.” Still, no one.
He settled again, and before long, a finger tickled his nose again. This time he grabbed the wrist attached to it. When he looked to his right, his wife was sitting beside him in another chair, smiling at him.
He pulled his head back and quietly asked. “What are you doing here?”
She leant in and whispered. “Keeping you awake.”
He furrowed his brow, confused and a little indignant. “I am awake,” he protested.
She smiled again and shook her head. “Guess again, sleepyhead,” she said, and flicked his nose with her other hand.
He pulled back and woke up, rocking his chair onto two legs. His wife was nowhere to be seen, and he kicked out to catch his balance but instead knocked his spear over the edge of the rampart.
“Stop thief,” someone yelled from within the city below.
Old Emmric managed to skid onto his feet before his stool crashed loudly on the bulwark between his awkwardly bowed legs. He bulged his eyes, thrust into alertness by the adrenaline from almost falling. He and the other guards looked over the edge to find an unconscious man on the ground, just outside the city between confused gate guards with a dropped sack from which apples rolled out.
An exhausted merchant stopped his pursuit by the knocked-out thief as one of the ground guards picked up Emmric’s spear. The butt of which had struck the thief’s head. The merchant looked up as the guard held up the polearm. “Old Emmric’s still got it,” he yelled.
The other guards on the wall cheered as Emmric stared confused.
Barend Nieuwstraten III grew up and lives in Sydney, Australia, where he was born to Dutch and Indian immigrants. He has worked in film, short film, television, music, and online comics. He is now primarily working on a collection of stories set within a high fantasy world, a science fiction alternate future, often dipping his toes in horror in the process. With his novel ‘A Man Called Boy’ and over one hundred stories published in anthologies, he continues to work on short stories, stand-alone novels, and an epic series.
A discovery writer not knowing what will happen when he begins typing, he endeavours to drag his readers on the same unknown journey through the fog of his subconscious.
If you enjoyed this story you can find it and more in the Hawthorn & Ash anthology.
Iron Faerie Publishing 