I was playing with my cat after feeding her, when I felt a small breeze from behind. I did not think much of it, the windows were open on both sides of the room; must have been the wind outside, I thought, but my cat looked there and her eyes were fixated on something. I turned around, expecting nothing out of the ordinary, alas I saw a woman crouching and calling my cat who did not hesitate to go to her. I was simultaneously stunned, surprised, indifferent and generally uninterested about this situation, so I just asked unceremoniously:
"Excuse me, who would you be and why are you in my apartment?"
She glanced at me while she was playing with Miss Chonkus and replied, "Oh, mind me not, auru, I am but visiting my child."
I must have had visible confusion on my face, because she continued, "The cat, I mean. Called you her Miss Chonkus?" Her fingers were barely visible in her long furr as she examined her tummy. "What a shameful name for such a noble creature, think you not?"
"I, I guess so," I mumbled, "but it's funny. I think."
"The amait were once considered sacred, you know?" She stroke her ears and slowly began to stand up, revealing her simple, yet elegant dress. "Like you my kalasiris, auru?" She asked, smiling at me. "Too bad it fell out of fashion lately." She spun around, showing off the curves of the fabric as well as of hers. "Come closer, auru, I would take a good look at you".
I took a step towards her, unable to resist, then another one, moving forward until I reached her at which point she said, "I would thank you for taking good care of my children." She touched my chin, lifting my head slightly, then she kissed me. Her touch were like an aphrodisiac, causing an impossible sensation of bliss throughout my body, and her kiss was sweet and daring. Moments later she reached around and held me tight, this is what newborns must feel when they are held by their mothers. At that moment I could not feel anger or stress, there were no deadlines or sudden outbursts, only this calming warmth and her. I do not know how long did she hold me before she pulled away and said: "Want you to know me true?" I nodded silently, neither avle nor willing to move.
She leaned over me, kissed me on my forehead and said, "I am Baast and you are hem neter and you shall follow me, yes?" I tried to move my head unsuccessfully, but she must have sensed my intentions, for she closed her lips on mine, "you shall follow me and you shall be mine and I shall be yours when needs arise."
"I shall follow you and I shall be yours and you shall be mine when needs arise," I recited her thoughts, lacking both the means and the will to oppose, "I shall follow you..." The concept of time ceased to exist as I felt my soul leaving the husk carelessly, leaving the futile burden behind, "and I shall be yours..." I did not know what to expect from the future, now taking the role of the present, yet I could not bother with such ideas; I was not an auru anymore, I was hem neter, forever serving my goddess and love, "and you shall be mine when needs arise."
"...And so shall we begin." The voice of Mr. Soft echoed from the lecture hall's faraway walls. The auditorium was scarcely populated, students sat far and wide, as it is customary during a pandemic, which meant that the professor's question were answered by more scalps than usual. Sleeping in classes were not unheard of, but when you take away the possibility of misbehaving, one cannot make matrix arithmetic interesting enough for the masses to keep them awake...
it's been a while I've written a real one of these
not that anyone would read it
Even though I have only published a couple of short stories that are, quite frankly, most likely to be no more than "early tries", nowadays I fancy myself as a writer and as such, I look at the world in a different way than before. Of course, as you can see, I have written novellas (or "short stories" if we want to stick with English terminology), but they were...
They were sleeping when the lights came through their window. They were not blessed with great wits or the gift of logical thinking. What they were given was great eyes instead: they had a condition called abnormal tetrachromacy, which meant that they had limited infrared-vision. When I learned about it from them I, as I have been always fascinated by colors and color deception, had to ask...
This is chronologically the first short story I publised in English, even if it wasn't the first I began writing.