Today and tomorrow are both the halfway point of Flash August Fiction, because the month has an odd number of days. Welcome to the first half of the halfway point of my Instant Fiction Marathon. 31 brand-new stories and podcasts in 31 days. DISCIPLINE, the FUN kind. You can find me at Xhitter, if you’d like to: https://x.com/HerschSterling, and probably any podcast app.
Margie couldn’t figure out why the sky seemed peculiar. There was something about it. When she looked up into the clouds, it was an odd kind of feeling, or an unfamiliarity about it. The hue was off; the density was different.
When she consulted with her friends and neighbors, some said it was just her imagination, or that maybe she was feeling out of sorts. Others agreed, and also felt strange about it. A couple of people also noted that things had been more quiet. Birds seemed less audible, and airplanes made less noise, too.
Margie combed the news for anything that could help her explain things. She read all the articles about weather modification and all the other types of cloud seeding, but she was not convinced it was enough to effect her in the way this was. Those things disturbed her, of course. Sociopathic people in positions of power, using secrecy and conspiracy to achieve their financial and power goals, was nothing new, and there isn’t much decent, sane people can do to change that.
There was something deeper, it was happening in a deeper, more emotional way. Something was elementally foreign to her at her core. It affected her soul. The sky was wrong.
It’s not as though it was damaging her, because she’s a strong woman, the real kind. Not the rich lady kind of strong, but the actual type of strong woman, in her mind, soul and will. This situation, however, was subtly affrontive. She felt insulted, in a way. She knew that the right thing to do in a situation like this is to be honest about it, face it, solve it. And then, if appropriate, forgive. There was a problem though, she didn’t know who, or what, to solve, or forgive.
Again, she went to her friends, and some of them became defiant. They asked her why she was still focused on the wrong sky and that there are more important things to think about. They levied conspiracy accusations against her, and she thought that was odd, because the last time she spoke with them about it, they agreed with her. They had their experiences too, and they had even confirmed her observations. Now, it seemed like they were participating in gaslighting. It was as if they had only agreed with her because they wanted something, now that they didn’t need her anymore, they could alienate her.
Margie did the things she does. She prayed, she asked for discernment, and patience. She spoke with her friends, who didn’t insult her with gaslighting. They vowed to continue their efforts, and to get to the bottom of this situation.
She realized that there were people who claimed friendship with her, who were disingenuous, and that they seemed to have improvements in their wardrobes and their level of creature comforts. It’s not her imagination. There is nothing wrong with her. It’s not her and her compatriots who have a problem. The sky is wrong.
The End498 Words
Have you ever lived in a time when literally everyone knows about a thing, but so many people want to go on as though they don’t know the thing? Isn’t that a weird feeling? It’s kind of rude, really.
