Licence

Got a couple of posts today to make up for the lack last week. This first one was inspired when I was looking up the difference between 'licence' and 'license'.

The antechamber was spartan and impersonal. Plain white walls with perhaps a hint of blue surrounded two cream armchairs that were as comfortable to sit on as they were plain, deep enough to sit on but not enough to relax. There was no other furniture, no small table with old magazines or television playing the news. A single painting hung opposite the armchairs, a modern art display, whorls of colours on a background white, with perhaps a hint of blue.

Leo alternated having his hands on the arms of the chair or in his lap every few minutes, occasionally checking his watch. He had been fifteen minutes early for his appointment forty minutes ago. He was dressed in a middle-range suit: fancy enough to definitely be formal, casual enough to still be able to talk to people in regular clothes. He had just graduated to alternating the placement of his hands in under a minute when the door to his right opened and a tall, honey-skinned woman stepped out, holding a clipboard at a calculated angle. She wore a suit that was slightly more formal than his and looked down her impressively pointed nose at him.

“Mister Jones?” Her lips pursed as she spoke, making no attempt to hide her distaste.

Leo stood. He wasn’t sure why she had asked. There was no one else it could be.

The woman eyed him up and down for a moment, narrowing her eyes. Finally, she moved to the side and said, “Miss Reave will see you now.”

Leo walked through the door, acutely aware of the daggers she was staring at him. The room beyond was much larger than the waiting room, but it still contained only what it needed to. At the far side of the room was a wooden desk, no larger than the one Leo had at home. On his side of the desk was a chair that looked marginally less comfortable than the one he had been sitting on for the past three quarters of an hour. On the other side was a chair that looked significantly more comfortable, but was unfortunately occupied by a woman with vivid blue eyes and nine fingers, the left pinkie ending at the first knuckle. She sat with her fingers interlaced and resting on a small stack of papers on the table, almost appearing to be in prayer.

“Welcome, Mister Jones.” She said, leaning back slightly and motioning to the chair with one hand. “Please, take a seat.”

Leo obliged, although he didn’t really see much choice. On his way to the chair, he heard the door close behind him with a soft click.

“Mister Jones, I expect you enjoy small talk about as much as I do, so I’ll skip to why we’re here. You application has been reviewed and discussed and the board has decided against issuing you with a Class-A licence. This is partially due to your past demeanour and partially to your skill set, which the board thought was too limited and not quite what they were looking for. However, if you wish to reapply for a Class-B licence, the board feels you would have a much stronger chance to—”

“I don’t want a Class-B licence.” Leo interrupted calmly. “I want a Class-A. If I wanted a Class-B licence, I would have applied for it.”

Miss Reave waited a beat before speaking again. “Mister Jones, I don’t want you to mistake our relationship. I am not your equal. I am high enough above you as to barely consider you a person at all. If you interrupt me again, you will cease to be a person, and will only ever again bother the poor soul who will have to clean that chair. Do we understand each other?”

Leo fought back a sneer and nodded.

“Good.” Miss Reave nodded. “As I was saying, the board feels you would have a better chance applying for a Class-B licence. Do you wish to go through this process now, or would you rather think about it?”

Leo sighed. “Now.”

Miss Reave rifled through the papers on the desk. “Very good. If the board issues you with a Class-B licence, you will be assigned a territory and will be expected to stay within your borders unless otherwise specified. You will have a large degree of freedom, but will be expected to defer to and Class-A licence holders. Do you agree to these terms?”

“I agree.” Leo nodded.

Miss Reave handed Leo a slim booklet and a pen. “In that case, please fill out this questionnaire. You may notice that some of the questions are similar to the Class-A licence form.”

Leo scanned the booklet. “Class-B Licence Application” was written at the top of the first page in clear, bold print. The yellow paper was rougher on one side, but only slightly. Some of the questions were indeed similar to the Class-A form he had filled out the week previous, such as “Have you been convicted of any criminal offences?”, “Would you say that you have difficulty respecting others?” and “How many 10-year-olds do you think you could take in a fight and win?”, but there were a few differences.

When he had finished filling out the form, Leo lay down the pen and passed the paper back to Miss Reave, who had sat silently while he wrote. Her blue eyes flicked rapidly back and forth as she read over his answers, then placed it precisely on the stack of papers.

“Thank you, Mister Jones.” Miss Reave said curtly. Leo heard the door click open behind him. “I will contact you when the board has made its decision.”

Recognising this as a dismissal, Leo nodded and left the room, past the glare the honey-skinned woman was giving him. It’s probably not personal, he thought. Some people just look like that.

He stood in the antechamber until the telltale buzz filled him and closed his eyes to avoid getting motion sick. When he opened them, he was standing on the street beside a nondescript apartment block. A booming sound preceded a shape flashing past him, a man in a tight-fitting red and white outfit carrying a whip. Whiplash. The Class-A licence holder in Leo’s town. Leo scowled, letting flames begin to lick at his hands as he began to walk home.

So I can’t get a Class-A yet, he thought. That’s okay. I can get a Class-B and work my way up from there. In the meantime, though… he let the flames work their way up his arms and trailed his hand along the wall beside him, leaving a ragged line of scorched brick and concrete. He spied a young couple cowering in a corner, still hiding from Whiplash’s passing. In the meantime, I can still have fun.

Salmon

Note: a female salmon is called a hen, males are bucks.

The river was lit by sunlight filtering through the ripples and currents, bouncing from stones and silt that formed the bed, glinting from the scales of the salmon that wove their inexorable way against the flow, locked in a battle of wills between themselves and Nature. Hundreds of them battled their way upstream, setting the water ablaze in refracted light, turning the usually calm brook into a blue sequined dress that spun and twirled around the dancefloor. What goes through their tiny heads as they swim this almost futile path? Do they know where they are going, or do they just know that they must go? What drives them to do this, year after year?

Salvatore looked intently forward, trying to ignore the childhood friend that had insisted on pestering him for the entire journey.

“Quit playin Salv, ya know we gots ta leave some bling at da upcreek crib.” Sally said yet again.

“Yo das what our rents told us.” Salvatore retorted. “Gurl you knows I’mma prefer swim all up the other river. This buck needs a bromance, emphasis on da man.”

“Aight, if you won’t do it for yo selfish ass, then least do it for cha homegurl.”

“Sally babe I love ya, but we both knows chu’d be swimmin in the bucks if ya didn’ keep houndin me. Yo grill slammin, bets ta all them chanky hens.” Salvatore ducked around a particularly large buck, letting his gaze linger longer than his parents would have preferred. But hey, his parents weren’t here.

“So ya’ll admit ya think I fine!” Sally crowed.

Salv sighed. “Gurl you gots ta know there’s a diff in knowin you pretty and wanten to bump uglies. You smarter than this.”

“I know, I know, but shortie can dream can’t she?” Sally cosied up to his right, brushed their scales together. “Sure there ain’t some way I can clean ya?”

“Hoooo, girl you playin.” Salv replied. “Ain’t something I can just flip.”

Sally pouted, leading Salvatore to roll his eyes.

“I’mma jet and see yo skinny ass upside.” Sally said, eyeing off the small rapids that they were approaching.

Salvatore grinned. “Ya know it, shortie.” Sally was the better swimmer out of the two of them; she would undoubtedly make it up before him. She winked and sped ahead and, sure enough, by the time he reached the turbulent whitewater she was nowhere to be seen. He sighed and set about flinging himself up the rapids, occasionally pausing to take a breather or admire the eye candy around him. Only the strongest bucks had made it this far, and he was not disappointed by the show they were putting on. He wasn’t sure why Sally didn’t make more of a move on the other bucks. She knew he wasn’t interested, but he never saw her with anyone else. It certainly wasn’t because she was shy. She dominated their discussions. The only reason he could get a word in edgeways now was because she was tired from the swimming.

Eventually, he made it to the top of the rapids, feeling a bit dizzy from the exertion. He looked around, calling for Sally, but he couldn’t see her around. Strange. He swam back and forth for a bit, waiting for her to appear, but as time went on he began to worry. He should have seen her by now, or at the very least she should have found him. She was creepily good at finding him.

He brushed up against something cold and turned to have a look. There was a morsel of food attached to… his blood ran cold(er). The subtle glint of metal shone through the food, the point of the hook just barely poking out. Salvatore swam to the surface and stuck out his head, looking at the riverbanks until he saw what he feared. Three humans on the left bank, each with a fishing rod. Even as he watched, though, they began to pack up. The human with short hair held up a hen to show the others and Salvatore instantly recognised Sally. She was still alive, but only just.

Salv began to swim frantically toward her, calling her name, but his voice didn’t carry well out of the water and either she didn’t hear him or she was too far gone to respond. The riverbank appeared before he noticed it and he landed hard on the rocks, bouncing back and forward as he gasped for breath. Something rough and strong picked him up in a grip as strong as a shark and the world pitched and rolled until finally he was put down in a small amount of water with three other salmon. Two were dead. The last was Sally, still flicking her tail weakly.

“You cray, Salv. Ain’t no reas fo ya’ll to be here.” She gasped.

“Quit playin Sal, lez clear. I wouldn’ta helped none of those playas anyway.” Salvatore could feel his brain slowing. “Better I conversate with my main girl, all lone.”

Sally smiled, then the light left her eyes. Salvatore stopped moving before the darkness took him, just lying with his best friend, enjoying the feel of her scales one last time.

This one is a bit different. I was tasked to write this with 3 main guidelines: It must be about homosexual salmon, if they speak it must be ghetto and if they die it must be through sustainable fishing. Now, I've never actually written from the perspective of a salmon before, nor tried to write 'ghetto', so I was VERY apprehensive about this. However, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I had to write a 'regular dialogue' version first, so that I could actually get to the end, then go back and change the words.

As always, comments and feedback are welcome.