Only Cracks in the Earth

Kara 1

 Kara

The smell of freshly ground coffee woke me up that morning. I rolled over in bed stared at my ceiling. It was molding, but just a little. I looked at my alarm clock and groaned. 6:45 in the morning, early, but not early enough to not make me late. I rolled out of bed and onto a lime green shag carpet, where my work uniform lay, untouched from last night when I slipped out of it and dropped it in my lethargic rush to get to bed.

I shrugged on the classic pale blue shirtdress dress lethargically. Shoving my toothbrush in my mouth, I scrubbed my face, which really consisted of me hitting my face with a wet rag, spat, rinsed and wiped my mouth. I shoved my black canvas shoes onto my feet as I locked my apartment door and braided my thick brown hair as I threw myself down the stairwell to my job, one floor beneath me.

As I flung open the backdoor to my work, I was greeted by my tough love boss. “Child! Where have you been? We open in five minutes, getcho skinny self out there and serve some coffee! But do your thing the plants first, they look a little dead.” She patted my head and sighed, “You have your mother’s eyes, so beautiful, my dear.”

“Yes, Martha.” I smiled and kissed the old woman’s cheek.

 My boss, Martha, had been a friend of my grandparents, but she was more like my grandma than a boss She took me in when my parents died when I was ten, I’d been living with her until she’d moved into a seniors apartment had given me the keys to the room above her diner. For almost one year, I had lived alone, working every day, and it was great.

Martha was the only one who knew my secret. She had found out when I was twelve. I was in her plant room, she was always terrible at gardening, and she had seen me hovering my hands over the flowers and she saw how they all came back to life when I did… well what I did.

She was fine with it, but over time, what I could do grew. It didn’t take long before I could spontaneously grow 500 year old trees in a minute, wherever I wanted.  If I wanted an orange in the dead of winter, I could grow an orange tree outside at minus 40c and have the fruit delivered into my waiting hands. Last week, the flowers on the tables told me about their days. I loved what I could do.

I wandered down the aisles of sparkly red plush seats and ran my hands over the flowers, humming. “Psst, Kara!” I stopped and turned to my right. A daisy was whispering to me. “Somebody left you a tip yesterday, but it fell between the seats.”

I looked between the seats. Sure enough, a beautiful five dollar bill was wedged in the cracks of the shining plastic. I pulled it out and thanked the daisy. It blushed as well as a plant can and I carried on doing my plant thing.

Once I was done, Martha switched the closed sign to open and unlocked the doors. It was pretty slow, a few cops just finishing their nightshifts, some seniors visiting with their friends and a couple of insomniacs, nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, nothing out of the ordinary happened all day. That is, until closing.

All the other customers had left when two guys walked in, they looked around the same age as me. One was pretty nerdy looking, big glasses, star wars shirt, pants that didn’t cover all of the ankles, the whole deal. The other one looked like a standard moody badass; until at least he turned his back to me and I saw the cuts in his leather jacket where his spine should have been under his skin. In its place, twelve bone-like spikes stuck out.

I stared.

 He glared.

They both sat down. The nerdy one asked for menus. As I grabbed them off them off the counter, I heard the only chef and the other waitress sneak outside for a “smoke break”, leaving me alone with the two strangers. Dropping the menus on the table, I told them to call me if they needed me then started to clean the counters.

The one with the sticking out spine called me over. “Pie and coffee.” His voice was deep and nothing was added that didn’t need to be added.

“Alright, what kind?”

“Pie”

“ Oh, o-okay?...” I didn’t bother to ask what kind of coffee.

The other one spoke. “Can I please have whatever soup there is, if you don’t mind, thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” I smiled at him. Much more pleasant and specific than the other.

From the kitchen I could hear the two arguing over something, but I couldn’t hear what.

I started the stove to warm up the soup and turned my back on the flame to cut a slice of the least selling pie we had. I heard footsteps and turned quickly; the stove fire was way larger than it should have been, and it was getting bigger.

I ran across the kitchen to the fire extinguisher but the flames kept growing and pushed me back into a corner where I made myself small.

But then I realised I could save myself. As quick as I could, I made dirt go everywhere, and it kind of worked, the flames dissipated from around me, but the stove was still burning, and burning like crazy.

Behind it, in the flames stood the boy with the stuck out spine.

He raised his hand and snapped his fingers. The flame rushed to his hand like a dog to its master. He covered it with his other hand and it disappeared inside his palms.

He raised both eyebrows. “I saw you grow that dirt, and you saw me with the flame. Why don’t we have a little talk, hmm?”

---

I led them upstairs to my apartment. They sat on the ratty purple couch which swallowed them like school pudding swallows a cold metal spoon. I sat on the kitchen counter and swung my legs.

 I blew a hair out of my face.

The clock ticked.

Drunken men walked by.

A chickadee sang.

Two cats fought in the alley.

The chickadee was silent.

The cats left.

The chickadee sang again.

Nerd boy spoke. “Umm, well, it goes like this, we ca-“

Spine guy cut him off. “What can you do?”

My head tilted to the side, “Uh, what?”

“Oh, you know. The dirt, I saw you throw dirt everywhere. Do you, like, have supreme control over dirt? Because that’s pretty lame.”

I grew some vines, they launched themselves at him and pinned him to the floor. “Would you like some Venus fly traps with that?”

He looked mad, like fire and rage mad. Then the weirdest thing happened.

I saw him, saw his entire skeleton. He became a man of bones, and he burned. He was a flame, and the plants became ash.

He sat up, human again and forcefully pushed the air through his nose. His eyebrows knitted together and he glared at me with still flaming eyes. “Well, I guess not.”

He walked to the wall and thudded his forehead on the wall paper. He turned. His right hand pinched the bridge of is nose and his left reached toward me. “I’m Jake, I-“He sighed quickly. “We’re here to help.”