Lit eZine Vol 4 | p-20 | FICTION | Gryphon Bay

FLASH FICTION

GRYPHON BAY
by Scott

You know that famous song where the singer turns their collar to the cold and damp? I’d just done that. Turned my collar, not sung the song. This time of year, this transitional season, daylight, especially afternoon, was sunscreen, swimming, cool drinks, and ice cream, weather. But here just after midnight, chill and fog had their turn at being.

And speaking of turning, no neon lights strained my eyes as they turned on. But there was that lighthouse beacon sweeping across the bay as its lamp turned at a designated rate on rotating mountings maybe a hundred feet above me. Thinking about that song again, perhaps the old lighthouse was a kind of god, leading its followers away from danger and home to safety. Much like the followers of a god would look at their holy scripture to discern the message, their standing in relation to that god, and what action they were being called to take, mariners observing the lighthouse would turn to their charts to determine their position in relation to it and the channels and hazards denoted upon the holy writ of their charts.

I don’t know what regularly drew me, what called me, uncharted, to the shore at this time of night. It had become my habit, a thing I was known for. While I knew that about myself, I didn’t know why that song should be so strongly in my head tonight. It covered everything in my mind, the way dew from the fog was settling on every surface around me.

“Silence like a cancer grows.” Except for periodic foghorn soundings, low waves breaking on the beach over there, water slapping at the stones and pilings right here, occasional barely audible creaks from ropes mooring the nearby Customs and Revenue Cutter as well as two Pilot boats, there was that normal healthy silence of a tiny port in the wee hours, disturbed by neither gull nor human. And it was no malignancy, but was a comfort, actually.

However … something was growing like a cancer in this town. It wasn’t silence; it was something, other. There was no word from a prophet, either spoken or written. Yet I knew. Certain people in town knew. Or at least sensed that a not right ‘other’ had entered our realm. Its otherness could be more sensed than observed, a formless shadow moving from shadow to shadow. And it bowed to no god.

Here in dockside shadows between scattered work lamps, I felt the change begin. Muscle, bone, tissue moved of its own accord with a tingling, pulsing, electricity sensation as my body and clothing rearranged themselves at the molecular level and simultaneously took on extra mass from outside science’s four earthly dimensions.

Vision swirled while my eyes changed both location and shape. Dim night colors rippled in bright patterns as my body adjusted to perceiving a changed spectrum. When vision settled, objects within the foggy night appeared sharper, more highly resolved within the mist. What colors were discernible under the work lights were more saturated, almost luminous. And that flat, static fuzz rabbit ear television screen look fog gives the world was replaced by a view with greater depth perception where even the slightest movement stood out against a fixed background. Still was night. Still was foggy. But the expanded vision spectrum suffered far less loss in those conditions than human eyes did. 

Moments ago, a mere man, I now had a beak, feathered wings, four razor-clawed paws, and a long tawny-haired tail with tufted end.

Night seashore sounds became more abundant, crisper, with their sources immediately discernible. And the smells: salt air, seaweed, dew, wet wood, diesel boat fuel, mineral spirit boat paint. Rust. I could smell the rust. Fish. Wet bricks gave the lighthouse its own smell. Electricity powering its lights was a buzzy hum. Likewise with shore power lines connected to the boats. Random low noises from homes and shops across the tiny bay were right at discernment’s edge.

A known smell but yet not a smell approached from what would have been downwind on anything but this still night. Though muffled by the fog smell, it was there, discernible. And it brought a fish smell with it.

“Been paying yourself again, eh,” I said to the silent feline.

DC, Dock Cat, Dockers, as he was variously known around town, nodded just enough to send motion through a fish held in his jaws.

I dipped my beak and curled my tail in greeting. “There seem to be shadows within shadows again tonight.”

It wasn’t quite telepathy, but an understanding flashed between us.

“Ah, the restaurant.”

DC nodded.

“At it, or within it?”

Shadows within the shadows behind it.

“Any idea whether they want something at it or within it?”

A sense of DC making his way through sidewalk tables. With customers. Especially with customers.

“Someone. The shadows seem to want someone there?”

Another fish wiggling nod.

“Much appreciated. Enjoy dinner. Greetings to the misses and the kittens.”

One more nod. DC trotted off with his steps displaying greater energy than when he had approached.

Now it was my turn to drift through misty nighttime shadows without being spotted by employees and customers.

Having spent his childhood moving all over the country, Scott is now settled in his spot under the sky with his two beautiful cats. A master craftsman, he loves to make miniature trains and has a collection of those, plus model boats, rockets, and aeroplanes. There is also a collection of different styles of kites. He enjoys writing both prose and poetry and is writing a novel that is likely to be a thousand-page book about a beautiful world away from our own.

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