Friday Fireworks: When powers flare and squirrels become unwitting targets

 

Decades ago, I worked at a little roadside diner in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee. Some of the people I worked with were true characters, let me tell you, and so, Roadhouse Reds was born. The early draft of the story was written while I still worked as a waitress and occasionally jumped on the grill after the place got smokey. During that time, I watched the cook burn a pork chop so bad I'm sure he offended hogs everywhere. You could use that thing for a hockey puck when it came out of the unsalvageable pan, and let me tell you, he made the dishwasher try to salvage it, which lead to the man scrubbing his way through two Brillo pads before finally declaring that either the pan went in the trash, or he went out the door and left the cook to wash his own dishes. Needless to say, the pan went out to the dumpster before the end of the night. 

While Roadhouse Red is technically a paranormal romance, most of the book unfolds in and around the roadhouse, after an alien craft crash lands in the cornfield next to it, and the town speculates about the odd goings on. 

Jason stood in the field, all of his focus on a single orange traffic cone. A traffic cone that at the moment might as well have a smiley face painted on it for the way that it was mocking him.

 “Breathe,” Bakari instructed. “Picture a single spear of ice flowing from your hand into the target.”

“Fuckin’ easy for you to say!” Jason snarled.

Broken shards of ice littered the ground between Jason and the target. Ice hung off one of the tree limbs fifty feet away, from Bakari’s sleeve and even off the roadhouse sign by the driveway; but that damned orange cone remained untouched.

Jason drew in a deep breath the way Bakari had shown him; he pictured ice exploding outward, stabbing through the orange cone and impaling it. What happened was far from it. Ice exploded from Jason’s hand, over the cone and into a shrub, freezing it solid. A brown squirrel fell from the shrub, frozen solid as well, sunlight twinkling off the icy sheen over its fur.

“Shit!” Jason cursed.

“Squirrel stew for supper then,” Clyde suggested, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Focus, Jason. Are you envisioning it as I told you?” Bakari demanded.

“Yes!” Jason yelled, his fists clenched, “I’m picturing the damn thing skewered but the god damned ice won’t do what I want it to!”

Bakari sighed, reigning in his temper. It would do no good to yell at Jason. It was clear that he was doing his best and in truth, no one mastered such powers in a single day. On Alltiis he would have been allowed months, if not years of careful working with a master in each ability, learning to hone and focus them until he could wield them with the simplest of thoughts. They were never meant to be triggered by emotions. Emotions were unpredictable, and clearly, unsuitable for hitting a target as Jason was finding out.

“Maybe you need a gentler approach?” Clyde offered as he stepped up beside Jason. It was Bakari’s eyes he looked into, however, issuing a challenge which the stern man met with a nod of his head, relenting.

“You need calm, Jason,” Clyde told him. “Here, sit with me.”

Jason shook his head, determined, his eyes narrowing at the orange cone. He blasted ice towards it and came close, the burst rocking the cone but the ice itself spread in an arc that fell harmlessly to the ground beside a group of half melted failures.

“Jason! Sit down!” Clyde said, far more firmly this time. It was no longer a suggestion, it was an order.

Jason immediately complied and Bakari chuckled giving Clyde a small smile of approval. He stood back, arms crossed as he watched the other man address Jason.

“You can’t attack this with force or anger,” Clyde said calmly. “It’s like sparring. You have to focus, you have to be calm, you have to let it flow. Be in tune with it so you can react without needing to think, instead of charging in blinded by fury.”

“I’m doing my best,” Jason said.

“I know you are. But you’re also losing your temper because it isn’t going right. If this were a kata you were struggling with, what would you do?”

“I guess I’d stop, take a drink, then meditate until I found my center again,” Jason admitted.

“And then?” Clyde prompted.

“Well once I was calm and focused I’d go over the steps in my head, envision myself doing them before I tried it again,” Jason sighed.

Clyde said nothing, he simply sat fiddling with a blade of grass and watching Jason.

“What?” Jason asked, confused and self-conscious for a moment, thinking he’d said something wrong.

Clyde patiently continued to sit there, waiting for it to sink in.

“Ohhh,” Jason said at last, grinning sheepishly. Bakari and Clyde chuckled as Jason got comfortable and closed his eyes. 

Jason focused first on his breathing. Slow and steady, in, pause, hold, one, two, three, exhale, slowly, counting to three again. Another pause, then another inhale; focusing on the routine of breathing with a steady pattern, until even the sound of the birds chirping and the wind rustling the trees faded away. With his mind and emotions settled, he could hear Bakari’s instructions loud and clear and pictured a line forming between his hand and the cone.

It wasn’t about throwing the ice, it was about directing it, forming it with his mind and body and then sending it out along the path towards his target. Breathing deeply, Jason connected with the icy magic that chilled him to the core. He pictured it in his mind, shimmering when the light hit it, clear and sharp, pure and deadly. In his mind he shaped it into a spear, then focused the direction of the energy down his arm and out his hand. He imagined it striking the target, dead center and piercing all the way through.  For a moment he allowed himself to imagine it was Ano ki, but thoughts of the man fueled his anger, and he had to return to rhythmic breathing to restore his calm. Twice more he pictured the ice, shaping it and directing it through the cone before he opened his eyes.

Jason didn’t stand, he just took a deep breath and released it slowly, felt the icy chill inside of him and formed a spear with his mind. He held his hand out, drawing that imaginary line between his body and the cone and then he let the magic go.

It struck the top of the cone, tipping it over and Clyde happily went to go stand it upright again while Bakari placed a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Now you’re getting the hang of it. That was better,” he said.

Jason nodded and did it again, and this time the ice went through the cone as well as knocking it over.

“Yes!” Jason yelled excitedly.

“Very good,” Bakari praised, giving Jason a smile.

That one small bit of praise made Jason’s eyes lit up and swirl, the flame inside of him coming alive for a moment. 

“Good job,” Clyde said, pleased with Jason’s progress as he fixed the cone again.

From that point on, Jason rarely missed the cone, and when he did, it was by inches, rather than feet and yards. They spent three hours on ice, shaping balls as well as spears, shaping darts and at one point Jason had gotten creative and even attempted a throwing star. Bakari had smiled at that while Clyde had chuckled. Both had pointed out that while excellent for a first attempt , it was too warped and lopsided to have an easy time finding its target. They promised he could practice them more when the need wasn’t so dire, but for now to focus on the easy things.

After ice they switched to fire, the element bringing out a shockingly aggressive and wild side of Jason’s personality.

“Be certain that you are wielding it, not allowing it to wield you,” Bakari cautioned.

“Is it always like this?” Clyde asked Bakari.

“For the young and untutored, yes. It’s our deadliest magic and our wildest because it is the one that can be unleashed on pure emotion, which is why we work so hard with the young ones to teach them to reel their tempers in.”

“We might need to do a little reeling ourselves,” Clyde pointed out as Jason fired fireball after fireball at a rapidly moving butterfly, trying to hit the tiny target and growing more frustrated by his efforts.

Bakari just chuckled and watched as Jason sat down for a third time to meditate, the second having help little once the fire had begun to flow.

“I think that he might need a more strenuous activity to burn all of that emotion off,” Bakari suggested.

“You have something in mind?” Clyde asked. 

Born moments before his parents crashed landed on Earth, Jason was raised in foster care. As soon as he was old enough, he packed his backpack and hit the road. Just him and his bike.

Now a jaded young man, living above a roadhouse diner and bar with several other misfits, he struggles to understand friendships, relationships, and the bonds of family.

Unbeknownst to Jason, other refugees from the planet Altiss also made it safely to Earth. After discovering Jason living as a human, they seek to safeguard him and his fledgling abilities.

As Jason’s powers begin to manifest, his mate arrives on earth looking to claim him. Ano ki stalks Jason, adding to the intensity of his new magic as seeks to gain Jason’s trust.

Fearing they will be dragged back to the planet they fled, the refugees prepare to do battle. In Jason, they believe they may have what is needed to tip the scales in their favor.

Left with no choice but to accept his heritage and learn to fight, Jason struggles with some harsh lessons about love and trust amidst a backdrop of battle and betrayal.

Roadhouse Reds can be found here!