[Extract from Chapter 7–Pity in Their Eyes. Minna meets her nemesis then receives news that will devastate her future.]

Flash Point

I stowed along the corridors, glancing behind me, poking into rooms. Toe mountains of sheet were in the room opposite. I stuck my head around the door. ‘Hello? What? Three heads?’ Oh, well, it is the Pilgrim Planet and we’re not the only species in the galaxy. ‘Sorry about that, wrong room. Looking for three feet, actually. Seen any three-footed customers?’

The three-headed being waggled his heads and head-butted each other’s heads.

Down the corridor, crept past the nurses’ station. Good, they’re all busy…turn right. Hope I don’t lose my way. Next room, on my left. Nup, just a Grey alien the shade of green. Methane poisoning. Happens when there’s too many cows—like on this planet, for Greys, that is.

Crossed to the room on the right. Mutant frozen in wood. How’s that possible? I tiptoed in for a closer look. Curious. I touched its skin, like bark.

‘Hi,’ I said.

The man of bark blinked at me.

‘You wouldn’t—’ woops, hope he’s not offended by the pun, ‘—do you know of a three-footed patient in the hospital?’

The mutant nodded and pointed a branch in the direction further up the corridor. ‘Came in yesterday, saw him as I was returning from my oil bath.’

‘Thanks.’ I turned to go, then I looked back at the wood-paneled mutant. ‘How do you find the baths? Do they help?’

‘Oh, ye-es! I was like a forest before I came here and had them.’

‘Oh, well, all the best,’ I said, and then left. I tried to imagine how he looked before he came. If he were a forest, how did he fit into the Convent? Nah, must’ve been exaggerating. Or did he mean a Bonsai one?

[Read the whole of Chapter 7 on Wattpad]

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2023

Feature Photo: Through the window, Melbourne Botanical Gardens © L.M. Kling circa 1995

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And now, for some Weekend Reading…

Go on a reading binge and discover the up close, personal and rather awkward relationship between Gunter and that nasty piece of cockroach-alien work Boris in…

The Hitch-hiker

See how Boris seeks revenge in…

Mission of the Unwilling

And the Mischief and Mayhem Boris manufactures in…

The Lost World of the Wends…