{"id":1957,"date":"2021-12-27T21:36:34","date_gmt":"2021-12-28T05:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/?p=1957"},"modified":"2022-01-31T07:13:08","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T15:13:08","slug":"mindmorph-classic-500-word-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/?p=1957","title":{"rendered":"Mindmorph [Classic] (500 word story)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><span style=\"color:#00006d\" class=\"has-inline-color\">It&#8217;s interesting that the characters in this story include Annie (my wife&#8217;s name) and Arlo (my camera security system).<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>A scream from the back of the house brought me running. Damn it, she&#8217;s at it again. I burst into her room to find her floating several feet above her bed, a look of mischief on her face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Annie!&#8221; I screamed, \u201ccut that out!&#8221; She smiled down at me, and quickly began to transform herself into an eagle. I dove for the window, but was too late \u2013 as she swooped down past me and out into the morning sunshine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I drew my Smith and Wesson and took aim, but she.disappeared behind a tree. \u201cAll right!&#8221; I yelled after her, \u201cyou&#8217;re had it now young lady.&#8221; No daughter of mine was going to disobey me and get away with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I closed my eyes and concentrated. After a time, &#8220;Yes, boss?&#8221; &#8212; my watchdog and personal companion, Arlo \u2013 loyal but dumb. &#8220;Arlo.&#8221; I thought, \u201cAnnie&#8217;s flying around somewhere in the vineyard. Bring her back, and show no mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Righi, boss.&#8221; I could feel his smile. Breaking contact, I kicked a hole in the wall and stepped through to the outside. Once through, I looked back in disgust at the damage I had done. Closing my eyes, I mentally pictured the wall as it had been \u2013 before the hole. There. I looked again and there was no hole \u2013 had never been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Smiling slightly, I became a griffin and, with a mighty bound, was angling upward to get a good view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Annie, her back to me, was hovering as she faced Arlo. Eagles aren&#8217;t built for hovering, so she tired rapidly. She was spotted with blood. Arlo had one head dangling, and an eye missing on a second. Unbelievably enough, he appeared to be losing. Damn that girl!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I launched myself into a dive at her back, Arlo, lacking in subtlety, looked at me in wonder. Annie took the opportunity to attack his already-damaged second head. That left him with only one. As Arlo focused his attention once again on Annie, I was in position. I pulled out of my dive a few yards from Annie&#8217;s back by quickly spreading my wings and forcing them downward. With a sound like a rifle shot, I switched directions \u2013 slamming startled Annie into the waiting Arlo. In the process, the tremendous strain pulled a muscle under my right wing, and I was forced to soar painfully to the ground. I barely had time to furl my wings before Arlo came trotting over \u2013 bearing the broken form of Annie on his back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Nice boy&#8221; I said after I had changed back to my original form. My right shoulder twinged as I scratched his head, but there was no pain as I drew it back. &#8220;Leave her here, I&#8217;ll take care of her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He nodded, and trotted awery \u2013 two heads whole, the third twitching back to life. I picked Annie up, and slung her over my shoulder. Back at the house, I dumped her on the bed, and she too began to twitch back to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I left her there, and went back to the living room to read the paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s interesting that the characters in this story include Annie (my wife&#8217;s name) and Arlo (my camera security system). A scream from the back of the house brought me running. Damn it, she&#8217;s at it again. I burst into her room to find her floating several feet above her bed, a look of mischief on &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/?p=1957\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Mindmorph [Classic] (500 word story)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1957"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2048,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions\/2048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}