Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 269

This weeks prompt photo was created by Hermin Abramovitch, an artist from Israel - known as ahermin over on their page on Deviant Art. He calls this I am God. He does what I call Perspective Art, and Surreal art - seemingly mostly based off rubbish found on a beach. I've actually used a couple of his pieces, one of them a really early one on Week 19  and Week 146. 

This week we return to Tricky's tales as I brainstorm book 3 for some inspiration. The last time I wrote about Tricky for MidweekFlash was back in July, for Week 257. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Shocking

Tricky crouched down and peered into the discarded light bulb on the beach. He really thought he was invisible in there, didn’t he? She chuckled to herself. Oh dear. What an oaf. But he could see her, she had no doubt about that. Why else would he be in there? But not for long. She grinned into the reflective surface of the electrical unit, hoping he could see it.

Tricky didn’t know a lot about electricity, it wasn’t something they had brought back fully; they couldn’t generate it like they had before the shift. And people no longer knew how to make these funny delicate objects. The problem with it having been mostly rich people and their servants who had survived the shift, they were lacking people with specific skills and scientific minds. You couldn’t make electricity or lightbulbs if all you knew about was playing with your money and cheating others out of theirs, or sitting about spending it on worthless toys. And those that served them only knew how to be a lackey. Oh no, Tricky didn’t have any truck with lording over or licking under – well not in a cleaning capacity. There was no time for sitting about and being a useless lump, you had to find a way to earn a living otherwise you starved!

But even though Tricky had no scientific mind, she knew electricity was something that could be generated by humans. Not in enough quantities to light up a city, but a single bulb could well be a possibility. She was adept at using energy in all forms, so why not this one. She had a suspicion how she could do it too.

She took a couple of breaths and sucked up energy from the air around her. The sun shone brightly on this beach and the sea was at a safe distance, latent energy lay everywhere – Safa had taught her that. And it grew within, sparking her own energy, while she increased her breaths to a pant. She began to clap her hands too and felt it accelerate. Then she began to hop from foot to foot. The sand was squelchy and splashy, but Tricky didn’t care. She was enjoying herself. He’d get the shock of his life – quite literally!

She stifled a laugh; the energy it would take to let it out would be a waste; she needed every bit she could get for this to work.

She continued on for a few more minutes, feeling the hair on her body start to rise. Yes, that’s what she needed! And then in one swift movement she bent down and touched the tip of the metal part.

The bulb jerked a fraction at her touch, but light beamed out of the glass end, lighting up the dusk sky.

She heard a muffled scream and knew she’d achieved her aim: Gandalf was no longer in the little time bubble he’d created inside the object. She’d just pushed him out into who knew where. He might well manage to track her again, but she had more tricks up her skirt. She’d beat him at this game, oh yes she would. He wouldn’t be getting his fat fumbling fingers on her or her gemstones. And with any bit of luck, if her suspicions were correct, she might just be able to stop him ever finding them, or the landmass, ever again.