fff#84

my flash fiction friday #84; trigger: choose an existing archetype/stereotype/trope, and flip [a major component of] it.

was a quiet village. one of them places nobody who doh live or have people living there even know exist. one of them places if you call the name nobody cyah say they know it.
was. and them try and keep it so. them know from time them make out the scene, wasn’ no keeping people away once it come public knowledge, so them say them keeping that talk home. quiet. no mention to nobody not from the village. not a word.
it mustbe work for awhile in the earlies, but yuhknow is only one could truly keep secret. talk does spread, surprised tongue to the next shocked ear with no regard for the desire of the discussed to remain otherwise. after time pass people start to get slack, studying their outside people stories and stop studying if home secure. them start to bump gum, mouth start to run; a trickle, no more, but growing exponentially with each person they tell, telling more, because who ever hear anything like that before?
after time pass it had people not living there looking for any+every excuse to come through, trying all-how to spend the night; people who now hear this place exist calling down road trip, taking adventure-drive; people making cross-country runs on fumes+hope to find it, because the miraculous talk find them…
the village had been proceeding like most, if a little quieter than most; mostly unremarkable until it wasn’t.
first was ma mabel. she didn’t notice the bruise until later because the walk to the washbasin+mirror that morning was a revelation. mabel couldn’t recall the last time she walk; even though she well know different, she feel like is she whole life that hip have she hobbling, dragging+dropping, gimping she way around she tiny board-house. when she sit up the morning, slow, she notice she wasn’t as stiff as usual and get slightly hopeful about the day. she take it slower swinging she legs out from under thin sheet and off the bed, not wanting to spoil a good thing. cold foot seek out slippers, push them together in front of she, and slide in unusually mobile tarsals. excitement rising, she push up off the edge of the bed to stand with more momentum than she need this morning and almost pitch forward, but before she could even feel fully terrified she legs and them just step out, instinctively, and start to move, carrying she to the washbasin. all she do was wash face and brush teeth before she reach out in the yard with the joy of meeting a new day with a new self. she didn’t understand what the arse happen to she but she know it was good. when she eventually see the bruise she eh connect it.
after ma mabel was xerxes. sagaboy laid low by a vex husband’s blow, he was never the same since the night jonesey bois cross he crown with a crack them hear in quite-o quite-o. xerxes open he eye he old self a morning, except for the bruise on he neck, and call the trade the best bargain he ever make in he sleep. mabel did know to hush she mouth and give thanks quiet quiet in she place but it had no hiding the change in he.
more village people recover; nobody know why but who looking to question? bruises might be suspicious but tha’s the worst them see so every man-jack say gift-horse and hush they mouth. or was supposed to.
but people is people and like other people, and villagers start whispering to who they know need healing.
come+stay the night, you go feel better…
wasn’t long before it was the worst kept secret and then them couldn’t keep the crowds away. next thing i know, a night i duck in a window, hovering at the throat of a sleeping stranger, consumed+consuming, i hear+feel walls constrict airflow. i pause, flickering, and a voice from the dark corner i had ignore for the smell of cancerous cells calling, tell me,
“coffin locks and plexiglass. and apparently maybe we need blackout curtains…vou are a soucouyant, of some kind, yes?”
“how you find me? what you know?”
“more important: how do you exist? what exactly are you? a soucouyant, who somehow heals when she takes blood? how?”
“i don’t know. all i know is, i is the cure…”
“for what?”
“everything.”

walk good.