Extempore - Flash Fiction Story by Marka Rifat

 

Extempore

Flash Fiction Story by Marka Rifat

 

Motes danced in the golden air and Barnabus ached to go beyond the stone walls and run in the sunlight.

He shifted on the narrow bench and tried to concentrate on the panel he had been allocated – a lowly verso corner. Better than days of drawing ivy leaves, where the scribes failed to reach the margins, but oh, for the prestige of an historiated initial, a miniature, a Lombard, or the freedom of a bas-de-page, instead of working on the part of a book guaranteed to be worn away first by avid readers. He cupped his downy chin and smiled.  Brother Cedric pounced. “Work!” he hissed into the boy’s blushing face.

Barnabus hunched over the vellum. What to do? Sun? Moon? Portent? Yes, a portent. A shooting star, like Brother Anselm described in a very lively manner when they had walked to the refectory yesterday. Then the rest of the panel could be dark and dramatic, with a palace diagonally opposite. The boy was sure he would be recognised for his craftsmanship and garlanded with dispensations.  He inked in the star and was starting the rest of the celestial body when a cough seized him and his pen swept south instead of west. He softly groaned, then inspiration struck – paint a De Bestiis phoenix and the comet could become a flame.  The other flames were quickly outlined, then he sneezed, splattering the wet lines. He fumbled for his cloth to protect the linear foliate “S” and nearby script. By the time he had done that, the mess in the panel had begun to dry. 

He stared at the smeary shapes. They could pass as trees, with the tried and tested ivy in the blobs. Then what? He felt Cedric’s eyes, and his regular promise of an educational thrashing, willing him to depict what God had created rather than some personal fancy.  So be it: a cockerel. One of the flames could become a lovely tail, echoing the curve of the “S”, and the bird would have Cedric’s fat belly. The boy grinned and his quill dived into the pigment. In his excitement, he gave the cockerel a very long left leg. Barnabus frowned. He painted in the feathers while he pondered. The smell of soup rose from the kitchens and when he refocused, it was clear that the feathers now resembled fur and the bird was more of a kneeling, headless bear.  No matter, a right leg would fill out the left corner, add the face and there, a bear –  and the Bible had many bears – in the woods. He was finishing the ears when his quill tip caught a tiny ridge in the page and skidded, leaving a long horn protruding from the head. In a rage, he drew a matching horn, then a lumpen face, made the star into a club and scratched in claws and talons.

He looked up, sure that the gates of Hell were opening wide to receive him and realised that the abbot was gazing over his shoulder.

“Forgive me,” implored Barnabus, spreading his inky hands.

But sleek Abbot Geoffrye walked on, smiling. The boy’s drollery had the exact lineaments of the former abbot, an irritating man who, to his last obdurate breath, had fought every reasonable effort to amass money and establish a comfortable life on earth for senior clergy. Now he was mocked for eternity. Perfectio.

Marka Rifat writes poems, short stories, essays, plays, and reviews, as well as producing  illustrations and photography. Winner of the DoverSmart Jubilee art competition, commended in the Saki, Toulmin and Janet Coats Memorial prizes and featured in the John Byrne Award, her work appears in UK, North American, Australian and Indian anthologies. She is a member of Mearns Writers in north-east Scotland and performs her poetry and fiction.