Diagonal Attraction - Flash Fiction by Emmie Christie

 

Diagonal Attraction

Flash Fiction

by Emmie Christie 

 

 

The stoplight arrow pointed up and to the left.

            “Weird,” Kida said, and pressed the gas pedal, glancing over at Lir in the passenger seat. Lir tapped a rhythm on her leg, reading her magazine on extraterrestrial plants. The plastic rose hanging from her mirror redirected the sunlight, creating a pink gleam on her cheek.

Kida hoped the party wouldn’t get too rowdy at Sam’s house. She wanted to dance with Lir, and Lir wouldn’t want to stay if people decided to shout or had the music turned up loud. The car tilted as if rolling up a hill.

Lir glanced up from her magazine. “Wait, stop!”

            Kida stomped on the brake and the car jolted. “What the hell? What’s going on?”

            Lir tried to lean forward, but the seatbelt snapped her back in place as the car idled a few feet off the ground. “Up there! Look!”

People in the cars around them honked and waved their arms outside their windows. Some pointed up. Kida stuck her head out.

A road had materialized underneath her car, leading into the blueness of the sky.

People honked louder, and more shouts added to the cacophony. Cars blocked the intersection. Lir whimpered and held her hands over her ears.

Kida licked her lips. “Well, can’t stay here.” She pressed the gas, and the car sped up into the sky, into the blue.

The honking faded behind them. They drove in the quiet for a few minutes, and Kida pushed the thoughts away that said this can’t be happening, what is happening? She had to get Lir away from the loudness so that she did not hunch her shoulders and curl her fingers over her face.

A few clouds whispered past.

“Look,” Kida said.

Lir opened her eyes. The light from the rose swung from her neck to the tops of her cleavage as the car angled upwards. Kida swallowed and darted her gaze forward again. The clouds morphed around them into other cars on other roads, all slanting up, and up, and up, like a diagonal attraction.

“Where is it taking us?” Lir leaned forward at a slow pace, and the seatbelt did not snap her back this time. She reached out and rested her hand on the steering wheel next to Kida’s hand. Kida sucked in her breath.

A turnoff lane appeared in front of them. Kida signalled out of habit and pulled off. The road evened out, and soft music played from the radio. Kida had not switched on the radio.

Before them, as if someone had painted with giant watercolours, a house appeared, and people, and other cars. It was Sam’s house. They’d returned to the ground, somehow, even though they had not driven downwards.

Kida and Lir stared all around, then at each other, mouths open.

“That happened to you too, right?” Kida asked. “The—the driving into the sky?”

Lir dropped her gaze to their hands, now clasped together. She smiled. “I hope it wasn’t a dream.”

“Do . . . do you still wanna go to the party?”

“Do you?”

Kida reached out with her other hand, her breath shuddering, and traced the sun-rose pattern on Lir’s neck. “I’d like to. I want to dance with you.”

Lir grinned. “I’ve been waiting to hear you say that the whole drive.”

Emmie Christie (Emily Smith) -Emmie's work includes practical subjects, like feminism and mental health, and speculative subjects, like unicorns and affordable healthcare. She has been published in various short story markets including Daily Science Fiction, Infinite Worlds Magazine, and Flash Fiction Online. She graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2013. You can find her at www.emmiechristie.com or on Twitter @EmmieChristie33.