One summer in north Texas, the days were hot. Rain clouds would disintegrate into thin wisps each late afternoon. From his porch—here in the country—Mat could smell the cries of parched earth anticipating relief but getting none. Mat was the cause, he knew it.

Mat had fallen to his knees once to keep things from getting worse.

One night Mat was jolted awake at 3:06 am. The Ute Indian statue in his room looked curiously and amusedly at him. Everything was important these days, even waking up. Mat got dressed, and five minutes later he felt the spirit in his house guide him: a brush of wind against his side moved him towards the front door. Mat took a long breath—breeze at his back—and stepped outside.

The wind outside took over for the spirit and swirled upward and around him.

A long walk—furious and dutiful—followed. Each direction was instructed, and each step was performed with Mat’s typical act of piety.

He was led to the road outside the property, and approaching a neighbor’s ranch—

begrudgingly, dutifully—he saw the barbed wire fence.

Mat hopped the fence. The breeze returned to his back, stronger than before. Mat was a little scared—mostly mindful of the land owners and guns—but moved forward. Immediately, a bold, beautiful but utilitarian alien spacecraft—dark and then aflame in

green fluorescence—lifted itself from the ground. Mat felt a deep nudge within the front of his brain, and a message rang in his mind.

“You are here. We wanted you to come, but commitment is unforeseeable.”

Mat stood still. He tried to communicate back to the voice he was interpreting. It spoke again.

“Choose between this world and a future away from it.”

“You are telling me that you are going to end our world?” Mat said.

The alien spoke to Mat inside of his brain: “Yes. We, or you. You are strong: an aberration, but one admired. You should leave with us now.”

Mat thought about all of the destruction on this planet. What a gift, he thought, being respected and able to leave. The trusted wind blew against his face now. The planet made its message clear to Mat.

He backed away from the craft and turning and then moving quickly, went back towards his property. He looked over his shoulder as he walked briskly away, and saw that the craft had disappeared. Mat returned home. The Pleides constellation shown distinctly in the southern sky.

“I choose this planet,” Mat said aloud. The wind rapturously swept around him. The trees were blown, given a voice: applauding.

Mat returned home and saw the Ute sculpture looking at him with a wide-eyed optimism. Maybe for once, Mat knew more than he. Tomorrow his strong feet would follow his will for change.

At 6 a.m. the car sped angrily by.

“Screw you.” Sam said, inside of his house.

And then, “Thank you,” he said.

Knowledge of an abrupt and interactive Universe had stung Sam now for months. Nothing is spared. The driver communicated a message to Sam and it was this: “fall in love with life, or I’ll kill you.”

Amongst the empty vodka bottles and energy drink cans stuck to the countertop during last night’s spills and overflowing consumption, Sam swept his arm for an empty glass, and when he found one he poured water into himself and turned toward the room.

Conclusions entered Sam’s head. “People want you to fall in love with life. It’s all they do,” he thought. “They are angry and it hurts me.”

At 8 a.m. Claudia called and offered Sam a ride to town. He wanted more alcohol and said “yes” and they rode together.

At the corner store Sam sauntered in and lifted his head to say “hey” to the store clerk. Sam moved towards the alcohol at the back of the store. As he closed in on the refrigerator he felt his feet sink--with each step--more deeply into the concrete floor of the store. A hollow feeling built inside of him. He turned to see the store clerk and saw the man with his head down in a confused gaze. Sam inflated himself and pulled away from the alcohol.

A heavy sigh came from Sam’s insides. He left and nodded to the clerk, who was now looking up.

Exiting the store Sam saw a girl on her haunches--hands on her knees--that had a smile on her face. Sam breathed a heavy sigh that fell into a flat smirk. The girl looked at his breathing.

“It’s easy,” the girl said. “It’s a moment. Lend some magic.” Sam strode to the awaiting car.

Sam hopped in. As they pulled out of the parking lot, Sam took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He looked out of the passenger window and saw bodies swinging to a synchronized dance that got tighter as Sam became more prominent in the scene. Sam breathed another heavy sigh. “Magic,” he thought.

At 9:03pm, Jack plodded through entrance of the HEB grocery store in Preston, TX—it was the only one—and looked around as though it were his. It was also almost entirely without customers at this hour.

Jack was a slovenly and conspicuously covetous man, but he didn’t know that. And he was available to any type of experience, so long as he could ingest it, and digest it, for his own pleasure.

All of this was visible to Charlotte, the young woman in her early 20’s who worked at the store, and one of many that held disdain for the anonymous creature that had slimed his way through it before.

Jack had definitely noticed her before.

She was stunning, statuesque—a vision to soul-parched men off from their jobs, and wonderful

to the, mostly, middle-aged women who shopped at the store.

Jack, by contrast, was a series of trips; a burp. He couldn’t see his own feet.

Charlotte rounded the corner dividing the bakery and produce sections. There was laughter behind her: Perhaps the close of a conversation with a customer or an unrelated agreement with a co- worker about something that likely was interesting. She was smiling, with a happy and confident glide.

Jack was clutching a clear box of cookies when he saw her enter his field of aimless vision. She saw him as she passed.

Her smile fell. She stopped. It was him.

She looked right at him.

He was clutching the cookie box with his right hand, flat look on his face as if he’d seen a chair, a television commercial, or a beautiful girl.

She was looking right at him. She breathed, and then pivoted to her right and began to walk with brisk determination horizontally to the horror that was Jack.

Jack watched her walk away with his head turned as he walked toward the open space that was the chest’s cavity of the store.

Then, Jack heard a crackling laugh from the corner of the store. It could have something from another land, another dimension. Jack, instinctively and irrationally turned his head to look.

There, 50 feet or so away—in the eating area—sat a woman in a stock metal chair. She looked to be old: 70 years, 100? A century? She laughed again and smiled a somehow” knowing” grin. Her eyes had a light above their black pupils: black like her dress.

Jack laughed reassuringly and resumed his distracted jaunt.

“Oh,” he said, and moved to the back of the store, turned and headed towards the food aisles straight ahead.

On the other side of the HEB, Charlotte’s pace quickened as she walked determinedly across the store. Her long hair, tied back, actually seemed as if moved by the wind as it sometimes was outside.

“You know...” Jack muttered to himself—although everyone cared—and he moved down the aisles a little further.

“Cereals,” he said, and he walked left down the aisle to get his Kix.

He had walked a few feet and looking around, stopped, opened the box of cookies that he was holding, and pulled one out.

“Oh...,” he said. He’d probably heard it said that way once before. He took a long bite.

He started walking up the aisle and looked to his right for the Kix cereal, but he didn’t see it! His mouth was full.

Charlotte meanwhile was looking down the aisles, coming from the causeway horizontal from where Jack had come before going down the cereal aisle. She moved briskly. Walking fast enough to almost pass the perpendicular aisle, she spotted the man standing and looking at the cereal boxes, food in his mouth, dead-faced.

“Outrageous!” said Jack about the no Kix.

“Outrageous,” Charlotte indignantly spoke to herself.

Jack turned his head to his left and there she was. Jack took another bite.

And then, at once, Charlotte pounced. She walked, but very quickly, towards Jack.

Jack couldn’t believe it! But he could.

Mouth full, Jack opened up to say something, and then closed his mouth, it full of cookie.

Charlotte was close to him now and she stopped, put a leg between his, and slid one out past his body. She grabbed the back of his head, and pressed her lips to his.

“WOW!” he thought! “Wow. Wow.”

Charlotte kept her lips there. Her eyes were open, staring past Jack.

“Whaaa...” he thought, as he gurgled little air through the dessert lodged in the back of his throat. “Ka!” noised Jack, and his arms shot at his sides, his hands shaking.

He couldn’t breathe.

“Arghh...!” he protested, and tried to pull away.

Charlotte held his head toward hers, with her lips fastened tightly to his.

“Ghaa” he muttered as his face fell white.

Charlotte stopped. She peeled him off of her mouth by pulling the hair at the back of his head. She looked at him.

She looked past his shoulder and then turned her head the other direction, still holding his hair, which began to tear out of its follicles as it now held the weight of his limp body.

No one had seen.

She dropped him—mouth full of cookie, sweat on his stomach through the fabric of a too-tight

t-shit. Disgusting as ever, but, better.

She spun around, and a happy, new, glide emerged.

She looked at her watch.

“9:13...an hour left!” she thought.

Charlotte walked towards the center of the store with gentle, strident command. Her long hair moved as it would have outside, blown by a soft wind.

Charlotte's Revenge is the title of this Flash Fiction offering. The genre is Horror. I am 37 years old, and the word count is 913 words. Author is myself, Will Wright. It was a Flash Fiction challenge and I believe that it shows my ability to create with restraints. The concluding action I think makes for a thrilling experience. The gyst of the story is that a man plods through a grocery store and is confronted as Beauty makes a stand against ugliness. I think that the story will appeal to Flash Fiction afficionados. I am 37 and am an unpublished author, this platform is Flash Fiction, I am a high school graduate with some college and I have experience only in personal writings and essays. My writing style is visceral and hopefully true to the inate human struggle between righteous and negative behaviors; a state of grace, viewed somewhat scientifically. I enjoy listening to and critiquing music. I am from San Antonio, TX.