What if Nazareth wasn’t the first choice…?
Inferno and Ice
The setting was all wrong.
He’d expected sand and sun and the warmth of understanding and appreciation. Instead — darkness. Darkness, and isolation. Not the velvet darkness of a quiet room. Not the darkness of sweet dreams. This inky darkness, and the not-incidental icy cold, left him questioning his insouciant ideas.
NOT the ideal he’d imagined. How could he invoke such ill-fortune on an innocent? But imprudent or not, there was no help for it. Hood pulled low, he put incaution aside and set out into the land of inferno and ice.
His feet made no sound, sinking lightly into the moss with every step. He walked on, surer now, the tiny burden clutched tightly under his cloak. Icy fog swirled.
The journey was not long, and a low shape soon rose up. No important institution in this setting, of course, but it would do. Immediately, the darkness around him hummed with infinite promise. An icicle dripped like the sound of a beating heart.
His indecision slipping away, he stepped inside and the thermal incalescence rose up to envelop him. Stooping, he nestled his burden into an impeccable stone trough and inwardly decided that sun and sand were over-rated. In a moment of inspiration, he cast an incandescent star as an indicator, and left the infant under the interested eye of an Icelandic pony.
***
For the month of December, my goal is to post a piece of festive flash fiction here to the blog every day. Twenty-five stories, each 250 words or fewer — a little fictional festivity to brighten the darkest month of the year. For readers, I offer these stories as a moment of peace within a hectic month of busy. And writers? If you’d like to join me, I’ll feature any flash fiction you’d like to share!
More soon…
~kc