The firefighter pulled off his helmet, face streaked with sweat and dust from a raging fire, now controlled.

He’d single-handedly saved an even dozen citizens that night. He felt a tug on his pant leg and looked down into the wide eyes of a tiny tot.

“Thanks, Mister!” the child lisped. “Want a ^TMCoke and a smile?”

“Thanks, but I’d rather have some cool water.”

“Good choice!”

(No. Just…No. Highlight, then delete.) 

The enchanted waterfall thunders, just over the next incline. Here she’ll find renewal for the final leg of her quest. Vibeke pulls herself over the granite ledge, shedding her leather jerkin, trousers and boots as she pads toward the cascade. Raising her arms in entreaty, her flawless skin dimples in the light spray of cool water.

Three fossegrimen hide behind the curtain of water, tuning their fiddles to play the welcoming song.

“Hurrah! We knew she’d come!”

She startles, blonde tresses wavering around her voluptuous form, as three heads poke through the falls, singing Three Stooges harmony, “Hello! Hello! Hello!”

 (Angry backspacing. New York Time pulsates on my computer screen like Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart.) 

Captain Fistula stood defiant in the ruins of his spaceship’s deck. His crew, the best and brightest of at least fifteen planetary populations, lie scattered around him like cracker crumbs at a Texas chili cook-off.

“I’ll never surrender!” he snarled.

He locked eyes with his enemy on the Com Screen stretched before him, his gaze cool water on a sultry desert day. The heels of his boots began to tap, faster and faster. Straightening his back, he arched his neck, raising his arms like the wings of an archangel around his handsome head.

“Now we Flamenco!” he cried, “To the death!”

(“I give up.” Wandering off to the kitchen for tequila.)

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2018)

297 words, exactly, 24 hours (New York Time) to write, edit and submit. Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Rodeo 2018. Prompt = “Cool water”  Go.