Calm Tides
The sun was just beginning its descent to the horizon over an ocean without waves as Zelphina peered across the beach; empty except for one occupant. Her name was Anomaly. The shapeshifter. The only vestige from her home world to have survived with her. In a stupid sunhat.
Zelphina exhaled a reptilian growl as she crossed the cooling sands. Anomaly was on a cell phone, talking about expenditures and marketing and other gibberish that Zelphina could honestly not bring herself to give a damn about. Anomaly smiled at her as she approached, giving the ground next to her a pat. But Zelphina kept standing.
Anomaly finished her conversation and turned off the phone. “Blossoming credit union,” she explained. “I’m going to be backing them.”
“Murderess.” The word slipped through Zelphina’s lips.
Anomaly was non-plussed. “Your mom was a murderess. I’m an executioner. Haven’t you figured out the difference by now?”
“Do you have any idea what you did to me?”
“Yes, sweetie. I never forget anything.” Anomaly’s body elongated so her eyes were on Zelphina’s level. “Do you know what I did to you?”
“You turned me into an abomination!”
“No Zel. Tourmal, your unrequited ex-lover turned you into a science project.” Anomaly was now the shape of her current persona on her feet. “You and I? We’re going to be sharing this world for the foreseeable future. Can we please try to come to an understanding?”
There were nearly tears in Zelphina’s eyes but she willed them back. “I never did anything to you!”
“You’re right,” said Anomaly. “You are absolutely right. I am a bitch. It is in my nature to be so. Does my admitting that help you in any way?”
Zelphina shook her head.
“Exactly,” said Anomaly. “We’re stuck here, on this dumb primitive asteroid. Indefinitely. But we have an empty beach and calm waters. Can we please just bask in the metaphor?”
“What is it you want?””
“I want to apologize.”
Zelphina glared at her. “I had wires piercing every pore in my skin-”
“They were crystal shards penetrating your muscles, and there were twenty-eight of them.”
Zelphina shoved Anomaly’s form to the ground. “What is the difference to ME?”
Anomaly transformed into her natural gelatinous texture before reclaiming her previous standing shape. “Point taken. Continue.”
Zelphina rubbed her eyes. “Would you please get rid of that stupid sunhat.”
“I thought you’d find it becoming,” Anomaly grinned.
“It’s becoming impossible to take you seriously in it,” Zelphina snarled.
“Fine.” The hat dissolved into an array of cropped black hair. “Happy?”
Zelphina sighed. “Yes, that makes me hate you so much less.”
“Good. Then sit down with me.”
Zelphina sunk to the ground, just enduring the conversation for as long as she had to. Anomaly sat behind her and began massaging her neck. Zelphina leaned away. “What are you doing?”
“Being nice,” Anomaly pulled her back to where she was before. “Don’t give me shit about it. Why do you hate me so much?”
“I just TOLD you-”
“You do know Tourmal and I were victims of a psychic attack, right? It brought out both of our evil impulses.”
“You never needed the help.”
“Zel, I’m a bitch. I’m not an evil bitch, and you know it. That was your mother, who I am not. And I’m not going to pick up the tab for her just because I’m the one who is still standing.”
Zelphina just lowered her head giving no response to the neck rub Anomaly was bestowing on her.
“Why didn’t you ever hate Tourmal?” asked Anomaly. “The guy broke your heart when he wasn’t an evil bastard. He was the one who strapped you into the apparatus, I was just the assistant. Why does he reap the benefit of your absolution?”
“Because that wasn’t him.”
“Zel?” Anomaly discontinued her massage therapy and slithered around to face her. “Tourmal was never going to love you. He was attracted to a darkness that your heart just doesn’t have.”
“I went to Hell when I died! Was that not darkness enough.”
“You never belonged there. You were not like the rest of us. To this day you still view yourself as some kind of a monster. But the reality is, our world was a breeding ground for monsters and you were an angel that we didn’t deserve.”
Zelphina turned her head away, placing her palm over her mouth in case another word slipped out. She almost choked on her own breath when she heard Tourmal’s voice in front of her.
“I never could love her.”
Zelphina’s jaw fell as the tears she’d been commanding back chose this moment to ignore the orders. “Anomaly, don’t-”
“These were his words exactly,” said Anomaly through Tourmal’s voice. “I wish I could have loved her, but I just couldn’t. She’s too good.”
“Anomaly-”
“Do you want to know why we put you in that horrible device?”
“No.”
“With all of the evil in him unlocked, he said to me ‘It’s the cruelest thing I can think of’.”
The back of Zelphina’s hand struck the face of Tourmal so hard it spun on his neck. Anomaly’s body shifted unwillingly back to its natural form. A ripple pulsed through her as she regained her composure. She nodded. “Okay, loose nerve.”
“Don’t you ever,” stammered Zelphina, “put his face in front of me again.”
“Right.” Anomaly moved into a sitting position next to Zelphina. “So-”
“So that’s your apology?”
“No, that’s my ice breaker. This is my apology.” She nudge Zelphina with her shoulder. “You and I are the last of our world. We’re all that we have left of it. It’s quite possible we’re going to need each other.”
“You’re kidding me, right? You want us to be friends?”
Anomaly laughed. “No, sweetie. I’m not asking for a miracle. I want us to be family.”
“Family?” Zelphina repeated like she’d forgotten the meaning of the word.
“Yes. I want you to keep me from hurting this world.”
Zelphina spent several moments unable to speak. When the words finally came to her, they filled her with fear.
“Nommie, what have you done?”
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