Inklight.

I knew I should've never hid in the museum, but I had heard the strangest of rumors, so I did it anyway. The guard was old and smelled like minty mothballs when I sniffed his backside collar. His eyes looked hazy so I knew he would not see me dressed in burgundy velvet curtains, hiding near the wall. What weird spring inside my brain sprung out of place this evening only the whisperers that gnaw and chatter inside my bedroom walls at night would tell me when I asked them later.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

I had to bite my fingers when I heard the footsteps stepping closest to where I stood in hiding. The nervous tension wriggled like a nest full of tent caterpillars that work their stomach tickles when Beauty sees me staring. I waited quietly. The lights went out. A door locked. Tiny pops and snappings settled floors and frames. What a peaceful place ... all beige light bathed and tranquil, free from all those things that hate me.

I peeked from behind my standing place for clearing coasts and keepers, when "Phluut" ... an airy escape of pressure sounded round a corner and little giggles were hushed up unsuccessfully. "Phleet, eek, hissssssssss" ... "hehehee" laughter sprayed out from lips hard pressed together and it made me smile, near bursting, but I put a hand to hide it from my thinking someone looking might surely see it show. I peered so only eyes could feel the open cool, but still remained in shadows deeply, dark removed.

Two medium-sized people ... dwarfs, midgets, maybe house gnomes? I couldn't be so sure or certain, but most assuredly something, phleeting stinks, that gusted forth abum their bottoms, filling the room with a cabbage sulfur stench. I almost gagged, but held my composure after flicking out my tongue and buckling ... was this the unrumoring before my eyes? Two splendid creatures, not animals or ghosts, but little people that came from nowhere. I had my disposable camera ready to take a picture to prove to all those who should not believe me in what I witnessed but they heard and saw me, kissed, then turned to stone.

Kiss by Doris Mitsch and Whispered Rumors by Seth Beaumont

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