It Should Be Right Where I Left It On the Cabinet, but It’s Gone

Am I losing my mind? I turned and turned and walked upstairs and back into the room, so I could have a fresh start and look at the cabinet but it was definitely gone. Before anyone could catch sight of me, I repeated this same fresh start three times. It felt like I was definitely losing my mind. Two hours ago, I came downstairs, it was a normal morning as any, and proceeded to start my routine of black coffee, two eggs and toast. The only difference was, this morning I came downstairs with a package that I was to take to the post office to ship out to my friend Geoffrey. He was living on a boat and engineering and while we had some correspondence, it was little to none due to the intermittent internet connection that was allowed for personal time. But in our communications, he had spoke about the lack of books he had on the ship and that he had regretted not having more than the two that he had taken with him, which had had already read three times through and thoroughly bored with at this point. Being a book lover, I had more books than I had time to read and knew that I would be able to send him a decent copy of something he might enjoy. Off my shelf came “Remnants of the State”, a thriller mystery of a secret spy agent that had gone into retirement only to be brought back by a corrupt case. It was definitely entertaining. Into a mailing envelope it went and I was going to send it to the PO Box that Geoffrey had sent, which then got shipped out to wherever the boat was sailing at the moment.

No, this can’t be happening. I traced my steps upstairs, it had definitely been in my hands as I left my bookcase and with me as I walked downstairs. Through the hall to the kitchen I went, and down onto the cabinet I lay it to fix my breakfast. After all the searching I had done, my breakfast started to go cold. The pure joy of my freshly cooked breakfast was to enjoy it hot so not to spoil anymore of my morning, I decided to drop the search party and finish eating.

As I sat crunching into the lukewarm toast and taking down the even more lukewarm coffee, I just had to admit, I was completely stumped. I had never run into such a forgetful moment in my life - not that I could remember.

Then as I finished up the last crumbs of breakfast, a slight whirring noise whooshed by my left side. I turned to see if a June bug had gotten in and flying around. But I couldn’t spot anything. The whirring then came up on my right side, quick to find out the source, I whipped around to see this bug.

My jaw dropped. I froze, as I saw a glowing light near the back of my stove. An unearthly light that bobbed and was the source of the whirring noise. There I saw my package that was being carried by four winged creatures. Buzzing about, they struggled somewhat to maintain the balance because they were not even three inches in height with wings. It was a group of fairies. I could see small human bodies that had wings and the noise they created, a soft whirring. It seemed to get louder the longer they struggled to keep the package afloat.

I quickly asked if I was hallucinating. Did I have anything to drink? No. Any drugs or medication? No. Then what was going on before my eyes was indeed a real live occurrence of fairies who had taken my package and were fighting over it or trying to take it somewhere - it was hard to decide.

“Um, excuse me there… that package, um belongs to me and I would like tto take it to deliver it to my friend, is it possible that I get it back?” I asked as gingerly as possible as not to offend the creatures.

All at once they looked at me, transfixed and then they all dropped the package and flew off into a corner of the house. As crazy as it was, I decided to follow them to see if they lived in my house. I went for them, as they flew towards the back entrance. Just as I reached the back door, I lost them. I went outside to see if I could see any traces, but it was just another normal boring morning in a day of my life. But one in which fairies tried to steal something from me.

I didn’t know much about fairy lore so went to the library to find what I could and either I was cursed or blessed by what happened that day. Just to be on the best side of caution, I decided to create a small fairly blessing in the spot where I saw them besides my stove. Next to the stove, I placed a ceramic plate that was covered in fresh flowers, small biscuits and sparkly plastic jewelry that I found in the toy section of my local pharmacy. I didn’t read any kind of official recipe on fairy offering but hoped that this thoughtfulness or offering would appease the fairies. Would my offering be accepted? Day after day, I checked the plate and sometimes a petal would be missing, a small tiny bite of a biscuit or the jewelry seemed to be moved about. I decided that my offering was accepted and to continue placing it there. And ever since that morning my package went missing, nothing went missing again at my house.

I was able to deliver the package to my friend and he received it well. He said that he really enjoyed the book but was curious about the slip of paper I included with it. Puzzled, I let him know that it was not sent with anything, and asked what this slip of paper was.

He reported that it had in curly cursive writing the message, “Do not ever startle us again like that or you will lose your mind from lost objects. Bless us and we will bless you back.”

The message chilled me just as much as the moment I saw the group of fairies. They are a clever bunch. It seemed like I had won with the fairies that day and onwards. But now any guests that come over ask about my fairy plate offering.

I begin by clearing my throat and asking, “Do you believe in fairies?”

prompt taken from: https://www.darrenrhill.com/what-and-where-friday-fiction-writing-prompt/