Flash fiction: Blood Stained Shoelaces
A flash fiction challenge - A lion tamer, a bowler hat, in space.
On Earth, by now, someone would have pressed the alarm button. A half-dozen vets would have swooped in with tranquilisers and another half-dozen paramedics would have swooped in with trauma kits.
Of course, Marcelle wasn’t on Earth. She was floating somewhere between the Axtanomous System and the Horscarac System, leading a trust-building exercise for a group of tax inspectors.
Each of them was an old-school human, with the standard four limbs and two eyes. They were dressed flamboyantly, which was seen as important to distract people when they were being robbed in an official capacity. Each wore a yellow suit and an orange top hat, with the exception of their boss, who sported a bright green bowler hat.
The brave junior associate inspector had quickly turned from volunteer to victim. Various body parts were scattered over the floor of the arena, and the lion (well, the robot shaped like an Earth lion) was chewing happily on a large chunk of bone. The beast would be happy for a moment.
Marcelle jumped down from her perch and addressed the shocked men. Some had vomited, some had gone pale, and three were smiling. When she turned the microphone on, though, they all looked directly at her.
“When you are in the ring,” she said, waving her whip and electric baton about, “it is important that you follow my instructions. Do not bend to tie your shoelaces. There is no time. You are much less likely to get eaten running in untied shoes than if you stop to fix them.”
She stooped down and pulled a blood-splattered baseball cap from underneath a slab of skin and muscle. She tried to remove some of the bodily fluids with a flick of the wrist. Unfortunately, she also splattered the shoes of the man in the green bowler hat.
They all nodded. This was new information, and it was good information, even if it didn’t involved tax.
Green-bowler-hat-man raised his hand.
“Yes?” Marcelle said.
“Can Frank go next?”
A man near the back screamed.
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