Unwritten Glimpses

a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, idea, setting, or object.

Liz leaned her head back and inhaled, drinking in the fresh air, reveling in the feel of the bluish sun on her skin, hearing the faint bruuppbruupp of a pond animal. “No wonder the D’ni had a special ceremony for this.”, she smiled to herself, imagining the trappings Korfa V’ja, the First Book celebration, around her. “Creating a working age…this was acceptance, this was creation, this was...power“.

The mesas stretched out for miles. Meleena could see caves riddling the sides of the mesas through her binoculars. They looked natural and haphazard, probably the result of lava tubes before the formation of the mesas. The mesas had obviously been cut out by the erosion of the hundreds of branches of the river that flowed through the area.

She took a few hours to sketch the area, making annotations for the final map later. Then she hefted her pack and set off down the hill toward the closest one. If she’d interpreted the Descriptive book correctly, those caves would have a lichen with the chemicals she needed.

The lever moved a scant inch, then another. The sound of grinding machinery rumbled behind the wall. Suddenly everything seemed to give way at once, and in a cloud of dust the ornately carved door slid open. Karen let out a yelp of surprise, and Mitch crowed in triumph. Together they stepped into a chamber no one had seen for hundreds of years.

Sergeant Galaviz watched the camera footage for what must have been the twentieth time. He watched the man in the ski mask smash the display cases and load the jewelry into a bag. When the lights from the patrol cars flashed from outside the building, the man calmly set up a trash can in the middle of the floor, filled it with papers and set it ablaze. He pulled a book from his bag and held it over the fire. He put his hand on the book, and vanished. The book fell from mid-air into the fire, bursting into flames and setting off the sprinkler systems.

Sgt. Galaviz swore to himself and rewound the tape for look number 21.

Paige still couldn’t believe it. When she’d seen the little figurine at an estate sale, she’d all but snatched it off the table and gone running. She’d nearly fainted when she saw the $1.50 price tag on it. Sitting in her car she ran her fingers over the incised face, the delicately filigreed body, and along the base which, to anyone else, had looked like random swirls. To her, the D’ni lettering read “Merehna, Beloved of Yahvo”

Harlen waited at the table they’d set up using board and a few construction barriers. He’d set out small crates on one side of the table while he sat on a folding chair in top of a palette. It was important that he had an elevated position, to give him an air of strength in the negotiations – Harlan knew that.

Soon, Dr. Willard would be sitting across from him, proposing a deal. But Harlen was going to make them pay through the nose for access to the Bookworks. His people had discovered the guild workshops and the New Children of Yahvo did not give things away for free.

He was shaking off the momentary disorientation of linking when something slammed into the tree next to him. Startled, he stared at the arrow embedded in the trunk.

“Bloody hell!” Casey hollered as another arrow hit the ground by his feet. He turned to run, only to find himself surrounded by a wall of drawn bows and raised spears- and none of the people holding them looked happy to see him.

There was a shower of sparks and a few well placed curses, but nothing exploded. The tinkerer leaned forward with delicate tools and made adjustments, finally leaning back to push buttons on a remote he pulled from his shirt pocket.

On the table, the miniature Great Zero whirred to life, a miniature blue beam sweeping the room to the echos of the small lightning bolts that flashed from crystal to crystal.

Satisfied he pulled off his welding glasses, pushed long, blonde hair out of the way, and proclaimed to the empty room “There! I’d like to see Laxman pull off that!”