Six Tropes Walk Into A Coffeehouse

Six Tropes Walk into a Coffeehouse

A little sneak peek at my next short fic project...

Luz's head hurt.

Her ears hurt and wouldn't stop ringing. One eye hurt and couldn't seem to focus on anything. The inside of her skull hurt and her brain was stuck looping the chorus of that Carly Rae Jepsen song that played on the radio so often, it had to be doubling back through the space/time continuum for chronologically inadvisable exposure. A song couldn't possibly be played 28 hours a day, but Call Me Maybe sure managed it somehow.

What was she doing lying flat on her back in the middle of the parking lot, listening to some girl incessantly singing about her crush, anyway? And why did it feel like she'd just gotten her ass royally kicked by said crush's pickup truck?

Shoes slapped the pavement, growing louder. Someone was running up to her. Maybe she was hogging the good spot in the parking lot and other people wanted to lie here?

"Luz! Holy crap, are you all right?" The owner of the voice swam into sight overhead, accompanied by a slightly translucent exact duplicate who phased in and out of his body like he was performing history's least enthusiastic astral projection. Like, stepping outside his body, but the way a cat stood just on the threshold of an open door waiting for their human servant to turn off the bad weather.

It's hard to look right at ya, baby. Yup, you said it, Carlie. Now can you shut up?

But stranger than that was the feeling that she ought to know who this was, but didn't. Could a face evoke the same feeling the way a word did when it was right on the tip of your tongue and wouldn't quite make that last step out into something you could say, so you wound up sputtering and looking like you had a sneeze stuck in your sinuses? Like, it was just barely out of reach, and she could swear she knew him, but the phrase coming to mind was snot puddle, which wasn't helpful.

Well, astrally projecting or not—which, probably not, but she wasn't gonna say so and potentially hurt his feelings—he looked decent enough. Black kid, maybe a little younger than herself, hair back in a combination of afro and a top knot, and a uniform that sort of matched the one she was wearing if you discounted the illusionary twin he had going on. He really ought to get that checked out.

"Luz!" Out came a phone as if by magic and, yup, he was dialing the magic number that made ambulances appear and finances disappear. She tuned in with half an ear—the other half was hearing you took your time with the call, I took no time with the fall—as he explained that he thought she'd been hit by a car, which, no, it was Carlie's would-be boyfriend's truck, hello. Apparently put on hold, he checked in with her again. "They asked if you think you can move or if your neck might be hurt."

Move? Well, her neck felt all right for the most part. To be honest, everything hurt at least a bit, but it was her head that felt like she'd just squared off with a territorial hippo. Luz experimentally rocked herself back and forth a couple times, then threw her momentum forward and sat up. She meant to let out a sarcastic whoo of triumph, but sitting upright promptly made the world spin so violently that she settled for a sound like a wet alley cat.

"Okay, she was able to sit up, but she's not looking too hot," the guy and his astral projection—scratch that, there were three of them now!—reported to whoever was on the other end of the phone. "She's got a bad gash over one eye and I don't know if she's really with it. Hold on, I'll check—"

He covered the receiver and asked, "Do you think you need to go to the hospital?" Then, with a frown, he added, "Did Amity do this?"

Hospital. Nope. Her mom would kill her if she was anything less than dead before winding up in a hospital. With an effort of will, Luz put on her most reassuring smile and laughed nonchalantly. "I'm fine! Who's Amity?"

This did not go over as well as she'd hoped.