Basically, there's no good reason this isn't finished other than it took me last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and I could not find a way to write it. The goblin pictured was going to be a serial vandal that the cops pictured were investigating, and the third cop was going to be grossly incompetent in a humorous way. Maybe I will finish it, but for now, I can't very well not post it. This is an all-or-nothing enterprise and that means failures happen. Starting fresh this week. Thanks to Seb McKinnon(who gave us "Hussar Patrol" - the image for "Captain of the Guard",) for once again providing amazing artwork through WotC. I wish I could have written a better related story.
© Wizards of the Coast 2013
Six foot four, slim shoulders, slimmer hips, a chin as sharp as his tongue and a dramatic haircut with boots that he probably thought were smashing. The man rarely smiled, but when he did, it was clear that, although his teeth were fairly straight, his cheeks perfectly manly and charming, and his eyes friendly and handsome, he thought that all of it was better than it was. He left one too many buttons unbuttoned on his shirt, as if anyone wanted to see his chest hair, and the man simply oozed confidence. He could turn the anger on like a switch, and sometimes it took hold of him, but once it was out, he had severe problems controlling it. Since he was a thermomancer who preferred fire, they called him Hot Head in the department. Someone had thought it was a clever nickname, and the amount of anger it originally caused in him made it stick. I thought it was fairly stupid, but you can't stop a nickname.
I'm Hot Head's partner, but we aren't very similar. I'm not short, at 5'11", but five inches shorter than anyone is short. Sometimes we talk to smaller folk, gnomes if we're lucky, goblins if we're not, and then we're real tall, or we just talk to shorter full-bipeds like ourselves, and they look at me and they think I'm spooky and then they look at him and they're downright scared because anyone that tall and confident is scary, and when you know how angry he gets that's even worse. It doesn't help that he goes bonkers and blows things up. With fire. Anyway I'm his partner and I'm not as tough as he is, I don't care about the rules so much. They call me Smokey. You can probably figure out why, there's a bunch of possibilities and they're all true. We have sort-of a good cop bad cop thing going. Except this time we've got to take Stevens with us.
Stevens doesn't have a nickname, that's how you know he's not one of the guys. We don't like Stevens. In fact we dislike him. I know, coming from me, that sounds...well it sounds harsh. But Stevens doesn't do anything by the book, and he doesn't get results, and he's not a terribly nice guy. Harmless, that's a good word for Stevens. He’s short and a bit overweight and he plays dumb pranks on the other officers. He thinks we like him. Not that we pretend, he just thinks we’re joking when we put him down. And when we tell him we aren't joking. It’s a vicious cycle really.
The three of us mounted up and rode out. Boss gave us a case to work on before we left, and we intended to have it solved soon.
I'm Hot Head's partner, but we aren't very similar. I'm not short, at 5'11", but five inches shorter than anyone is short. Sometimes we talk to smaller folk, gnomes if we're lucky, goblins if we're not, and then we're real tall, or we just talk to shorter full-bipeds like ourselves, and they look at me and they think I'm spooky and then they look at him and they're downright scared because anyone that tall and confident is scary, and when you know how angry he gets that's even worse. It doesn't help that he goes bonkers and blows things up. With fire. Anyway I'm his partner and I'm not as tough as he is, I don't care about the rules so much. They call me Smokey. You can probably figure out why, there's a bunch of possibilities and they're all true. We have sort-of a good cop bad cop thing going. Except this time we've got to take Stevens with us.
Stevens doesn't have a nickname, that's how you know he's not one of the guys. We don't like Stevens. In fact we dislike him. I know, coming from me, that sounds...well it sounds harsh. But Stevens doesn't do anything by the book, and he doesn't get results, and he's not a terribly nice guy. Harmless, that's a good word for Stevens. He’s short and a bit overweight and he plays dumb pranks on the other officers. He thinks we like him. Not that we pretend, he just thinks we’re joking when we put him down. And when we tell him we aren't joking. It’s a vicious cycle really.
The three of us mounted up and rode out. Boss gave us a case to work on before we left, and we intended to have it solved soon.
"Police Business" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
An interesting enough beginning maybe you will return to it at some point with a new idea, but congratulations on not letting one difficulty stop your overall progress!
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