I wasn’t quite finished with the story I was telling by the time 2025 ended and so decided to continue it until it reached an ending point. Then I will start a new one. Besides, I kind of want to see where Penelope ends up. And so we have…
Day 205: None of the three seemed to notice her.
None of the three seemed to notice her. Penelope got close enough to feel comfortable conversing, or at least calling out to strangers.
“Hello?” She called. No one looked in her direction. No one seemed to even register the sound of her voice. She walked a little closer wondering if the wind might have carried her voice away. She could hear them talking but not make out their words.
‘Which means they should be able to hear me,’ she thought.
“Hello?” She called out again. There was still no reaction. Penelope frowned and walked quite close. She could make out the words, but she wasn’t paying attention to them as she was focused on the people. They two on the picnic blanket seemed amused and talked back and forth with the speaker. Despite his commanding place it seemed more like a conversation than a lecture.
Penelope was close enough to touch them now. She reached out to tap the seated man’s shoulder, and her hand went straight through him. He didn’t register her hand at all. The conversation continued unabated. Penelope stood and watched, wondering what was going on.
Then the scene rippled. It reminded Penelope of hot summers when the air above the black top shimmered. It had the same heat wave sort of feel to it. She blinked and it was gone. The people were now in different positions. The hamper was being opened and food was being taken out as all three sat on the blanket and had their picnic.
“I’m just saying I don’t see why,” the woman was saying. “It is all just energy when you get down to it after all.”
The speaker from before sighed heavily as the other man speared a slice of ham with his fork and placed it on top of a chunk of bread he broke off from a round loaf.
“It is all about conversion,” the speaker told her.
“You can’t make one type of anergy into another,” the man with the ham said. He reached for a jar of mustard and added a dollop on top of his ham before taking a bite.
“Is it changing it though?” the woman asked.
“It is,” the speaker said. “When we use magic it is to create something, not to fix something. It is completely different.”
“But what about plants,” the woman asked. “When I make them grow I don’t create. I use my magic as energy for them to grow.”
“Yes,” the sandwich man said around a mouthful of food. “But it is just growing, that’s different.”
“How?” the woman asked. “And finish your food before you answer you are spitting crumbs everywhere.”
“You aren’t changing anything,” he said. Penelope saw that he was indeed spitting crumbs everywhere. The speaker handed him a checkered cloth napkin.
“What Anthony is trying to say, Emily, is that you are encouraging natural growth not making the plant do something it wasn’t going to already do. You are just speeding things up.”
“Exactly,” Emily replied. “And healing from an injury is a natural process as well. I am just speeding it up. When a plant is damaged and I make it grow then I am speeding up the healing process for the damaged bits.”
“But it is different with plants,” the speaker said.
“Yeah,” Anthony chimed it having finished his bite. “To heal a person would be different.”
“I don’t see how if it is your magic healing your injury. It is just rerouting the energy of the magic to speed up the healing process.”
The two men seemed unconvinced.
Ten til Midnight 