Kingfisher - A Flash Fiction Story

    I was on my usual evening constitution, of walking three miles per day in the birch forest behind my estate, when I happened to come across the strangest sight.
    Now I am not one who easily falls prey to the fantastical, whimsical, or exaggerated oracles of the retched common folk.

    I'm Reginald Lionel Kingfisher the third. Heir to the Kingfisher Gin Corporation. The Duke of Canterbury. Earl of Bunford. Marquess of Kintyre. And fourteenth in line, to his Majesty Johnathan Oswald, to be the next King of England.

    So you can see my lineage has prepared me well for the occasional crisis.

    Yet I was startled as a young girl playing Gin Rummy with a group of my mates at the Player's Club. Of course women are not allowed at the Club, but my point being is, how this impish scene playing out before me, was utterly absurd.

    It was two young females, which I can only describe as wearing Halloween costumes of Fairy wings, going at each other like a couple of wild ill-bred hounds in heat.

    Without hesitating, I knew I had to put a stop to this vulgar display of animal instinct. This is his Majesty's Royal Forest and I alone have his permission to hike these woods unescorted.

    I took my revolver from my overcoat pocket and fired a warning shot over their heads to show them I meant business. Then I yelled, "You two retched wenches, get off the King's property before I call his Majesty's Royal Guard and have you hung for treason."

    Astonishingly, they laughed at my orders and pranced around as if music was playing. Yet I heard nothing.

    I took another warning shot above their heads. Then, the once beautiful complexions on these dancing maiden's faces turned into the most frightening sight one could imagine. 

    I assumed it was a ruse so this time I fired at their feet. They immediately twirled in place so fast, it looked like a couple of American Midwestern tornadoes.

    I felt the need for action. So I aimed my pistol at the closes twirl and popped two rounds into it.

    The imp I shot stopped twitching, smiled devilishly at me, and jumped me with such vigor that I didn't have a moment to move.

    Trapped by both now, either one holding onto one of my two arms, they ran so fast in a circle that I was screwed down into the ground up to my neck.

    I could not move nor turn around, but I knew of their departure by the dancing of their feet and the fading of their laughter.

    Good Sir, I see in your eyes, disbelief of what I'm telling you. I know my features look like a tree. With many branches instead of arms, leaves where I once had hair, and a large knot in my trunk that I use as a mouth for speaking, but man, this is the Nineteenth Century and King Oswald must know how to fix me into being a man again?

    Can you not hear me good sir?

    Please Sir?

    Oh, it's you two again.

    A joke is a joke.

    Can you turn me human again?

    Please?

    Don't go.

    If I told you I was sorry, would you?