[LNHY/ACRA] The Daily Super Short-Short Story #22

[Saxon Brenton]

The Daily Super Short-Short Story #22
 
A Devil Came Down to Georgia 4
 
Last Time: Damian the wondersock dealt with a mugger (in more ways than 
one).
 
     Using hastily pillaged memories and body habit reactions, Damian 
brought his new monkey boy meat puppet back to its flat.
     He parked the motorbike and headed upstairs to the grungy tenement. 
Once inside he shucked off the vinyl jacket and the gloves. That was 
the point when the wondersock discovered why TJ had been wearing gloves.
     He'd assumed that it was to avoid leaving fingerprints. That may 
have been part of it, of course, but the real reason turned out to be 
that his hands were grey and textured like the hide of a rhinoceros. No 
wonder he wore skin tight kid leather gloves rather than heavier biking 
wear; he'd be wearing them nearly all the time when out in public and 
would need something that wasn't encumbering.
     Now that he was in seclusion, Damian began searching TJ's mind for 
the nature of his powers. The man didn't know where they'd come from 
and assumed he was a mutant. That gibed with what Damian has guessed; 
TJ's aura didn't have the... taste... of someone with supernatural power 
(another reason why Damian only planned to use him for a short time while 
tracking down that psychic scent he'd caught whiff of earlier). The powers 
themselves weren't particularly exotic as these things went either. 
Enhanced strength (mostly focused through those hide-like hands), 
resilience and speed, and none of it of a spectacular level.
     That done, it was time to get down to housekeeping. Damian knew 
that later he would want to take a back seat in human's head for a 
while, with the only influence being a vague feeling of wanderlust 
so that TJ would be happy to be out riding. That would give Damian the 
opportunity to do the searching he was planning. To prepare for that, 
the broken nose would need to be fixed.
     Damian was an old and very knowledgable sock, and there were a 
number of rituals which he knew of that could repair TJ's nose in 
the course of the afternoon before he was due for his delivery boy job 
this evening. Blood was always popular, as either a sacrifice or a 
libation, but Damian had a deep-seated psychological need to degrade 
humans as much as he felt degraded by riding on their stinky feet. That 
was why, if he had any choice in the matter, Damian always chose shit 
for a task like this.
     Damian brought TJ up to a partially aware state, so that the whole 
situation would feel like a nightmare. Then he went and collected a plate 
and fork, and dropped his pants, and emptied his bowels, and then tucked 
into the resulting pile of faeces. Suppressing the gag reflex was always 
the hardest part.
     Then Damian directed his new body to lie down while the healing 
took place. The wondersock used the opportunity for a more leisurely 
examination of the man's memories. TJ took the opportunity to freak out.
 
Tomorrow: The search continues
 
The Daily Super Short-Short Story series and wondersocks created by 
Arthur Spitzer, and used with belated permission.
 
-----
Saxon Brenton    University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
     saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au 
The Eyrie Archives of Russ Allbery which collect the online superhero 
fiction of the rec.arts.comics.creative newsgroup can be found at:
     http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/