One
It’s appearance didn’t bother her.
Living in a single-floored ranch house for years, things just randomly appeared. A random sock happened to say hello from under the bed when on the search for another item.
Opening a drawer revealed the battery that’d been missing for ages. A thingmajig popped up on the desk or a pokieproddie under the foot on the one day shoes weren’t there for protection.
That was the thing with houses. Random objects appeared and weren’t thought too much about. More so when it appeared on the terra cotta tiled kitchen counter and the metallic grey black outer body reflected the counter beneath. Even more so when it happened to look far too similar to the cordless phone it lay near.
So Gia Gordon (GG to some) couldn’t be blamed for walking into her kitchen intent on making herself a cup of coffee and not noticing the object dead center on the counter to her right. She moved past the counter and went straight into the kitchen to the large farm style double porcelain sink. The object’s placement as though she’d dropped it there earlier on her cleaning walk, which is what she was doing on that happy day. But she decided to take an afternoon break to get coffee.
Once at the sink, Gia grabbed her cup from the dish rack in the left sink where she’d left it drying from the morning. She then retraced her steps to the left of the doorway—when she entered the kitchen it was on the left, that was—to the fridge and opened the right door to get the bottle of hazelnut creamer she liked to flavor oatmeal with.
“I need the sugar right now,” she justified to herself as she removed the bottle. Elbowing the door shut, a flash of the counter and the new object swept past her vision, but her brain was on one thing alone and didn’t yet process anything amiss. Coffee was more important so her thought trail was tied to that alone. Nothing would cut that string of thought. Not when it came to her coffee she so desperately needed to get the brain functioning once more.
Normally, Gia would’ve drank the coffee black. More so since the creamer was strictly for her oatmeal in the morning. Sugar in hot coffee? No thanks. “Sugar belongs in cold,” Gia would tell you.
But today she felt she could use the sugar. One random rare day in a random weird week of strangeness, including strange dreams. Dreams of people—or things—in her home, causing her to wake, only to never find anything there. “I need a dog,” she decided just that very same morning. Protection. A large one that even the very sight of it would deter potential home invaders and no good evildoers.
“Just in case,” those dreams weren’t dreams. But then again they hadn’t seemed like people so she wasn’t too sure a dog would do much good. Still, “better safe than sorry.”
Gia hummed a private little tune to herself as she spun clockwise about, maneuvering her hips in a private dance to shimmy twist twirl around the counter with ease. Once more missing the new object which more than likely would have liked to wave a large flag at this point to get her attention. After all, most would’ve noticed the new object by now, surely.
It wasn’t that she was ditzy or unintelligent by any means. In fact, many considered her intelligence level fairly up there. It was simply that she was scatterbrained when she focused on her passion. Gia was working on a new illustration for a piece of artwork in her mind. Drawing out the curves, figuring out where to place the colors, and molding an image out of thin air, into her invisible canvas.
The majority of her brain was focused there, other parts on her cleaning she still had to do, and the rest on performing that very basic task of keeping her from harm while she was oblivious to all around her. Keeping Gia alive in other words, while she was in her own private little world.
Gia followed the counter to her right, past the island and cupboards to her left, to the coffee pot not a few feet from the object. Her free hand waving along a current of air only she knew about, sketching, feeling, seeing something in her mind’s eye that had yet to be created, but soon would be. No doubt beautiful once done. That was the point when it could no longer remain in the brain and she was forced to get it down on paper.
She couldn’t be blamed for not noticing the object on the counter then either, really. It wasn’t much larger than her hand. Not even that large. Behind it and against the wall on that same corner of the counter was her cordless phone, similar in color. It was actually so fairly similar in overall appearance that her brain may have just felt it was the cordless phone. In her distracted state her brain most likely thought: just the phone not on the charger, no reason to take that in.
Gia grabbed the pot of coffee and filled her cup, still sketching, still humming, still completely distracted from most of life around her. She kept the pot on that side of the counter in case she had guests and they used the dining room. Not that she had many. When one was frequently lost in their heads, it made social life a bit difficult.
Don’t bother to ask her about her dating life. She’d huff and tell you she sought a love that even the gods were envious of. Gia sought a place to unpack her heart for this lifetime and all the rest. To know it was safe to. Someone who’d do the same. She’d yet to find that fantasy within her, which felt like home. Who allowed her to truly be naked and vulnerable, who did the same with her, and who made her feel safe.
Instead she’d found only those seeking to keep her at a distance, not really wanting to know her soul, her thoughts, or who valued her presence. They’d taken her for granted and she was a soul who could not be taken for granted. After a while, because of her constant distraction, they faded away when in reality she simply wanted someone to talk to day in and day out, discuss the thoughts in her brain, which she often pondered. Discuss the thoughts they pondered, and to know them just as deeply.
She reserved herself now for the man who saw her. Who truly saw her and craved her the way she would see him. It would take just a look. Recently she’d determined as such. Just a look and the connection would form, unbreakable, formidable, and forever. She craved the beast who never allowed her to get too far away as so many had. It wasn’t people she craved or popularity.
It was connection.
On those rare occasions she had someone over, she found it was far easier to make a cup of coffee for guests in the living room or the dining room—even the back porch, when the pot was fairly central in its location. And it kept everything for the pot, the cups, varying teas, coffees, and cocoa, out of the way as well, in its private little nook. She loved to dote on her guests, and anyone else in her life, so she kept quite a selection of items near the pot for their choosing for that purpose.
Gia filled her cup, replaced the pot. Her attention caught something out of the corner of her eye, making her go, “Huh?”
She focused on the object that grabbed her attention, scrunching her nose. Weird. Where’d that come from? Gia reached up, and grabbed the lock of dark brown hair that swung into her face. Rolling her eyes at her own goofy self for not noticing it earlier, she removed the fleck of lint her hair must’ve made friends with when she was crawling under her bed earlier. Then with a puff of breath, sent it flying away from the coffee she’d just poured.
Holding her hair up to remove the dust was the exact position her face needed to find itself in to notice something strangely new and oddly beautiful, directly in her line of sight. She dropped her hair and really took it in. The object had finally been noticed. At this point more than likely caused said object to breathe a sigh of relief and jump for joy, thought it had yet to be turned on by one such Gia Gordon (GG to some).
Gia’s entire world paused and realigned itself.
=====================
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Time of the Chosen is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, stories, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 Kimberly Sue Iverson © 2018 Kim Iverson
Previously published under the shortened version of my name – © 2018 Kim Iverson. Previously published under the title – The Culling Cycle. The story remains the same, only the title, author name, and cover changed. Republished in 2021 under Kimberly Sue Iverson as an experiment to see how well my full name sells for books.
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If you like this content, consider a small donation.
Donations help me keep the lights on, heat running, food in the belly, and keep my sites going. Even a small donation can go a long way, and I cannot begin to express my gratitude enough for anything you can help with. As a FT caregiver to my elderly mother and older brother who have a lot of health struggles, I am struggling these days. I have a couple tiers up to check out as well if you’d like to sign up for that, instead of a single donation. More will come as I think of stuff, or I get feedback on what I should add.
If you prefer Patreon (more payment options) – http://www.patreon.com/kimberlysueiverson❤️️
If interested in following my other sites I post? Including for book information like on the Dark Moon Dynasty Universe website, and other social sites like Twitter of YouTube where I’m most active? If you prefer Substack (also includes more personal posts) over WordPress? Feel free to find all that on the link cave. It’s only me, and my site, if I list it there. I try to keep that updated.
Kimberly Sue Iverson - Author 