The flea sat huddled at the quiet streets of Paris, having spent
another day avoiding the public in general. He sighed in relief as he
finally managed to take a breather and sat on the cold floors of the
alleyway.
News of a monster terrorizing the neighbourhood
circulated everywhere and the police led by this really nasty-looking
human–he couldn’t remember his name, only that he had a very weird
shape of a face and a rather odd moustache–were prowling the streets in
search of the monster to be lynched.
It didn’t take a genius for him to know the monster they were talking about was him.
It
wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. He didn’t mean to scare the old
female human, or the other younger female human either. He was just
trying to satisfy his curiosity looking into the window to see what that
flickering little orange lights were when she screamed, scaring him
away. And when he tried to help the younger female human from being
beaten by a burly-looking male, she also started screaming and hitting
at him for him to let her go.
And now her fear has turned into every Parisian’s fear.
As
he sighed and tried to figure out what to do next, a hand holding a
piece of brown crusty dough appeared before his eyes. He looked up to
see a young female bowed right beside him. he let out a tiny screech and
backed away, but was surprised that the female human did not even
flinch.
As he studied her warily, he noticed that she was wearing
a long billowing coat and a scarf wrapped around her neck just like
his, only with a different colour. She had what humans call shoes and
gloves, and the back of the hood that connected to her coat was torn to
let loose her head of brown fur. Part of that fur was covering her eyes,
and her solemn lips did not make a sound as she continued to keep her
hand with the dough outstretched, jerking a little as if to tell him to
take it.
The flea, seeing that she was not making any sudden
moves, tentatively took the dough and nibbled at it. He technically
wasn’t supposed to eat human food, but back at the green house with the
professor, he had been trained to accept it into his digestive system,
so long as he had a steady diet of raw meat. The female human did not
move, and did not say a word, but continued to stand there and watch him
eat.
Slowly, the female human reached over and caressed the
flea’s cheek. The flea chirped a whimper as he flinched at her touch,
but she didn’t pull back. She continued to caress his cheek, tracing her
finger along his jawbone, his mandibles, his other side of his face,
the bridge of his nose until finally resting her hand on his head.
Throughout the entire time, she never said a single word.
Finally,
the female human stroke his head and patted it gently before walking
away, her coat and scarf billowing at the wind. Without turning around,
she raised her hand to wave at him before disappearing as mysteriously
as she came into the night.
She had not said anything to him, but
somehow, deep down inside, the flea knew that there were people like
her watching over him.
And for once, he felt safe.
--:--
First assignment from The Flea Protection Committee: COMPLETE
I
wanted to write this in Franc’s perspective instead, for fun, and this
was La Nouche’s way of telling him, without changing the course of his
life through her experience as a universe traveller, that he has someone
(namely the FPC) watching over him.
For the record, La Nouche cannot talk. To know why,
go back to my previous posts
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