Supers FLASH

Elizabeth Seckman is celebrating the release of her newest book: Bella's Point! To celebrate, she's hosting a blog challenge.

You can go here to sign up!

BUY IT HERE!

Bella's Point
A historical romance.
Bella has the spirit of Scarlet O'Hara and the heart of Melanie Wilkes. A former debutante surviving in the fallen South....

Isabella Troy Stanley is a divorced, slave freeing pariah surviving in the shattered post Civil War south the only way she knows how. She heads to a Yankee prison and buys herself a husband. 

Jack Byron is the former Troy plantation stable boy and object of young Bella’s affection. He rejected her then, and he’s still not sold on the idea of marrying her now. Sure, she’s pretty, but he remembers too well how even a glance in her direction got a man of his low standing ridden out of town. No, Jack’s more sensible now, not to mention he might still be betrothed to another woman.

It’s complicated.




Here's my entry into the blog challenge. Flash fiction featuring a super family:

It was the year 1865 when someone last mopped that floor.

Well, that might be an exaggeration, but the house was a wreck—not an actual super-villain-smack-down wreck—but two kids and one husband sure made a mess.

I’d say it’s because they’re all supers, but my neighbor has two kids, too. She says her favorite cleaning method is to whip out a hose and spray down the kids and the family dog. And her kids never accidentally bring home genetically modified bugs—cast offs from an actual super-villain-smack-down.

“Honey, have you seen the PALEO transponder?”

“Have you seen the dishes, dear?” I called back.

He leaned around the corner. “The what?”

I turned away from him and flipped the transponder to silent, but it never failed. If I tried to talk distribution of domestic chores, there’d be an All Call. Life was predictable, if occasionally cruel. I slid the beeper into my pocket and picked up the magazine like I’d been reading it. I hadn’t read one in years. Emergency in North Carolina. Super plot in Argentina. Emergency in the bathroom—it was all the same. Divert disaster and clean up. I did as much crime busting as my husband, and he still managed to go play golf and poker with the guys. Why was I the one stuck cooking dinner and vacuuming? Was there something in super powers that prevented the male of the species from noticing things like full diapers and dirty dishes.

“Dishes, you know, flat, porcelain utilized by most people to holding food prior to consumption. When left unwatched for mere seconds, they bread into mountains covered in partially eaten food. Often the only evidence of teenaged inhabitants—ring a bell?”

His solemn face grew longer as he tried to fathom what would come next. “Are you suggesting that my work is somehow less important than doing the dishes?”

“Are you suggesting that you don’t remember how you were going to ‘step up more’ and ‘take on more of the housework’?” I crossed my arms and cocked my head at him.

He swallowed. “Well, I just meant that—uh, I would—um. You know, I think I hear the locator beeping. Maybe I should take it to Bob to have him see what’s wrong.”

He turned to walk away, but I teleported in front of him. “Oh no you don’t. ‘You cook, I’ll do dishes,’ were those not your exact words?”

“Sweetie, that was years ago—before the meltdown in California.”

“Oh, so Super Villains plotting against humanity is some sort of excuse to get out of doing the dishes?”

He swallowed. “Do you hear yourself?”

“I asked for a maid, and you said—“

“Not the maid again. Honey, we can’t have a maid. She might figure out our secret identities.”

I tossed him my phone. He caught it with one hand, perplexed. I ground my fists into my hips. “You tell PALEO, they’re one hero down until the dishes are done. They have enough pencil pushers, I just want someone to do dishes and vacuum once a week. We save the world. I want a maid.”

I checked the transponder, and sure enough, it was already beeping. His eyes lit up. “Honey, we have to—“

“Get PALEO on the line.” I pointed at the stack of dishes. “I’m lifting off, and if those aren’t done before I get home, I’m going to burn the house to the ground.”

I stalked towards the door, but I heard Jessica slink into the kitchen. “Does she mean it?”

My husband’s voice held the proper amount of fear. “I’m afraid she does. You’d better clean up your room just to be sure, sweetie.”

Jessica gasped then whispered, “Poor villain, he’s never seen Mom mad like that.”

I stepped onto the front stoop and took to the sky. To emphasize my point, I hit the area with a super sonic boom.