Excerpt: Foton - Incandescent

John Dimatteis turned, mumbling quiet affectionate words as she reached for Karen Berger’s arm. As her hand closed only on their blankets, she sat up, blinking, mildly disoriented. ‘Karen?’

She slipped out of bed, brushing her hair aside, and stumbled toward the bedroom door. ‘Karen, you there?’ The rest of the apartment was empty, and John frowned, then shook her head. ‘Eh, I'm being silly...she'd have woken me up, if something was wrong...’

Shuffling toward the kitchen with a yawn, she took a quick look for a note, then opened the fridge, stretching. She stood a moment, looking at the carton of eggs and the package of bacon, then shook her head and closed the fridge door, and turned toward the cabinets.

Pouring herself a bowl of cereal, she yawned again and grinned. ‘Ah, corn flakes, my saviour on days of pure laziness.’ She mused briefly, that Karen had occasionally mentioned that, as petite as she was, the oversize men’s pyjamas she was wearing made her look like a little kid...eating a large bowl of cold cereal while watching Saturday morning television, as she planned to do, probably wouldn’t help that impression.

She grinned poured herself a glass of orange juice, and turned back to the main room, and settled on the couch, turning on the weekend morning news. She grinned as the story was, as it had been for the last several weeks, the story about the capture and trial of the Boneman serial killer. Holding her right hand out, she formed a small light-construct which looked like herself, slowly shifting it to look like Foton, then added the Boneman to the tableau. A line of light spread from the Foton construct to the Boneman, and the two raised into the air, beginning to dissolve a few moments after leaving John's hand. She grinned and leaned back in the couch as the program switched to a musical performance.

She started, slightly, and looked toward the door at the sound of it opening.

‘Oh!’ Karen blinked and smiled slightly at her from the doorway, a stack of bags and boxes in her arms. She smiled, broadly, laughing a little. ‘Good morning, hon.’ John sat up as Karen came into the apartment, and leaned in to kiss her. ‘I was hoping I’d be back before you woke up.’

John stretched and looked at Karen, her head tilted. ‘Why?’

Karen stopped in the middle of putting down her packages, and looked at John, another amused smile crossing her lips. ‘Seriously?’ She put the rest of her packages down and set a hand on her hip, raising an eyebrow at John.

‘I've forgotten something, haven’t I?’ John sat up and started thinking on what it could be, until Karen’s sudden burst of laughter snapped her out of it.

‘You did, didn’t you?’ Karen shook her head, and picked up one of the boxes. Laughing, she held it out to John. 'Happy birthday, dear.'