Offscreen

SNAP!

I opened my eyes and looked around.  He and I stood on a walking path in one of the local parks, but I didn't immediately recognize which one.  It was sunny and lightly breezy, a perfect mid-summer afternoon.  I looked up between the treetops to a clear blue sky, with an occasional puffy cumulus cloud.  A college girl was jogging away from us, her ponytail bouncing up in the air as she ran, so she must have just passed the two of us on the path.

“Did it work?” he asked.

Beth meandered through the many blueberry groves, lost in their intricacies. The sun was slowly setting, with a orange haze falling over her. She hadn't eaten since breakfast, and the many blueberries surrounding her seemed to be an inviting treat.

"I know the sign at the front of the farm said not to eat them, but they look so delicious..." Beth cusped a bundle of berries in her hand. The prospect of eating them only grew more tempting. In a sudden jerk, she picked the berries. with curiosity, and hunger, she bit into one.

A witch's tea party is a much more complicated affair than your average get together. I don't mean that in an arrogant, "Oh you mundane folk just can't understand the ways of magic" sort of way. I am speaking quite literally: older witches use these gatherings as a way to judge an evaluate their peers on multiple levels. Choice of tea and food, sipping versus slurping, how one crosses their legs; all these things supposedly display hidden truths that the senior practitioners of witchcraft will analyse and discuss with great enthusiasm as soon as the younger ones go home.

Laying atop the bookshelf by the door, Victoria's cat rested peacefully in her apartment.  His owner out on a date, he was enjoying a quiet afternoon.

At least he had been.

The door suddenly flung open angrily, it sent shivers through the house as Victoria smashed it shut.  "The nerve of that guy!  Staring at that billboard like that!"