Sparkled Away

I looked around, and I saw police officers in every direction.

“Put your hands in the air!” one of the officers said, but I didn’t comply because I was not the type to obey anyone or submit to any authority.

“Don’t shoot her!” one of the officers said, “I’m getting a call from the station saying that she’s anti-authority but never hurts anybody.”

“I said hands in the air!” another officer said, “And I’ll shoot if you don’t comply!”

“I’m telling you!” the other officer said, “She’s harmless, and if you shoot her then I’ll shoot you.”

“If she’s so harmless then why did she steal that bike!” another officer countered.

“I’m getting a call that they found the stolen bike!” another officer said, “Which means that this woman didn’t steal the bike that she has with her.”

“She still should’ve complied though,” another officer growled, “and we can’t just leave right now and let her continue on her merry way after all of this!”

“I dunno,” another officer said, “I mean, we kinda could, and we probably should.”

Then I spoke up and said, “Since I haven’t even stolen anything, y’all really would be even sillier than usual if you continued giving me trouble. I mean, don’t you have any standards at all?”

“Can she talk to us like that!?!” an officer said angrily, and another officer said, “Not if this bullet has anything to say about it!” and he raised his gun but was then interrupted by the mayor arriving and saying, “Hello, officers. Is the whole department here for some reason? What’s going on?”

“Nothing…” growled one of the officers who was angry at me, and he must’ve been a leader of the more aggressive officers because the other angry ones all muttered and then dispersed, and one of the “nicer” officers softly said, “Sorry for the trouble…” to me as he left.

“Hello,” I said to the mayor, “did you know that your police force was about to shoot me for no reason?”

“No ‘good’ reason.” she corrected, “You did refuse to put your hands up, right?”

“I don’t recognize their authority, or your authority,” I explained, “and so I wasn’t going to obey them.”

“Right.” the mayor said, “Which probably means that you should leave town then? I mean, those angry officers aren’t going to just let this go. They’re petty people, ya know?”

“I know how petty they are,” I said patiently, “which is partly why I don’t recognize their authority.”

“So the more likely they are to do something bad to you the more likely you are to provoke them?” the mayor said with a frown, and I nodded and said, “Yup. I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

“Well, you won’t be negotiating or not negotiating with anybody if one of the officers takes you out, will you?” the mayor said, and then added, “Look, I was about to resign anyway, since I know that a mutiny against me is being planned as we speak. How about we leave town together?”

“Can I come too!” a voice behind us said, and I saw that it was the officer who’d apologized to me earlier.

“They’re definitely about to come for us,” he said nervously, “and we should get out of this town like rats fleeing a sinking ship!”

Then I suddenly saw a bunch of people running towards us, and they all had guns.

“I think they’re here.” I said, and the mayor quickly put one of her hands into one of her pockets and let some sort of sparkly dust fly just as the bullets began to fly out of the guns and toward us!

Suddenly, we were in a grassy field, and I said, “Did we get shot to death?” and the mayor said, “No, those sparkles transported us over to here before the bullets could hit us.”

“Before the bullets could hit you two, anyway.” the officer said grumpily, “One of them grazed my shirt before we transported away!, see?” and he showed us a tear in his shirt. “I could’ve died if it had just soared a tiny bit in another direction!”

“I guess you got lucky then.” I said in amazement, “But I still don’t know where we are. Do you even know where you transported us to, mayor?”

“Not a clue.” the mayor admitted, “See, those sparkles were given to me as an emergency measure, and they sort of just transport anyone who they hit to a random place.”

“So we could be anywhere?” the officer asked, and the mayor nodded and said, “Yup! We may not even be on the same planet, in theory.”

“I think that we are on a different planet.” I said, “I mean, just look up.”

The other two joined me in looking up and saw that the sky was not the normal blue but was instead kinda purple.

“Yeah, that doesn’t look like our sky, and so you’re probably correct.” the officer agreed, “I’m Harry, btw.”

“And I’m Star.” the mayor said, and so I decided to add my name into the mix, and I said, “I’m Skip.”

“Good that we’re all acquainted now.” Harry said, and then added that, “We’re gonna have to eat soon though. I see a tree over there that has what looks like edible food on it. I’ll try eating it first so that if it’s poisonous you two will still be alright.”

“Nope!” I said, and I rushed up to the tree and took a bite of one of the bulky items that was hanging from it before Harry or Star could stop me!…