The Caffeinated Lifestyle
5. Flash
"Vell, vell…move a little bit to zat side, vill you?……aha, I think I've got it."
"Pardon me for saying this, but I don't think this is a very good id – "
"AAARGH! Oh damndamndamn……"
Maladicta sighed, sidestepped the smoking iconograph, scooped up a small glass vial of blood from the pile on the side-table, crawled under the table till she was kneeling next to the smoking remains of Otto Chriek and smashed the glass.
Otto bloomed happily out of the cone of ash, struck his head on the underside of the table and collapsed again.
"It reflected, didn't it?" said a voice from ground level. "I had a notion it vas going to do zat. Vell, then it must vork the other vay."
"Are you sure? This is the seventeenth time you've killed yourself over photography."
"Von't hurt. Oh, I know, I only need to adjust the sodium sulphate flash content!" Otto sprang back up, met the table with a crack, and fell once more, entangling Maladicta on the way. They lay in a tangle upon the glassy fragments and stared at the wooden underside of the table.
"I think," decided Maladicta, "that it will take a lot more than sodium sulphate."
Five minutes later……
"Good, ze lightink is good now…you ready? Say chiz!"
The iconograph flashed brilliantly.
This time, they both turned into ash.