Red Cherry
The stain on our teeth would last beyond a brushing, more so than any other flavor. And yet, cherry was always the first to disappear at the flavored ice vender. Had the easiest name. Easiest introduction to a world of nonsense.
My brother, Noah, and I would take turns at the beginning of every summer season, one of us always getting the red cherry ice so we could see infrared, straight through other RVs all around the campground until we knew the site numbers of our friends by heart.
Vanilla
The day our mother calls to tell me Noah had disappeared again, I buy a frappuccino at my local coffee shop, the plastic sweating before I step into the burgeoning summer humidity. Maybe, just maybe, the drink is close enough to flavored ice that I’d taste something different on my tongue. Something powerful.
Something that would allow me to sense my brother through all the miles that may or may not separate us. Find him.
But I taste nothing but sugar and coffee and the stale air from the limp whip cream.
Purple Unicorn
Noah’s favorite ice from the vendor at the campground. Like speed, he became, his skin in some stage of peel or red or, toward the end of the summer, brown like crunchy toast.
Sometimes, we’d have races. Our tongues varying shades of purple. Our teeth lined with hints of unicorn sparkle. We’d run to the pier a mile away, sand in waves behind us, strewn through the air, and be back again in minutes.
Caramel
I call Noah, over and over, getting his voice mail, until I don’t. Until the low tonal beeps tell me nobody’s there. Might never be there again.
This time, I call Mother. She has so little left, her voice distant, like it’d sounded when Noah and I had swum out past the breakers every summer. I sip an icy caramel drink that I hope would gift me the power to strengthen her, but all I have are my words. So I make a promise.
Orange Creamsicle
Our mouths would turn orange from the creamsicle ice, while the sand slithered off our bodies, twirled through the air. We would build sandcastles or sand dragons that we’d climb aboard and fly meters off the ground.
We’d wield the sand like weapons. We’d craft art along the shoreline to be washed away. We’d draw hearts in the sand and tease one another over who liked who.
And then we’d tear the sand down again.
Mocha
An iced latte drips in my cup holder as I pull my car into the driveway. My back seat emptied. My music cleaned of cussing. This time, I’d wished the ice to give me courage, or maybe the ability to make anyone laugh, but the mocha had given me nothing except a startling squeezing in my stomach.
The smell that greets me in Mother’s house is homey, yet old, like home had gone stale without me and Noah here.
Then I hear footsteps clambering on the steps, quick and energetic.
Cotton Candy
Mother hated when we’d come back to the camper with blue staining our tongues. Those days she’d try to convince us to use the pool—where she could see straight down at our brightly-colored bathing suits—rather than the ocean. For we could breathe the water like we were fish. Would sneak up on one another, play like mermaids.
She always worried that we’d still be out there, too deep, when the power wore off.
Sometimes we were, forced to kick to the surface, our lungs screaming.
Chai
The two of them look like Noah, how he’d been when I remember him best—sun-kissed skin and honey-streaked hair, green eyes and scabbed knees. Yet, they are quieter, less brash, their gazes telling stories of abandonment: not knowing when he’d be back, if he’d be back, if they even wanted him back.
I take them out to get ice cream that first day, vanilla and chocolate smearing their lips as I play with the straw of my iced chai, wishing the flavor would tell me how to be a parent to children who didn’t know where theirs were.
Green Hulknado
My least favorite ice at the vendor sparked evening wrestling on the beach. Teeth stained green like mold, Noah would roughhouse while I swam, the strength of all the kids infused with limey Hulknado drawing small cheering crowds, bonfires making their faces flicker.
Sometimes, he would lose, gracelessly. Sometimes, he would win.
It was the winning that sparked the invites up toward the darkened dune where nothing but a flicker of the lighter or the sickly-sweet wafting of smoke could tell where they huddled.
Peppermint
The rooms I clean out for them are small, but we add personality to their walls and beds and shelves. After, over peppermint shakes that do not stain our teeth, I promise I won’t leave, and wish I could make them believe me. Though they don’t. Not yet.
So I pack them both up, rent a cabin at that old campground where my favorite childhood memories had been made. We’re right across from the ice vendor. The signs are faded, but the ice is still vibrant and eager to stain our tongues.
Banana Tropics
Mother only ever used one ice, one that would gently push the thunderstorms off until midnight, craft clouds to ease the sun’s sharp glare.
I grab their hands in mine and tug them across the street. Show them all the flavors and all the powers that come with them. As they duck their heads to choose, I wish there was a flavor to rewind time. Backtrack the years so I might stop Noah from going off those nights on the beach.
But that flavor doesn’t exist. There is no Rewind Ruby or Backtrack Blue Raspberry. But there is Banana Tropics, so at the very least I can make today’s weather perfect for them, no matter what tomorrow comes.
Marie Croke is a fantasy & science-fiction writer with over 40 stories in publication. She is a graduate of the Odyssey workshop, first place winner in the Writers of the Future contest, and her work has been published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, Diabolical Plots, Zooscape, Fireside and Cast of Wonders among many other fine magazines and anthologies. She has worked as a slush editor for multiple magazines, including khōréō, and has written reviews for Apex Magazine. She is now an Acquisitions Editor at Dark Matter INK. She lives in Maryland with her family and enjoys crocheting, kayaking, and aerial dancing in her free time.
The Ethereal Nature of Superpowers is the winner of the Apparition Literary Magazine July Flash Fiction Challenge.
Photo by Philipp Cordts on Unsplash
