Flash Fiction February 2026 Day Five: Different (Xialing)

 

1. Flash Fiction February 2026 Prompt: Different (someone notices a detail everyone else can’t or won’t see) 

Everybody always said I was “different” and used it as an excuse to make a fuss about things that really were quite typical if not outright boring. Sure, I don’t look like everybody else. Yes, I use special equipment to get around safely. Fine, I’m “different” according to most. So what? Differences are what make people so interesting and each person is unique. Just because I can’t see doesn’t mean I don’t have other skills, they’re just different to what most people are used to. I pick up on details that a lot of people miss because they’re too busy looking at the situation, and aren’t spending enough time listening to what’s going on right under their noses…or ears? It comes in handy a surprising amount. So much happening every hour of every day and yet thousands of tiny details slip away undetected by those who can’t…or won’t…see the entire picture. A brilliant combination of all the senses just waiting to be uncovered by an ever vigilant observer. Wandering home one afternoon as the sun begins to set, the rhythmic tap-tap-tapping of a cane guiding my way down the familiar streets. Steps that take me across the bridges that cross over the canals and through winding alleyways I stop suddenly in my tracks. Standing in the middle of one of the bridges that connects Saint Olms to one of the other Cantons something catches my attention, there’s something on the air. An inexplicable feeling in the wind, a peculiar quality to the breeze that seems to carry a song both silent and resonating so loud it’s as if I can clearly hear it. A melody that mixes with the ever changing flow of the tides from the water below. Leaves swirl around me, lifted off the stone walkway by the wind before being carried away left to fall gracefully like small pink butterflies into the water to be carried out to sea. The rest of the passerby don’t seem to notice anything different and ignore the subtle weather change. Whatever- or whoever- is the cause of such phenomena I’m going to find. I think it will be alright if I take a quick detour on the way home. Rummaging through my bag I pull out a soft brown patterned cap, putting it on and adjusting my coat, armed with only the best of tools stuffed in the bottom of my pack. “Detective Li Xialing is on the case!” I tell myself triumphantly, while an old lady gives me a noise that I can only imagine goes with a look of both disappointment and immense confusion. Too bad for her, she can’t see what I see, or don’t see, and I have a mystery to solve.