"Dw i'n gallu bwyta gwydr, dwy e ddim yn gwneud dolur i mi."
Catharine didn't bother looking up from her penny dreadful. "I don't know what you said. Was it something about a goiter?"
"Èg get borðað gler, það meiðir mig ekki."
Flipping the page, Catharine said, "Yes, I find that eggs are icky too. Gives me the winds."
The voice became clearer. "I said that I can eat glass, it does not hurt me." This got the reaction the voice was working towards.
"Most assuredly you jest," said Catharine as she finally stopped reading, wincing as her arthritic fingers closed her cheap reading material. "Glass would most assuredly make holes in your inner squishy parts. Unless you're a magician. Are you one, sir?" She looked up as the person cleared his throat.
Except he wasn't a he. Or a sir. He didn't even have a throat. Before her floated an orb of absolute black, seemingly absorbing the output of the oil lamps on the deck of the slowly rocking ferry.
"I might be a magician," said the mysterious ball of anti-light. "I've never been asked that before. Would you, perchance, consider tossing me a ha'penny? I'm trying to increase my mass. I find metals are the best method of doing so."
Catharine dug around until she found a metal button. "This is all I have."
"Oh, jolly good! That will do nicely, my beauty. Please toss it at me and you'll see something magical!"
Catharine blushed at the compliment, something that rarely happened these days, and took aim. The button seemed to slow down the closer it got to the orb until it began to just...hover...in space for a few seconds. Then it stretched out like a wad of salt water taffy and disappeared.
She smiled, also a rarity, and poked a finger at the surface where the button should be. "How did you do that? Are you the Jersey Devil?"
"No, wait! Don't touch me!" screamed the dark ball, but it was too late.
Time seemed to slow for Catharine, at least to the solitary mouse searching for crumbs under the seats. But mice have no use for concepts like time, so it ignored what the narrator said.
In a blink, Catharine stretched out into an infinite strand of spaghetti and fell in to the gravitational well.
"Well, at least I got the two coins she kept in a drawstring purse and a few sewing needles." The black hole floated away towards a pier where two old men were fishing and arguing about what fish tasted best: salmon or halibut. Perhaps one of them would be kind enough to donate some coins.
Quest|NR