So, this is pretty much what it says in the summary-my responses to the different sets of three things in the Three Things Writing Challenge that's depicted in the cover picture. I may not necessarily do all of them, but I am going to try and do a few more. In any case, here are the first three that I managed to get ideas for the soonest.

I hope you enjoy them, and please leave feedback if you can.

The patrons of The Cacophony had long got used to Frida.

They did not actually know her name, for she had never offered it. Simply gone bright red and mute the moment anyone approached her, nodding wide eyed to their words and withdrawing as soon as she could. The Cacophony was no place for such a young girl with her long hair the same shade as the mahogany seating and doe-like eyes, with her baggy raincoat that seemed to drown her and the battered school shoes on her feet. It was no place for someone who shrunk away from attention and seemed only to want quiet. No, this place was as its name suggested-loud and filled to the brim with people larger than life, noise filling every corner. A bar for those from the edges of society, the mean and the grim, the ones who could turn your life upside down with a single shark-tooth smile or a seductive glance or empty, thrilling promises. Or so it was said.

Frida had been told that, millions and millions of times. Yet, evening after evening, when other girls and boys her age headed home or to the park or the shopping centre, she slipped through the crimson doors of The Cacophony and slipped through the already forming crowds, barely causing a ripple as she avoided having beer or cider spilled on her, heading straight to the corner table and the worn out armchair with once-gilt edges. There, she sat until the small hours, at which point she slipped back out again and headed to where home was. She had refused all offers from anyone to walk her home, seeming terrified at the thought. She resisted all questions and inquiries, any attempts to involve her in anything. A glass of juice or a cup of tea were gratefully accepted, as were snacks, but beyond that she seemed content to sit there, watching everything without a peep until her time came to leave.

Perhaps there should have been inquiries made, perhaps it should have been realised that there had to be a very good reason why a young girl like that, so fragile and timid, would apparently seek sanctuary in a bar night after night, rather than a home of her own. But many of the patrons of The Cacophony had sad stories of their own, and no real other place to belong. They did not want to take on another sad story, but neither did they want to deprive anyone of a sanctuary when they themselves had found theirs here. They were not bad people, for all they were rough and restless and widely feared. Their kindnesses were just of a different variety of kindness.

(But it was not a kindness the world recognised, not really. Why else would they be on the edge of society, as they were?)

And so, the patrons of The Cacophony had long got used to her. The staff, too, naturally. And those who were new soon learnt to expect that a small girl would arrive at some point in the evening, that the corner table with the battered armchair were reserved from the time the children were let out from school until the next morning. The waiters or waitresses on shift that night made sure they had something set aside to give to her. They gave her the name Frida, to save them from having to call her girl all the time, but neither of them remembered why that name, exactly. She did not seem to mind it, and would look up whenever she heard it, blushing bright red under the lights. But apart from that, she remained there, quiet and largely left to her own devices.

And so it was that evening, the evening of the leather jacket.

…

There was a concert that evening, a local band with pretensions of being more than that. Music rumbling with a bass that leaked into the walls and made the tables and chairs vibrate. Frida, too, in her armchair, curled up as she always was, vibrated with the sound. As other patrons nodded along, or head-banged along with the screeching of the vocalists and the clash of the cymbals, she sat up and watched. Her eyes were alert and curious, but the rest of her face gave nothing away as she tracked the band members carefully. In particular, she alighted on the vocalist-golden haired and golden eyes, glowing and clad in black leather. She watched and watched, not even taking her eyes off him when she sipped the orange juice or nibbled the mini-sausage rolls that had been left for her. A waitress, and a couple of patrons, they noticed her apparent rapture, that it seemed somewhat different to the usual way she watched things. They did not ask her about it though, knowing the reaction it would get. Instead they noted it, filed it away, moved on with their evenings.

And Frida kept watching.

It was inevitable though, that the golden boy would eventually realise that her gaze was on him. But with so many tables and patrons blocking the view of the corner table and old-gilt armchair from the stage, it was not until a few of the slightly more straitlaced patrons left that the space cleared and she was revealed, not until the pause between one song and the next that the golden boy's bright eyes made contact with Frida's dark ones.

The hush that fell over the room was one that everyone in the room would remember forever more. It was something deeper and heavier than just a simple quiet. Indeed, it seemed to hold its own noise, a soft hum pierced by crackles. Frida's gaze was even, as was the boy's, and there was no telling what they were communicating to each other, if at all.

(But it was something. Later, when asked, they would all say it was something. They just didn't know what)

Like all spells though, it got broken, and as the golden boy's mouth opened into a smile, slick and ferocious, Frida did what she usually did. Blush and shrink away, averting her pretty eyes. The golden boy signalled to his band members, and they dove straight into a song, this one more frenetic than the ones before, and then into another and another. But this time, rather than looking out at the audience at large, the golden boy looked straight at Frida, and only at her.

And first, she responded the way she always responded to attention-by shying away from it. But slowly, slowly, something miraculous happened. She unfurled, slowly, slowly, returning her gaze to the golden boy. The patrons, unsure of what to make of this, made sure that wherever they moved, they did not block the view of one to the other, but all the same one had to duck when, unexpectedly, the golden boy unzipped his leather jacket slowly mid-song and then threw it across to her. The jacket seemed to fly, in a way jackets were not supposed to fly, obvious even to the most inebriated, and she caught it.

And she smiled.

In all the months Frida had been coming to The Cacophony, she had never smiled. Even to the most inebriated, this was a miracle bigger than the one that had gone before. She sat up, holding it, smiling. A little of the golden boy's glow had seemed to come with the jacket, and it changed her whole bearing. Shoulders hunched no more, gaze now direct and unflinching, hair tucked behind her ears so she could not so easily hide behind it. Even the chair she sat in looked more like a throne, somehow. The golden boy's own smile simply grew sharper, and he continued on, as if nothing had happened. Though the patrons and staff were baffled, gradually the demands of a night gradually fading into morning overwhelmed them, and the abnormalities were pushed to the back of their mind.

They did not notice when the band left the stage and the golden boy briefly departed from his bandmates to go over to the table Frida occupied. They didn't notice that something seemed different about her, and did not notice when she finally chose to depart.

But what they did notice was that the next morning, the rain jacket she usually wore had been left there on her chair, folded up neatly. On top, a note, simply saying:

Thank you

That evening, Frida did not come back.

…

Frida's disappearance fell under the radar outside of The Cacophony, but the band realised something was wrong that very next evening, when their golden haired singer did not turn up for them to have one last rehearsal before their performance at the next venue they were due to play at. He had always been unusual, unknowable, erratic. But never before had he blown them off, and particularly not for a girl. This girl, though, was different. They did not know why, couldn't even begin to understand what they had seen happen between the two of them last night.

What they could swear though, was that it seemed like that he had been looking for her all along. As if some of his hollow sections had finally been filled in, and he was better for it.

They called the police despite this though, and these police dug into the Frida's background, bringing her true name and sad stories to the surface and heading to The Cacophony to find out about both Frida's and the boy's last night there. They combed the country searching for a dark haired girl in a leather jacket and battered shoes, and a dazzling boy wearing leather everything else. But every road turned out to be a dead end, and gradually more pressing puzzles and tragedies demanded attention. Frida and the boy faded from the minds of almost everyone in the world. Even the band found a new singer, someone more conventionally handsome, less likely to vanish. Their stories where whispered, cautionary tales with no real message, people wondering at what had transpired between them and where they could have gone. But life went on the way life always did.

And life went on in The Cacophony, at the edge of society. The bar continued to teem and heave and pulse with the larger than life, mean and the grim, the ones who could turn your life upside down with a single shark-tooth smile or a seductive glance or empty, thrilling promises. Now, more than ever, these rough and restless and widely feared people needed a sanctuary, and who was The Cacophony to deny it of them? Of course, they didn't, and so the drinks kept flowing and noise continued to fill every corner.

Every corner, except for one, with a battered table and a chair that was once gilt-edged. An extra chair, newer and carved from a silvery ash, had also been dragged there. On the wall behind it, the thank you note was framed and the raincoat hung on a hook directly underneath it. Although questions were asked and evasively answered, although over the years the décor changed and evolved, these were never removed. No matter how full they got, nobody ever sat there, creating a small pocket of quiet amongst the chaos. Apart from a few newcomers, nobody paid too much heed to the set-up, as if to do so would cause it to shy away. Instead, they let it wait there.

In truth, they did not need to. All of those who had been there on the evening of the leather jacket remembered it well. Remembered the way Frida had been resolute and confident, growing under the golden boy's gaze. Remembered how he had looked at her and only her. Remembered the smile they had seen from her, the first and the last ever. They had understood little of it, but remembered it well. Wherever she was now, she was no longer that shy girl and possibly glowed instead. After all, as they had learnt when the police had invaded their territory with their questions and their suspicions, the golden boy had been called Midas. If Frida really had gone somewhere with Midas, no doubt she glowed too now. Surely, a girl who now glowed had no need of a sanctuary somewhere like here, where she shouldn't have belonged in the first place? That was what they believed, deep down, underneath all their confusion.

Yet, the set-up stayed as it was. Although questions were asked and evasively answered, although over the years the décor changed and evolved, the framed note was never taken down. The coat was never thrown away or given away to someone who would have used it. The table and chairs were not disposed of or upholstered or moved away, and they were certainly never filled. The Cacophony continued as it was, a maelstrom of noise with an unusually tranquil centre. Though the hope was that it would never be needed, the space continued to exist, waiting and waiting.

Waiting for the day it might be needed again.