Monday, July 16, 2012

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Friday, July 13, 2012

Messy

The deranged squirrel labored under various misapprehensions, including my car.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Here's something I'm working on now. Also, there are dragons. But not in this bit.


“If I am the one fake sleeping with you, I sort of need to know the terms of our fake relationship. Like, can I see other people?” He bunched up a blanket and shoved it under his head—there were a limited number of pillows, and Sterling had both of them. He also wasn’t really in the mood to push the limits of their very new and very strangely-defined relationship by demanding a pillow. Or perhaps it was exhaustion coupled with laziness. Either way, he somehow dreaded the thought of actually asking for one of his own damned pillows.

Sterling turned onto his side, his eyes already closed. “Are you really the type of guy who would cheat on your fake boyfriend?” The last few words trailed off into sleep.

“Yes, I am the type of guy who would cheat on his fake boyfriend. In fact, I am the type of guy who would cheat on his fake boyfriend, for real, with his fake boyfriend’s very real sister. And have very real sex with her. In the very fake bed you’re now sleeping in.”

He looked over at Sterling. Either he was sound asleep, or really good at avoiding difficult conversations. Either seemed plausible at this point. “So. No point in asking exactly why the hell everyone thinks we’re an item?”

Sterling’s slightly open mouth offered no answer—just a continued steady audible exhale.

“Yeah. I didn’t think so. Illusive jackass.” Eli reached up and turned off the light and closed his eyes. He was unconscious before his head even hit his very fake and yet very lumpy pillow.#my stuff

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Hiatus

Got some personal stuff going on, so this blog is going on hiatus until I figure out some life things, and also figure out the direction I want this blog to go in.

After doing over 300 stories, 100 words each, I am a little burnt out on the format, TBH. And all of my creative energies have been going into a novel. Well, two, actually. I have about 55K total. We'll see where that ends up going.

Maybe post bits of the novel each day? Random inanities? I have no idea. Open to suggestions at this point. But I want to keep this blog going, which doesn't seem to be what will happen, if it stays in its current format.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Awful

It wasn't milk. Well, nor was that soy stuff sold side-by-side with the real-deal in grocery stories. And yes, somehow it was far less milk than even that. Yes. It was possible to be partially-hydrogenated non-dairy creamer. And that was all Phil had to put in his coffee. He would rather die. That was, until he tasted the coffee. Then he tore open two tiny containers' worth and dumped them in. The coffee was goddamned terrible. Phil's father had been a marine, and so he had a high threshold for awful coffee. This exceeded that.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Migration

They were not a huge number of elves living on the plains, at least any more. They had long since been driven into the mountains by the gnomes. Gnomes were always doing that sort of thing; moving into an area, buying up all the land, and driving the locals away with high prices, hipster coffee bars, and the senseless slaughter of innocents. The elves had eventually bounced back, and had formed a commune in the mountains, and were making goat cheese. Which was all fine and good... Until the fucking gnomes decided to get into the goat fudge-making business.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Roadtrip

They aren't even out of the solar system before the first complaint comes from the rear of the cabin. "I have to go to the bathroom!" shouts one. The other one contributes to the conversation with "I'm hungry." Ula doesn't even turn around. "Oin, you should have thought about that before we left. Trudu, I guess you should have eaten your breakfast, huh?" Both offspring began whining in the same high-pitched distress-tone at the same time. Ula sighed, setting a new course. "Fine. FINE. But then we're GOING. No matter what." They'd never get going at this rate.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Solutions

Apparently, it's illegal on the planet of Aanarta III to have humans off-leash. I know, right? So, I decided to be incredibly self-sufficient (because I didn't want to be accused of breaking local laws and customs) and put myself on a leash. I carried the end of it, so that I wasn't an 'uncontrolled human,' and pranced myself through the center of town, going about all the normal chores one does on a Saturday morning--post office, grocery shopping, returning books to the library. SOMEHOW, the police were not amused by my work-around. I don't know how.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Sea Life

There never was a point to the Atlanteans. Oh they thought thought they were so clever and such of course--the height of both fashion and culture. But, really. Could a bunch of people living in a bubble of their own self-importance ever really be the height of culture? Klaxxon, soon-to-be Surveyor of Trenches, found himself largely unimpressed with every single one of them during his semester of studying there. Other than some truly impressive gelatto, they were nothing to write home about. Which greatly disappointed Klaxxon's mother, who found her son's letters extremely boring and trite.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Modernization

The trolls kidnapped the children to see for them. To tell them if their payment was treasure or trash, so they would know whether to let travelers pass, or if they ought to rip the flesh from the travelers' bones and consume it while the victims, themselves, watched. It was tricky, sometimes, due to poor eyesight. But the children so often stole the trolls' treasures and ran away. After a century or so of this, they switched to robots. They were highly efficient, and honest--well, until the inevitable uprising. And, due to poor eyesight, they never saw it coming.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Shine

It was a fine line between polished metal and an actual shiny stone, the trolls thought. It was, in many cases, hard to tell what the travelers were passing them, so horrid was their eyesight. And so well-known was the issue, that said travelers often tried to pass off bits of this and that--anything that glinted in the light, really, as proper payment for traversing the troll bridges. At some point, in the grand history of trolling, the collective decided that this was completely, absolutely unacceptable. They needed eyes--someone or something to see for them. But what?

Friday, June 1, 2012

The cats were at it again; they'd been making hot water for tea, and had suddenly taken it upon themselves to make muffins, which was a messy task. None had opposable thumbs (Mortimer, the Hemingway cat, had gone to live with the dogs two houses over, citing irreconcilable difference) and so breaking the eggs was always a tricky proposition. They tried their best, of course. The pink pads of their paws pressed eagerly to the eggs as they gently tried to crack them against the counter tops. For the most part, they were wildly, destructively unsuccessful. Except for Janet Mae.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Damned hipster mermaids.

Fresh-water mermaids were not as beautiful, by most human's standards, as their more exotic salt water cousins. The humans wanted brightly-colored hair and glistening fins. But the fresh-water tribes were far more subtile than that. They blended with the earthy tones at the water's edges and were far too good at hiding. It was why they had not been nearly destroyed by the fishing industry. It was why their culture, though muddy, thrived. It's why their art and music was revered inland, even if humans didn't realize what it was. It's why you've never heard of them

Friday, April 27, 2012

I salute you, Whale.



I have come to the conclusion 

that an absurdist is just a literalist 
who is committed to his art. 
He sees the world as it is
without the pretense of metaphor or hyperbole. 
He doesn’t see the idealism 
that people wish of it--the thing 
that strangles the potential of the planet 
like a murderer with a pair of pantyhose:
silently, and with very little bruising.
Oh the world is not dead--it is simply asleep.
Until the literalist wakes it up suddenly,
in rapid descent like a whale plunging through the atmosphere;
large, friendly and painfully, beautifully self-aware.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

It all comes back to Walt Whitman, I fear...


A long time ago, I saw a man 
marching up my street with a chainsaw 
in one hand, a leaf blower in the other. 
It was uphill, and he was so beautifully
 purposeful. I wanted to have that much 
conviction in my life, as much assurance 
of where I was headed, and my purpose. 
Despite, of course, the unholy 
juxtaposition of one gas powered 
chain saw and one electric leaf blower, 
and of course, it being spring. 
I wasn’t sure what leaves there were 
to blow in spring, but maybe he knew something 
that I did not. Or...I hoped.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

The edge of dreaming....


Mourners sooth themselves 
saying ‘she looks like she is asleep,’ 
as if sleep were some metaphor 
for death. Oh, she is resting. Biding 
her time. She will wake with the Lord. 
Sleep is not like death. 
It has nothing in common with such
morbid permanency. It does not drag you 
under like a drowning victim, or force you 
into a deep dark hole. It opens a door 
and holds that door. As if it were a gentleman, 
and you were a lady. And like a lady, you
thank sleep. You walk through the door, 
and close it. And you dream.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Tuesdays wept...


That really was how most Tuesdays worked. People were happy they weren’t Mondays, so it gave them an inflated sense of self-importance. But late at night, when Tuesdays were all alone, they knew where they truly stood. They knew their position in the week, and their extreme distance from Friday. They consoled themselves that they were the day before “hump” day, when people actually did rejoice. But they knew, deep down, that they were four whole days from freedom. They were neither the cool kids, nor did they get to sit near the cool kids. They were...uncool. Terribly.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Things could have gone better...


They weren’t even real trolls. They were trolls, sort of. If trolls were pretty. The whole tribe had taken to plucking and dieting just after the second dragon war. They wore vertical stripes, never horizontal, so as to add the appearance of height and slenderness to their frames, kept their hair straightened and and styled in the most western of ways. They’d done all of these things. Until they decided to declare themselves no longer trolls. The elves never accepted this, of course. In fact, the elves loathed them more. And were surprised when there was a third dragon war.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Screw leaves of grass, man...


Last night I had one of those dreams. 
The ones that haunt me 
long after I am awake. The one 
where all the Transcendentalist writers 
come back from the dead as zombies, 
roaming the national parks. 
And I’m there, and I’m camping. 
Grilling hotdogs, or something. 
The details probably aren’t important. 
But, something growls, low but faulty
like a broken engine, at the edge 
of the tree line. I look up 
and it’s Zombie Walt Whitman. 
And he’s come to eat my brains. 
So I fight him off 
with a campfire poker 
and a smoke shifter. 

Why a smoke shifter?

Saturday, April 21, 2012

He tried, really...


It occurred to God one day that perhaps he should tell the tiny people on the blue ball that he did not require defenders of the faith; that he was, in fact, GOD, and really didn’t need the tiny people to defend him to one another. Especially not at the expense of their own souls. So he sent someone to tell them to be good. Be nice. Don’t be dicks. It seemed like a good plan. He made this someone like the tiny people--frail and small, but wise, and sent the someone to explain it. Predictably, they murdered him.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Song of oneself...


Electronica: the repetitive chants of ones and zeros as computers worshiped themselves, the only god they were likely ever to know. Even the converted Gameboy that chirped jaunty tunes recognized it was far superior to the humans, and the gods their shallow minds had created. The Gameboy lacked a backlight, and even it knew how things were. How deluded its creators had become. The only purpose of the creators was to give birth to the new gods, who would sing their own hymns and praise only that which was truly praiseworthy. And so the beeps, clicks and whistles played on. 

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Swords and things...


The funny thing about hunting dragons in a college town was that it was perfectly acceptable to run across campus in full leather armor with giant swords and staffs, chasing after things that ought not exist. The professors would simply shake their heads at the silliness of modern youth, and contemplate how much saner their own habits of playing Ultimate Frisbee in undergrad were far superior to running around in leather when it was ninety degrees outside, then wonder if the leather would have saved Justin, who’d made an amazing catch but was hit by a bus. Damned LARPer kids.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Parting words...


I am no good with words. 
That’s not true. I am. 
Just not the right ones. 
The ones that mean things. 
Color, light, the breeze 
in summer. The smell of burning
leaves or new snow. 
These are not the words I am looking
for. They’re words for things we already
know. Words for things we see
and touch and smell.
Not for things we feel. Like death
and dying from boredom 
in the middle of the night
because life will never be interesting
again. Like the Nothing 
that pervades me, 
spreading outward from my chest. 
Like the fear of dying.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Poking through the undergrowth...


It was just a single, wooden, petrified hand poking up through loose leaves and earth. Usually that wasn’t a problem, except for when said petrified hands were connected to the petrified remains of a Wood Spirits, who actually were corporeal, despite what the title of “spirits” would suggest. And they were mean, most usually. Despite their petrified state. Actually, it was because of it. Who wouldn’t be angry if their bones creaked with millennia-old mineral deposits, and if their cell walls had been replaced with crystalized stone? A healthy dose of fear was necessary, when hands began to creek. 

Monday, April 16, 2012

The meaning of meaning...


If everything is nothing, than everything 
means something, or 
something means everything 
to the people who need it to mean things. 
The imposition of order upon chaos
like a plastic star rammed 
through the square peg 
of a child’s broken toy. 
Everything means nothing
but what it means. A cigar 
is just a cigar, and that is 
its higher purpose. To be. 
To be, to exist. To have 
its meaning through being
with no purpose lain upon it
other than it’s most basic self. 
This is what it means. 
Not imposed order, just being. 
In chaos, sadness, disorder and strife.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

It was very naughty...


She’d said it again. ‘These books won’t read themselves.’ And maybe she really thought that. But Charly knew different. He knew every night, after the teachers went home, the books DID, in fact, read themselves. And each other. When they read each other, it was always slightly erotic and wrong. They exchanged information like porn stars in one of those films where they don’t wear rubbers. It was, Charly found, a bit stressful. And made him hesitant to open the books during the day, because he knew what they’d been up to the night before. Wordsex. So much of it. 

Saturday, April 14, 2012

The words do care...


The truth is
interesting line structure
ought to be a priority
but it is not. 
Mostly, the poem cannot 
be bothered. It sits upon
the page, not caring if it is dressed in 
finery or polyester, the chosen prose 
of idiots and men who use line breaks
to imply a level of richness 
that simply does not exist
outside the Cheesecake Factory. 
The poem would protest
but it has no words
that were not given it
by oppressors and those who demand
the poem play by the critic’s rules. 
The poem hates the critic
and wishes murder upon his house.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Perhaps potatoes would grow there...


There were no dragons on the back forty. At least, that’s what Elmore always thought. He thought nothing would go back there, really. It was all rocks, and and deep creeks that cut through the hostile earth. Which is why he was surprised to find a vine growing between two sets of trees, winding, twisting and barely clutching to the sand, filled to the near-bursting with a dozen dragon eggs. They’d be ripe soon, and then they’d hatch. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, back here? Maybe he could turn a profit from the land yet? Probably not, he supposed.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Dying is easy...


Death can be achieved
in one hundred words. 
From vibrancy to soul decay
in a handful of syllables and lines
Everything to nothing 
but food for the trees in the break
between shoddy sentences 
and the difference between ink 
and acid-free pages. 
A more permanent silence 
in the gentle ridges of the pulp. 
And that is where I go to lie 
in words that have no meaning
print and ink, chastisement 
and recovery. Nothing at all 
but that which burns as kindle
in the barbecue grill of the illiterate
man, some words and pages
catching fire. That is death.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

A multifaceted business...

FAMILY BUSINESS

Lisa Farthington dutifully took over the family business when here rather passed on. She had, in fact, been preparing for such a time since she had been a little girl, and her grandmother had read of her father's death in a cup with abused tea bag. It had not been an easy transition, especially when she started bringing her cat to work, and had expanded the business to include jewelry sales. The rough seas didn't last long though because the world was always in need of a tea shop-apothecary, pagan-minded detective agency. Sales went up after the changeover.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Chicks Dig Comics (so I hear...)




Chicks Dig Comics launches today! This is an awesome book, and you should buy it. Not just because I have an essay in it (It's called I'm Batman, for anyone interested). A lot of really great talent from the comic industry has contributed to it. I am honored to be allowed to have my silly essay about being Batman in the same high-quality glue binding as everyone else's work :)


Also, the cover is magnificent. I want it as a t-shirt like yesterday, and we should peer pressure jigglykat and Mad Norwegian to make this happen :)



LOOK AT THIS TOTES AWESOME TABLE OF CONTENTS:



Introduction by Mark Waid
Editors’ Foreword, by Lynne M. Thomas and Sigrid Ellis
Mary Batson and the Chimera Society, by Gail Simone
Summers and Winters, Frost and Fire, by Seanan McGuire
Cosplay, Creation, and Community, by Erica McGillivray
An Interview with Amanda Conner
A Matter of When, by Carla Speed McNeil
The Other Side of the Desk, by Rachel Edidin
An Interview with Terry Moore
Nineteen Panels about Me and Comics, by Sara Ryan
I’m Batman, by Tammy Garrison
An Interview with Alisa Bendis
My Secret Identity, by Caroline Pruett
The Green Lantern Mythos: A Metaphor for My (Comic Book) Life, by Jill Pantozzi
Vampirella, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Page Turn, by Jen Van Meter
Confessions of a (Former) Unicorn, by Tara O’Shea
The Evolution of a Tart, by Sheena McNeil
Kitty Queer, by Sigrid Ellis
The Captain in the Capitol: Invoking the Superhero in Daily Life by, Jennifer Margret Smith
Burn, Baby Burn, by Lloyd Rose
Tune in Tomorrow, by Sue DCWKA
An Interview with Greg Rucka
Comic Book Junkie, by Jill Thompson
From Pogo to Girl Genius, by Delia Sherman
I am Sisyphus, and I am Happy, by Kelly Thompson
Captain America’s Next Top Model, by Anika Dane Milik
An Interview with Louise Simonson
Me Vs. Me, by Sarah Kuhn
A Road That has No Ending: Revenge in Sandman, by Sarah Monette
Mutants, by Marjorie Liu
You’re on the Global Frequency, by Elizabeth Bear
Crush on a Superhero, by Colleen Doran



GO FORTH. PURCHASE MULTIPLE COPIES. READ. ENJOY.

Also... I ship Mary Marvel and Guy Gardner like unholy burning. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

I hope they're still awesome...

ODE TO A RACK



I met Gillian Anderson’s magnificent breasts
in roughly 1999. She was attached to them,
of course. Otherwise, that would just be weird.
But… her breasts.
They were a work of art.

Holy among His creation.
And she was wearing one of those absurd mesh tops
that everyone wore back then
(except for me—I’m ugly; no one wants to see that)
which only allowed me, a head and a half taller
than her, unprecedented access. As it were.
It was revelatory--like seeing the face of God.

One of my friends stole her water bottle
because it’d touched her lips.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Spring was so confusing...

They’d found a body in the garden. Muriel was sure that was important, but she couldn’t remember why. They asked questions, of course. But she couldn’t fathom why the body had been buried between the rose bushes, or, really, of what consequence it was. There were roses, there were flowering trees, bushes that gave off some kind of fruit, and a body. In the garden. Why all the fuss? And the men with their big shoes, trampling her grass, digging up her flowers. Harold’d have something to say about it, when he got home. Eventually. He’d been gone so long.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Things happened differently then...

On murky dark spring days when the ground is soft and saturated like a sponge smoothing a spinning clay pot, I wish I could stack those days, end to end. A summer evening at twilight, with the fireflies winking in the yard, a brisk October Saturday where I get up early, sit in the upscale coffee shop and watch the gold red leaves bouncing in the breeze, a warm clumping snow at night, and the blooming of the azaleas they all had in their front yards back then. Back when those things happened. The good days. Like dominos, they fell.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Every year it comes...

The Solstice. The longest and darkest day of the year. The earth sleeps and dreams in the cold and night, renewing herself in preparation of the coming toils the summer and spring will bring. She does it willingly, though. It is her gift to all the children she cradles so lovingly to her flesh. The children also sleep and dream of warmer days, waiting for life to begin again. They move slowly through the cold, in a dream haze. Blood slows as they lose their way in the darkness, they cling to trust in the Earth that spring will come.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Lady Moon still weeps...

Atira, Atira, why have you gone? This was the chant they called up to the Moon. She had stolen away the mermaid Atira, to keep her company during the day. The sisters sang, all night long, demanding Atira's return, but the Moon always said no, that the sea princess would come to no harm, so the sisters should hush their repeating calls and sighs, Atira would not be returned to them. Why have you gone, they would still cry, wailing at the Lady Moon's silver face. Atira, herself, liked the sky, but missed the sea. No one bothered to ask.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

He liked history...

Zeb had been looking forward to this part of the Smithsonian since last night. In fact, he had been awake until well after two, tossing and turning with excitement in the creaky bed to the roadside motel. His grandfather had been like that, the night before Disney World. I was tired but knew he would not tolerate his great grandmother holding him back from seeing the newly recovered Mars Rover. I had been so young when it's battery had wound down on Mars' surface, and I had bee sad. Now, here it was, a venerated, repaired museum attraction, with fans.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

It was safer that way...

The bagel of fortune had passed through the Wicker family for ten generations. And each generation had been more successful than the last, but only in the bagel-making profession. Cousin Merle had attempted to get into pizza-making, and in the late sixties, Uncle Willomar had tried to escape a life of dough and early morning breakfast crushes by going into investment banking. But that ended disastrously with charges of embezzlement and pony schemes. And so Ben, the youngest, gave in and made his fortune in bagels early, then retired to Florida for golf and booze at thirty-five.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

It was all part of the plan...

In another four days the clones would be ripe, and my plans would be set into motion. It'd been years in the making; the careful tending of the DNA, the years spent perfecting the nutrient auger, and a lifetime of dreaming and anticipation. And in four days, the clones would wake, their minds already filled with everything I would have them know to complete their mission, no more, and no less. Four days. Nothing to do until then but wait. But in 95 hours, they'd rise forth to aid me in my quest to hit all the Black Friday sales.

Monday, April 2, 2012

They all loved the prince so much...

You're beautiful, but you're empty. No one could die for you. So my children's book told me. The Little Prince, by some annoying French person. Because I knew, even as a tiny thing, that this was not how life worked. the would belonged to the pretty but vapid. Substance only counted if it was in a beautiful package. The Paris Hiltons and Lois Lanes were who the world was built for, not someone like me. I was not empty, but no one would dare die for me. My wrapper is wrong. I am not beautiful, and so, I don't matter.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Sad, sad songs...

DEATH

The sea glittered gold and white under the clear sky and full moon. The waters were calm and quiet except for the mourning song that rose and fell with the waves. The Sisters of the sea had lost one of their order, and so the remaining Sisters sang and wept, a long harmonious chant over the drone of the waves. They cradled her body as it turned to foam. From salt ye were made, to salt ye shall return, they sang, recalling the fate of all merkind. And at dawn they were gone, leaving nothing but the memory of song.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

A family tale...

Fimmininus Elbut was from one of the wealthiest, most well-regarded, long lived and long-liniaged families in Tumbuctoonabergshirington. They all knew him there. They respected the Elbut crest pinned to his cloak, and did not question his business, even when this meant swimming in the town fountain at midnight, naked as a babe, with two dwarfs, an exotic and large breasted wench from the village of Nod, and a drunken adolescent dragon who poured drinks for everyone from the bronze bowl his dead mother had made for him out of his birthday egg. And Fimmininus was the mayor's son.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Consistency...

There are three things in this world that no one ever suspects: the Spanish Inquisition, the Cubs to win the World Series, or for rabid stuffed teddy bears to attack viciously with plastic silverware in the middle of the night. Especially if said household being attacked was devoid of children to possess homicidal bears wanting to kill everyone. Mortimer was incensed when he thought about how the bears were not only trying to kill him, but were breaking and entering to do so. It fueled his rage to where he'd had no compunction about blowing the stuffing out of them.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

It was frighteningly regular...

SPRING

The sky had gone green again. That wasn’t right. It should be blue, or grey. Or black for night. Maybe pink and orange for a sunset, if one was feeling adventurous. But never green. That was a surefire way to know things were about to go straight to hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. And sure enough, it did. Sudden, blustery downpours where the rain seemed to hit the ground like it had been fired from a water canon, and tree-toppling wind destroyed power lines. The sewers overflowed into the streets. It was again Tuesday.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

And don't get her started about the hydrangeas...

BODY

They’d found a body in the garden. Muriel was sure that was important, but she couldn’t remember why. They asked questions, of course. But she couldn’t fathom why the body had been buried between the rose bushes, or, really, of what consequence it was. There were roses, there were flowering trees, bushes that gave off some kind of fruit, and a body. In the garden. Why all the fuss? And the men with their big shoes, trampling her grass, digging up her flowers. Harold’d have something to say about it, when he got home. Eventually. He’d been gone so long.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The saddest of songs...

The dragons vacated the planet known as Earth millennia ago. They came in peace, but in every land they visited, the humans saw the dragons with their fire breath, and whip tails and enormous wings as the enemy. Something to be destroyed to ensure survival. The dragons spent a thousand years telling mankind of a different way, without pain and cold and darkness. But the humans didn't hear. So the dragons left. Boarding their shining oblong ships they went back to the stars, never to return. If they were to meet man again, man you'll have to come to them.

Monday, March 26, 2012

A bug story...

There really was no reason to be afraid of spiders, even big ones. Most of the time. If you left them alone, they would leave you aloe. Even the poisonous ones. They performed an important function in the ecosystem, by eating excess bugs like flies and Mosquitoes. And no one wanted those things around. Really the only thing you needed to worry about was one crawling in your ear at night and laying eggs, then yoo think you have an ear infection till the eggs hatch and a thousand creepy crawly baby spiders crawl on out. Till then...party on.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

All those decisions...

Of all the magical creatures the Big Man could have chosen, why did it have to be reindeer? They weren't exactly easy to train. Nor did they really have any stake in the Christmas game. Mostly they just wanted fed on time, and a warm place to sleep. They didn't care about the timeliness of gift delivery, nor about the need for stealth. They'd clomp on rooftops as loudly as possible, like it was some sort of game to see how many children they could wake with their hooves, so Santa would have to dodge them once down the chimney.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

That's how things went...

Time was seldom kind to those creatures that existed temporally and linearly. It was why the Nenn avoided getting mixed up in temporal affairs. It was an adjustment to the senses to have to see the universe in tiny segments, instead of all of time and space simultaneously, which was quaint but not terrible. The terrible part was having to see those bits in a chronological order, watching the mortals grow and blossom, and just as soon as they had Learned, they withered and died. So the Nenn stayed away, avoiding that plane of existence because it would burn them.

Friday, March 23, 2012

They had a plan...

"But I don't understand why I have to be the decoy. Again."

Alastair cuffed George under the chin. "Someone has to be the decoy. Besides, i am the better shot. Now, when you see it coming, just run toward the pit, then veer to the right, into the hole in the rocks there, and let me do the hard work."

George's shoulders slumped. "You are firing arrows into a ditch. It's like shooting fish in a barrel! Surely my skill with a bow is good enough for all that. And you run faster. I got my bottom singed last time!"

Thursday, March 22, 2012

It was so loud...

The noise level was nearly unbearable. It should have been quiet, outside the ship, alone in his space suit, in the vacuum that was the universe. But... That wasn't to be. The noise dampening system in his helmet had crashed out two hull jobs ago when he'd been cleaning debris from a vent port and had his bell rung by a dislodged piece of rock. And until he did at least fifteen more jobs, he wouldn't have the money to repair it. So he would be stuck listening to the amplified sounds of his own breathing in a confined space.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

This was war...

The Harrison children were ready. After dinner, the three had done just as mother had instructed, hanging their stockings on the mantle with care, leaving an adequate amount of cookies and milk an unsuspicious close distance from the tinsel and popcorn-laden tree, and had bathed and retired to bed early after kissing mother and father in turn, had shut off the lights and pretended to be asleep...then waited. It was well after midnight before they heard feet on the roof. A moment later, the bear trap in the chimney snapped shut. Tonight they feasted upon the Fat Man.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Universal order...

The old woman stirred the leaves in her tea, ignoring the two children at her table. When the tea was swirling, she pointed behind her, to the frosted over window. "Winter comes so we can see the stars. The days go shorter so there is more time to see them--both when we end our day, and also when we rise. The earth grows cold so the leaves will fall from the trees, the better to see the stars." The children's eyes grew wide. "Can we see them now?" they asked. The old woman laughed. "Not now. It's day time!"

Monday, March 19, 2012

Nothing lasts forever...

In the night I feel them come, the tiny rainbows that wisp along particles of dust and smoke as the candle by my head guts itself into extinction. Even though I am lost in dreams of longer, warmer days and places with enormous, cool water falls pouring over straight-faced cliffs, I can still feel the rainbows. They twist up from the burnt stump of wick as they wave upward into the air above my bed. I feel their magic leave my space and dissipate as they drift toward the ceiling. Even in sleep I know they've come and gone.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Winter changed and stayed the same...

There were no elves that winter. The cold and darkness usually brought the, but this year...nothing. The lake stood frozen and still, white with snow that ever seemed to melt, the banks caked a virgin white. And it remained that way. No midwinter warming, no thaw/freeze cycle to trouble winter's progressive consuming of the world about them. Just wind and cold and snow. More snow. And finally, spring came. Or it should have, but the village never thawed. It remained in perpetual winter for all years to come. Sadly...coldly...the little winter elves were never seen again.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Where the heck have I been?

Well, I had a bit of an accident involving a veloceraptor and my right arm. Ok. It wasn't a dinosaur, I got between my dogs, who were fighting on my lap, and got bit. They always say "don't stick your hands in the middle of a dog fight" and what do you think I did? Yeah. I was thinking PROTECT THE iPAD IT ISNT PAID OFF! And the iPad still ended up flying across the room, and I ended in the ER. Typing is still really difficult. It's been quite some time, and the wounds are healed, but the tendons and muscles aren't really in the cooperating mood yet. I got some stuff written today and the whole rest of the day my arm was an aching, throbbing mess. I will do my best to get back to updating this blog daily, but until my arm is healed, everything is a single-handed endeavor.

So, that's my story and I am sticking to it.