The creeking is part of the charm...

ECCENTRICITY

The trolley car creaked down the street, the walls shifting slightly at each bend in the track, like the cars on an old, dried-out wooden coaster. There were years of paint covering the rivets holding the metal together and sometimes, in the summer, when the car turned into an oven, the latex would bubble, giving bored children something to pick at as the car wound along busy streets and seep residential hills as the conductor called out stops and women with too many packages yanked the cord that rang the bell. They’d step off and that old girl would sigh.

Careful how you trod...

SILENCE

They say that in space, no one can hear you scream. Which is technically true. The lack of air DOES actually preclude the transmission of sound. However, when the body realizes that it's in the vacuum of space, and implosion is imminent (and keep in mind, this all happens in less than the blink of an eye) the mind screams and the soul releases a howl that the higher beings find deafening. Therefore, the interdimensional beings of the universe respectfully request that you double-check all life support equipment for faults prior to all space walks. Thank you for your cooperation.

Only a momentary glitch...

RESTART

The universe ended for the fifth time that day. No, the world had not ended five times in one day alone, that’d be silly. But it ended for the fifth time, in total, on that sunny afternoon with the muddy sounds of the marching band emanating through the cracked windows of the music hall. Somewhere in the distance, a hawk snatched up a squealing rodent, a frog croaked, and the universe ceased to be for about twenty-four seconds. After a reboot, and a complete backup from storage, thing proceeded on as usual, including the third trombone being out of tune.

The universe was full of complexities...

UNIFORM CODE OF PIE

The Universal Law of Pie states that not all cultures possess a food substance similar to that which is known in English-speaking Earth culture as “pie,” but that all worlds which have carbon-based, land-dwelling life forms contain at least one culture that makes such substances for nourishment or festive purposes. There are also twelve deep-water, space or sky cultures that make round pastries containing fruity or meaty filling, but six of those do so solely for mating purposes. Students must understand at least fifty-seven pie-related rituals before applying for an exchange program on any non-Earth planet. Students, KNOW YOUR PIE!

Cats loved early spring...

DELICIOUS

It was the end of winter, which meant the fairies would wake after the Big Thaw, when the ground unfroze for the summer. They’d yawn and stumble out of their dens, stretching and rubbing their tiny fairy eye as they set about seeing all the work that would need to be done on their part, to bring spring fully into bloom. Elmer enjoyed this time of year most of all. No, he didn’t like the wet paws, or the chill and dampness that clung to his fur. But half-awake fairies were delicious, especially when they stumbled directly into his mouth.

Ponies could only be better if you could snort them...

CURRENCY

Ever since Mars got satellite television that included a package of channels that had the cartoons the Martians so desperately craved, there’d been a run on ponies. No, aliens were not coming to Earth and abducting baby horses. Well, sorta. The little green men would sneak off to Earth in cloaked ships once or twice a month and would huff it to those big box stores that were damned near everywhere and seemed to sell everything in the world, and would clear out the My Little Pony section. They were practically gold on the black market back home.

A discussion, mind to mind...

All-knowing kitten is all-knowing...

Those silly things...

ELEPHANTS

Esau loved his toy elephant. His mother had fashioned it for him from a split coconut, a length of hose, and various other bits and bobs from around the house. It went with him everywhere, to pre-school, to the park, even to his therapist, who thought it was a dapper elephant, and told Esau this often when they discussed his day, and his feelings, and his alien abduction. This is why Esau was alarmed, and startled, and mad when, on a class trip to the zoo, his toy elephant escaped into the elephant pen to live with his own kind.

Monotony was so...monotonal...

NEW KID

He couldn’t say he liked her, exactly. But she was new, and therefore a novelty item. Like when the Circle K had caramel Drumsticks in addition to the plain old vanilla ones. And the girls at this school were definitely vanilla. Same girls, same bags of issues since grade school. This was a new girl, with a new bag of issues. New issues were far more interesting and shiny and new than the same old stuff Brittany and Jemma and Wren were pushing. Issues that included, but were not limited to: knocking things over, setting people on fire, and cheating.