Short Stories - Eyes of the Moon

(A stab at ancient, poetic prose) 

     Thick the scent of baked green things rises heavy from the earth. Light hangs low and dusky over the fields, warming the bows of trees and brushing the grasses in painted gold. But the hour grows late, and the glory is fading.

     Low the light falls, softer grow the shadows, ‘till all is grey with dusk.

Prompt Writing - The Harp

 

     The kits rampaged through the room, bouncing off the walls and ceiling, tallons taking chunks out of anything softer than stone. The bard made a mental note to thank the man who had removed all the furniture. The broods' mother was turning flustered circles in the middle of the room, snarling and barking at the pack with little effect. She was putting dents in the stone and looked ready to put the whole place up in flames if it would only get the young ones' attention. She kept looking at the bard with an exasperated expression he didn't understand. It was making him uncomfortable.

Short Stories - Warbird

The old war bird was quite ready for retirement by the time it went down.  It had almost considered going down on purpose already, but it cared too much for its crew for that.  They had taken care of him for a long time after all—custom paint jobs, constant tune up, even came up with a team logo to slap on his side.  Dropping out of the air on a whim seemed like a rude way to go after all of that. So he had held out, waiting for the day when something would inevitably go wrong and he would be scrapped.  Only then would he start his long anticipated retirement—hopefully as a household refrigerator. He had heard good things about household refrigerators.

As it turned out, though, things didn't go that way.  His career ended quite suddenly one night somewhere off the coast of Australia.

Terrible turbulence, rain, then a pop from the engines—down he went into the water and that had been that. He wasn't sure what had happened to his masters, swam away hopefully, and there he was left to get along as best as he may.

Now there are fish in the cargo bay—live ones, not rations—and crabs living under the seats.  Every day at three o'clock sharp an octopus turns nobs on the dashboard because it can, and fluorescent snails crawl over his cracked batteries because it makes them feel jittery.  It turned out to be quite a fair place for an old war bird to retire. The perfect place to rust in peace.

Maybe even better than being a refrigerator.

Short Stories- Adventures in Nightwatching

Nora awoke in a black closet, her foot in a mop bucket and the bristles of a broom digging into her back.

The first thought to cross her mind was: 'you have got to be kidding me'. The second: 'I don't think that bucket is all the way empty.'

She squirmed in the confined space, trying to get her sodden boot out of the bucket. All she managed to do, though, was dump its contains all over the floor and knock the corresponding mop on top of herself.  She gave up on that and fumbled for the handle of the door instead, only to find it was locked from the outside.

Brilliant.

Short Story- A Freindly Gesture

                                                                                             

      Caddlin tossed another handful of spices into the simmering cauldron and gave it a stir with her ridiculously oversized spoon. Savory steam flooded the kitchen, it smelled good. Caddlin scooped a bit of soup up and attempted to taste it, and nearly dropped the utensil into the fireplace as the liquid scalded her mouth. She tried again, this time blowing carefully on the contents of the spoon before sampling it. She rolled the soup around in her mouth, trying to figure out what it tasted like, which wasn't easy due to her singed taste buds. She finally decided that it was good enough, left the cauldron to its own devices, and turned her attention to other things, namely the potatoes.

      They were dancing in a pot on top of the ancient three burner stove which inhabited the other side of the kitchen. Caddlin picked a roasting fork up off the counter, set down the spoon, and stabbed a few of the merry chunks. They split, but just barely.

      "A few more minutes on those as well," she thought, then ran her eyes over her small workspace, looking for another way to employ herself. Then jumped as an eggplant shaped timer went off next to the spoon.