Sunrise In Gene's Garden

Gene sat on the porch overlooking his small garden, sipping on a cup of white tea and watched the sunrise illuminate the violets, primroses, and lily-of-the-valleys that were growing together nicely. It was a delicious late-spring morning and little tendrils of mist played along the ground as the sun chased away the remains of the night.

Gene stopped mid-sip as something caught his eye. He put his mug down on the porch railing, and wiped his classes on his nightshirt. There was a little winding brick path through the middle of the garden, and coming up the path, towards him, was a small, orange tabby cat. The cat was wearing a maroon bow tie and a cat-sized top hat. The cat hopped up on the railing of the porch and stared at Gene. Gene stared back.

"Gene," the cat said. "I am here for your soul. Please come with me peacefully or this could get really unpleasant." The cat waited, twitching its tail. Then the cat pushed the half-full mug off the railing. Time slowed and Gene watched the mug tumble over, saw every drop of tea splash and sparkle in the sun, as it fell towards the ground. "Just kidding!' The cat continued. The mug struck the ground, and the ceramic shards skittered across the floor.  "You don't actually have a choice." 

"Who are you?" Gene stammered. 

"Oh, I'm not going to tell you that. All cat names are secret; that's why we don't come when we're called. But don't worry about it; everybody gets a different animal. Some poor saps get a cheetah, or a peregrine falcon, and they don't get to enjoy all this" here the cat made a sweeping gesture with its paw towards the garden, " for very long. I'm not saying cats are slow, mind you, but we're not big on itineraries. Now then, before we go, do you have any last words?"

"I—"

"Just kidding! You can tell me on the way. By the way, my name's Valencia. It means 'she who is valorous', depending who you ask. So good thing you asked me.'" The cat hopped down and trotted down the path. "Now let's get going! We've got lots to do!" Gene rose from his seat, and followed the little orange tabby down the path.

* * *

The mail carrier found Gene that afternoon, slumped in his chair on the porch. The mail carrier took his pulse and, finding none, immediately ran off to get help.

From the grass, watching the mail carrier disappear into the distance, was a snail wearing a maroon bow tie and a tiny top hat. It waggled its eye-stalks in exasperation. "Aw nuts!" It said. "Missed 'em again! I should not have taken an early lunch." The snail sighed, and took one last nibble from a white hawthorn flower. "Ah well; live and learn I guess," it said, and began to slowly crawl after them.

THE END

1st Draft: 10/23/23, completed 2248

Author's Note: Should I save the author's notes for later? I feel like they don't give a person time to sit with a story. Ah, well. This is a blog, after all. I made no promises that there wouldn't be blogging in close proximity to any Shocktober Short Story Flash Fiction Frenzy content. This is another blank page one. You can't tell from here, but there was a solid hour of pure despair between the first two paragraphs and the rest. I had seen this drawing on Instagram of a frog in a top hat riding a snail. I thought it would be funny if that frog and snail suddenly appeared to a guy sitting on his porch. But that's not a story. Not a story at all! What are the rules? Why would a frog be riding a snail towards a guy on a porch? I mean it's kind of unsettling but not inherently frightening. A regular frog jumping on a person is more frightening than a frog slowly coming towards them on the back of a snail. You can get weird with it but get too weird without the proper context to hold it up and fear turns into puzzlement, and that turns into scrolling on to something else. Anyway ultimately I like this one. Yes it's kind  of about the creeping inevitability of our own mortality but mostly it's about sassy talking animals in hats and bow ties, so it balances out. Goodnight, and I love you all. Oh snap I almost forgot the title. Sometimes all I have is a title, and I build out from there. But these writing desk/blank page stories are just me sitting down and seeing what sticks. At least they have been so far. On my phone, where I have been writing most of the previous stories, the drafts are organized differently because it's on the Blogger app. On the desktop site, they are all mixed together. Different environment produces different stories? Not exactly, but the finding the momentum is different, the sorting through the ideas is different, and the ability to build is different. Overall I much prefer typing than swiping a touchscreen. Different spelling errors, and less outright wrong autocorrect word choices. Here, my mistakes...are my own!

Oh right, a title. Gene's Garden? Sunrise In Gene's Garden? Why did I name him Gene? There was a reason. Most of my names are a reference to something. Oh that's right, that's Norm MacDonald's middle name and I was watching his stand-up while I was trying to think of what to write about. He died, you know. I bet his animal was a youthful porpoise. Kind of flopping after him and making that eeh-eeh-eeh chittering noise. What? Don't underline chittering in red, spellcheck software. That's a legit word!

Oh right, a title. Um...the tea is white tea because it's something to do with spring and renewal, I think, but I can't find where I thought I read that. Okay, good enough.