Good Habits

For the most part, trying to master any skill starts with carving out time to practice. On top of that, it's about finding slivers of opportunity in which to practice even more. 

Waiting in line at the grocery store? Discreetly check for security cameras. Most big stores have them everywhere, but what you want to do is learn to spot them without looking like you're trying to find them. 

If you're waiting for the barista to call your name for your coffee, scan the other customers as they go up ahead of you. You're looking for any obvious weak points. A limp. A cast on an arm or a wrist. Hearing aids or glasses with the thick, convex lenses that indicate farsightedness. A lot of people hold their car keys while they wait so you can get an idea of the make of their vehicle. With practice, you may even learn to tell what model. Again, discretion is key. Don't try to look like you're not looking. It's normal for people to look up at a loud noise, sudden movement, or someone shouting a name. Glance over like a normal human being, than return to what you were doing. Hold that image in your mind, that snapshot, and run your scan. 

And don't ever pretend to do something else while you look at the person. If you ever see someone looking at you while they're simultaneously doing something else, they're either a cop or a serial killer. Best to just pretend you didn't notice them surveiling you and proceed as normal until you can get out of their line of sight. Corners are good. Get around the corner, and then walk briskly, like you're an important person and you're late for a meeting. Do not run. Running is suspicious. Do not look back to see how close a pursuer might be. If they catch you, you'll know. 

Nowadays, it's suspicious to not have a cell phone, so bring a phone that isn't activated anymore, (maybe purchased with cash at a pawn shop) and fiddle with that while you hunt. 

Don't bring your actual phone; it will ping your location when it connects to cell phone towers. If the police try to connect you to the last known location of the trophy, that's the first thing they'll check. It'll show you were home, and if they're typicals, they'll just move on to the next suspect. Might be tricky if somebody calls or texts during that time and you didn't respond. But it's probably fine. Nobody ever calls you anyway. 

Fortune favors the prepared, and good luck is the residue of good planning. Remember, wherever there are people, there is the potential to be practicing. 

Happy Hunting. 

THE END

little curses

Welcome to my magic shop! Now, I imagine that like every new customer, you would like to jump right to the big stuff, and want to look at the spells that will summon tornadoes of living flame, pull the moon down from the sky, or sink entire continents into the sea.  

There is rarely a practical reason to do any of those things, and even if there were, I've met very few who could actually afford it. 

I would direct you, instead, to our fine selection of curses. Surely there is someone who has wronged you and who, while perhaps not deserving of death, needs a little less happiness in their life. 

Allow me to show you a few of them, to give you a general idea. Yes, they all have "official" names, but they're stupid and only hint at what they do. I prefer to list the descriptions.

Every sound they hear will be either too loud or too quiet, whichever is most inconvenient.

Every shower or bath feels freezing. (If it's hot enough to burn them, they will feel that so they can avoid injury; we're not monsters.)

Their breath will smell like a rotting yak, but only to themselves. They will always smell it when they open their mouth, and other people won't notice at all but they will feel like there's no way they don't and think they're just too nice to say that they reek.

Every stoplight they approach will be red. 

Whenever they are out alone at night, they will see an ominous moose in the distance, heading slowly in their direction. 

Their shoes will be always feel too big. 

Oh, and here's one of the cruelest ones, in my opinion:

All animals will dislike them, even their own pets. 

We can also customize them! One devilish girl was in yesterday and who wanted a curse that would make someone's boss be an incessant micro-manager, while ensuring the boss would never actually understand the tasks themselves. That was a tricky one, and it will only work while the person is under that specific boss, but honestly it is deliciously fiendish and I'm rather ashamed we didn't think of it ourselves. 

Now, what can I get you? 

THE END

The Fishing Hamlet

He was the only one left in his tiny fishing village that was still human. He had been away, over at one of the much larger, more prosperous towns scattered across the countryside, attempting to sell his meager catch of some herring and a few small cod, and by the time he returned home the next day, at dawn, everyone in the tiny fishing village had disappeared. 

The dozen little homes built around the small inlet were still, lifeless. The shutters were all fastened. The fishing boats were still tied to the docks, and despite the light dusting of snow on the ground, no smoke rose from any the chimneys. 

He had entered his home in a daze. His wife and child were gone. There were no signs of violence. 

He had checked the rest of the houses. All the same. Nothing out of place. It's as if everyone had just walked into the ocean. 

He had fallen asleep that night, somehow. When he awoke, there was a piece of paper on his chest. It read: "Sell the fish. Return with the money." It was in his wife's handwriting. 

He stepped outside and his horse was waiting there, hitched to the wagon. In the back of the wagon was a large crate. He looked inside, and there, packed in snow, was a massive bluefin tuna. 

Not knowing what else to do, he did as he was instructed, and went to nearest town. 

That single fish sold for more than he usually made in a year. He brought all the money back, and left it on the kitchen table. 

And so it went. Every morning, he would awaken to find valuable and exotic fish packed neatly in his wagon, and he would sell them and return with the money. Every night, he was coming back with wealth beyond his wildest dreams, but he only felt the numb confusion and terror one feels only in nightmares. 

The notes, still in his wife's handwriting, would occasionally instruct other things.

He purchased land, and over time, built a grand estate on it. The agents who came to update him on the progress were baffled by this rough, sullen man in simple clothes who lived in a weathered cottage being the one in charge of and financing such a grand project. 

He had tried to leave, once. He had awoken at dawn, and ridden his horse until it collapsed from exhaustion, and then he ran and ran until his legs gave out. He fell asleep under a little copse of trees. 

When he awoke, he was back in the fishing hsmlet, in his own bed, There was another note. It read: "No."

Last I heard, the man was still working to maintain and expand that incredible mansion that he'll never actually see. And that's just one of the ways vampires make their money. Perhaps you're working for one, too. There may be no way to know for sure, anymore. You could try running away, if there's still anywhere left to run to. 

The End

Note: I was literally falling asleep at the end at I threw on this ending so that I would be furious enough to change it later. It was either this ending or "it was all a dream" but even I'm not that cruel. 

the pig men were becoming a real problem

The hybrids had escaped from the lab and were eating all the crops and generally wreaking havoc. They were only 33.3 percent human, to get around the 29th Amendment to the US Constitution, that had decreed a minimum threshold of 40 percent DNA of human origin was enough to grant human rights. (And yes, we know how genes work and that we share DNA with many creatures, all living things are made up of the same basic building blocks, but this specifically refers to the source, not just the sequence.). 

They were more like pig centaurs, I guess, but without a clear delineation between the pig part and the human part. Imagine a regular pig; now stretch out just the neck, up and out like a horse's, but about twice as long. More like a llama. Then give it the oval shape of a human head, but much larger, with small, deep-set eyes, a pig snout, triangular ears, and bristles poking out all over. Many of the males will grow tusks. 

And right underneath the head, jutting out from under the chin, are a pair of small arms and hands. They look like someone stuck the arms of a five-year-old kid on them as a joke. They have five fingers, but no fingernails. 

It's the most unsettling thing about them. They are mostly active at night, but sometimes during the day you can see them resting under a shade tree, eyes closed, with those little arms folded underneath. 

Or the way they drink water by dipping their whole heads just above the surface of the river or pond and the little hands will scoop up the water and they'll slurp it up. 

Once, as I stood on my porch with the sun setting behind me, I saw one shading its eyes with its hands as it crept up to the edge of my vegetable garden. 

It's hard to keep them out. With those damn hands, they can open gates and latches. Even doorknobs. 

Someone really outta do something about those pig-men.

the end? 

Not really because this was/is a draft, one of many where I start jotting stuff down, and it's not even what I would call a story because nothing happens. Describing odd stuff is not a story. There are threads there, at least. There are definitely lots of opportunities for creepy hand things. Picking their teeth. Digging. Greeting each other by touching each other's faces. Or maybe face-holding. Pigs are omnivores and will eat any meat they can get so it seems natural that eventually these pig-men will try to eat someone. We'll see. 

Need Nothing

He was trying to get to bed early tonight. He'd felt off all week, and knew that it usually meant he hadn't been getting enough sleep. He wasn't tired yet, so he put on some instrumental music and stared at the wall. Off-white, knockdown-textured drywall. He would imagine shapes in the ridges and plateaus of the paint. A skyscraper. The head of a horse. A clawed hand reaching down. 

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Except... He could still see the wall. He opened and closed his eyes again. Still, the wall was there. He pressed his fingertips against his closed eyelids. 

He was wondering if he was dreaming when the clawed hand he has seen in the texture of the paint began peeling itself away from the wall towards him. 

Towards his face. Towards his eyes. 

He froze in terror. 

A searing pain, and then he saw nothing. 

The End

Author's Note: This was going to be about the mental strain of not being able to close your eyes and enjoy peaceful darkness once in a while but I quickly realized that being able to see clearly at all times is kind of a superpower and would become a whole thing and I didn't want to deal with the logistics of that right now. Goodnight!

*Note to self: it's twenty minutes later but why you don't you have him only see the image of the last thing he saw clearly? That could work. 

A Time Machine

You can travel to the past, if you really want to, but no one is there anymore. It's just an empty shell, a scaffolding holding nothing up anymore. In a past life, we met for the last time and hugged until we cried. I went back, once, and saw the tear drops on the ground and our footprints in the dust. 

You can go forward, too, but nobody is there yet. You can see amazing new places, cities and mountains and towns and architecture that means nothing to you, nothing to anyone, not yet. 

If I were trying to warn you against it, I would say "Time is like a river, and you can only step into a moment once" or something quasi-profound like that. 

But I'm not going to stop you. You've already gone, and I've already gone, but we didn't go at the same time. And we missed each other again. 

And I can go as many times as I like, for as long as I like, just hoping. But time moves on without us, unwavering, resolute. It will take longer and longer to get back to the present. Until one day, when you just won't make it. 

This isn't a warning. You've already done it. You already know this. 

Because you're the one who told me this. I read the message you left, written in the dust. 

The End

Author's Note: I was thinking about a story about a werewolf but then this happened. Goodnight!

Care To Go Around Again?

Shit. I'm finishing my second glass of Macallan 12 year single malt scotch when I realize that its September 30th. Nothing special about today, except that it usually means tomorrow is October 1st. That's the day I have a problem with. 

Exactly a dozen Octobers ago, I got a doppelganger. A double, almost an exact duplicate. I don't know how it happened. I was torn, I guess, wanting to be in two places at once. Then, I was. Staring directly at myself, like looking into a mirror. I had attacked him immediately. He had hesitated, I remember, which makes me suspect that even then, we weren't exactly the same. 

Other Me got in a lucky kick to my knee and I fell, and he ran. 

Haven't seen him since. 

But I know that he's still out there. I also know, somehow, that I'm completely safe for eleven months out of the year, but every October, for those 31 days, he gets a chance to destroy me. 

It's been so long now, and I haven't seen him at all. 

I stretch half-heartedly. I've been exercising, mostly. Partly. I'm ready for another physical fight anyway. My knee still bothers me, but I've got a brace for it. 

It's getting late, and I'm drowsy. He wouldn't attack right at midnight. That is, we wouldn't. It's too obvious. Plus, the dogs would bark. The dogs are the reason I don't just put booby traps all over the place. Also because, statistically, your booby traps are more likely to harm you than the actual intruder. Most major accidents happen in the home anyway. 

I hope we get to talk a little before we do battle. I have so many questions. Presumably, we have now had the chance to learn from double the amount of mistakes, so why not share that hard-earned wisdom with whoever wins? 

Whomever wins?

I'll also have to thank him, I suppose. These 13 years have been a lot of things, including a huge pain in my ass, but they haven't been boring. 

And I've got a good feeling about this October. 

The End? 

Well it begins. I'm going to attempt to write something fictional and spooky (or at least autobiographical and horror-adjacent) every day this month. Since I don't do NaNoWriMo. This one isn't that. Spooky, I mean. This isn't really writing; this is merely swirling the water a bit, as they say. 

I don't know, I don't like doppelgangers. We might be friends and I guess clothes shopping would be fun because we could share a closet. Still, imagine the pointless arguments. Everyone around us would probably kill us first. 

Goodnight!

Sculpting

The pain crept up from nowhere. It seized his mind like a toothache, a rotten tendril snaking up the synapses already worn raw by regret. He tried to ignore it. The clinking of his point chisel against the marble as he worked seem to stave off the worst of it. 

The sculpture was coming along slowly. The figure inside didn't seem to want to come out this time. He'd caught a glimpse of it, in the marble quarry, beckoning to him, and he had selected the stone. 

Even now, in the clouds of dust that swirled in the evening light, it breathed. 

The pain would get worse, he knew, once the figure was free. But then it might get better. He worked on, in the last of the light. 

THE END FOR NOW 

Someday You Will Find Me

He didn't know if he could reach her, but he went anyway. Astral projection was actually pretty easy; as far as getting out. Getting to where you wanted to be was difficult, and managing to find your way back was even harder.

Very few thaumaturgy students were accepted for training, and it wasn't flattering if you were. It usually meant the student had completed their third cycle of study and had shown no particular aptitude for the more traditional magic systems, or were about to fail out altogether. 

Also, the student was required to be an organ donor, and agree to an advanced directive that if their Anima did not return within 7 days, the body would be euthanized and the components harvested for ingredients. 

If the Anima was out on its own longer than 7 days, on the 8th day it would go supernova. 

Literally. That's what many supernovae are. Not all of them, but a lot. As the Codex Dessicantem states, "It is bad when one thing becomes two." 

There is furious debate among the scholars about how the Earth has so far been spared from these lightyears-wide explosions when as far as anyone knew, humans on Earth were the only ones who could astral project. Granted, Animas were not strictly bound by the limitations of physics, but the nearest supernova recorded was still several galaxies over, never close enough to threaten Earth. Luck, maybe. Still, best not to take any chances, so that euthanasia protocol was developed. 

Too bad he wasn't going to make a sanctioned attempt. He was a promising chronomancer, and the school would not risk his potential. 

He prepared the spell, and went out on his own. His Anima tore away from his corporeal form, and he was away.

He could not describe the feeling, nor what he saw. It was almost entirely unlike swimming through a vibrant coral reef surrounded by brightly-colored fish and looming, counter-shaded predators. But not entirely unlike that.

He searched and searched for her, for six days. He couldn't find her, and he couldn't find the way back to his own body. He despaired, and searched on.

At dawn, on the seventh day, he received a gift. Somehow, like the half-memory of a dream, he knew where she wasn't. Absolute, perfect, knowledge of where she could not be. And he strove to that place with all his might. At dawn, on the eighth day, he arrived, and his last thought was of her.

"A new supernova popped into visibility on May 19 in the Pinwheel Galaxy, (alternately designated as Messier 101, or M101)."

-Bartleby, et al., 2023 'Multidisciplinary Observation and Measurements of Transient Events -Journal of Astronomy and Astrology

THE END

Author's Note: Okay one more since it's the last day of Short Story Sham Writing Month. Goodnight!

The Ghost In The Corridor

There is a little ghost haunting the corridor of my parent's house. It's always been there, as far as I can remember. It's funny now, but it scared me when I first saw it. It wears a sheet, but there is definitely a ghost underneath. It has no feet, but there are partial legs sticking out. 

My parents are Catholic, and so I was I, in the beginning, and my mom said the house had been blessed by a priest so I figured if the blessing wasn't stopping the ghost, then it probably wasn't evil. Probably. 

I'd wake up at night and need to use the bathroom. I was afraid of the dark. I'd climb down from the bunk bed and pad down the corridor. The ghost didn't block my way. The bathroom was halfway down, and the ghost usually hovered at the end, before it opened up into the living room and kitchen. 

Oh yeah, it changes sheets. It takes whatever's clean. When we were all little, this meant it was often in a sheet with cartoon animals, or superheroes, and stars and galaxies. 

In the morning, the sheet would be folded up neatly and placed back in the linen closet. 

I don't understand it all. 

If it wasn't there to scare us, or hurt us, or to help us in some way, why was it there?

Catholicism didn't really have any answers because the teachings on ghosts gets surprisingly muddy. 

And none of the teachings mentioned actual bedsheets. 

I'm not religious anymore, and I don't hold any beliefs about gods and devils fighting for the souls of humans, but if I were pressed, I'd have to admit I believe in at least one little ghost, wearing in a bedsheet, floating in a corridor of my mom and dad's house. 

THE END

Static Underneath

He saw the static below everything. Black and white pixels flashing underneath the world. Old cathode ray tube televisions, when tuned to a channel with no signal, would show a screen of black and white "snow." A two-toned kaleidoscope. He saw this, when he closed his eyes, and when his eyes were open. 

His vision was fine; his yearly visits to the optometrist confirmed that yes, he was a little nearsighted but otherwise fine. 

He worried that everything he was seeing wasn't real; that the static was the real world and all the bright and beautiful colors and shapes he saw were being projected onto the static, an overlay. If it was a projection, what was projecting it? And if it wasn't real, what was it?

His health insurance only covered doctors, not philosophers. 

And yet, otherwise, his life was normal. Boring, even. He felt he should let it go. Stop thinking about it entirely. Pretend it wasn't there.

One night, he found himself holding a paring knife to his eye and wondering what would he would see without them. 

He had put the knife down. If he did remove his eyes, he might see what was really there, behind the world. Or the static might be the only thing left, and his world would remain only those black and white pixels, a backdrop forever. 

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Did I never publish this one? I guess not. Says I wrote it on November 24th. I must have left it in the drafts because it doesn't go anywhere. Sure, there's a lot more leeway in short stories because if you don't waste too much of a reader's time they don't get too upset, generally. Maybe it was too depressing? The danger of what I'm doing mixing fiction in with a journal of my day-to-day life is that there's the risk that people might conflate the two. 

Which is why I'm hesitant to mention that I do see static. It's not bright static, and it doesn't interfere with my vision. I think everyone sees it, right? What do you see when you close your eyes? 

The Turkey Of Terror

Turkeys used to be very different from how they are today. Long ago, turkeys grew to the size of a house, their feathers were sleek and black, and their massive beaks were cruel, curved, hooked, perfect for skinning their prey. Their horrendous, thundering cry of "Gobble-gobble" would send the early humans scrambling back to their caves, cowering and shivering in terror. The humans would not come out until they were certain the turkey hunt was over. 

The humans began to leave out offerings for the terror turkeys, grains and berries and seeds and nuts. The titan turkeys would gather and nibble the food reluctantly, clucking amongst themselves, imagining that instead of cracking the shells of nuts, they were cracking open the skulls of humans and scooping out the gooey grey stuff inside. It was their favorite. 

The little things we do every day add up, over time. After a millennia or two, the monstrous avians that had ruled the land with an iron wattle, had diminished to a much more manageable four feet in height, and their steely muscles had given way to plump, tender flesh. 

The humans noticed, eventually, and the tables were quickly turned. 

Now, once a year, many cultures gather to give thanks that they are now the hunters, instead of the hunted. But the turkey has one final cruelty for the feasters: they are so big that to fully cook them, when whole, that the white meat, the lean muscular meat that long ago was used to hunt and rend the flesh of the very humans that eat them now, will become dry and tasteless. 

And they hope you choke on it. 

And if you do, while you're turning blue, thrashing about, mouth gaping for air that won't come, you will hear the sound of massive wings, and a final thundering "gobble gobble." 

THE END

The Night Watchman

What night, from dusk until dawn, he guarded the empty, rotting grain silo on Baseline road. Years before, when he had been hired, there were fields of grain, and of cotton, of orange groves, and miles and miles of flowers. 

All that was gone now, replaced by tract housing, apartment complexes, gated communities, and a few cows and pigs. 

Everything had changed all around him. Except the grain silo that still stood in the middle of a couple acres of dirt behind a crooked, wooden fence.

His work has given him enough to live, to build a life during the day, at least when he wasn't asleep. He had breakfast for dinner with his family, and then once his wife went to work and his kids went to school, he slept. His real morning was the middle of the afternoon, when he would awaken and pick up the children from school. He would make dinner (his breakfast) and help them with their homework. As the sun began to set, he was off again. 

He didn't know why the silo still needed a guard. Every night. He wasn't allowed to read, or talk on the phone, or write. He would pace the perimeter, shine his flashlight now and then, and think about all the things he'd rather be doing. As far as he could tell, no one watched him. He could have slept, or used his phone, or read all those books he meant to read, or write down his life story. 

But he was a man of his word. So every night, he watched. He was free to think, and that was enough. He watched, and waited for the sun to rise and send him home. 

THE END

The Honor Guard

A long time ago, it was tradition to sacrifice a black dog and bury it in the graveyard before interring the first human. The first one buried in a graveyard would have the duty of protecting it for all eternity, and be denied a peaceful afterlife. Burying the dog prevented this fate from befalling any human souls.

One day, long ago, there was a great, black dog named Duff, and he was on the hunt. He was what's known as a lurcher, which was a cross between a sight hound and a working breed. They were known for their intelligence, independence, speed, and hardiness. 

Duff's master had a herd of sheep, and a baby lamb had been killed the night before. The master had found only the torn-off leg, and immediately suspected the great white wolf that roamed the woods nearby. The master grabbed his rifle and went out with Duff to track the wolf.

Duff found the white wolf lying in a clearing, gnawing on the carcass of a large hare. The wolf saw Duff, and ignored him.

"My master's lamb wasn't enough to fill your belly?" Duff asked indignantly. (Wolves and dogs were not quite so distantly-related yet, as they are today, and could still make themselves understood to the other.) 

The wolf still didn't look up. "You are mistaken, whelp. Go to the one who lives in the cabin a furlong away from your master; in the home with no garden. You will find the lamb cooking in his pot."

"We found its leg, torn from its body!" Duff bristled. "The work of a wolf!"

The wolf looked at him, finally, with his great yellow eyes, his muzzle still red with blood. "Do you know many wolves that would waste a good leg of lamb? The thief left it there for you to find, no doubt, and cast suspicion away from himself."

"You're lying."

"Oh?" The wolf stuff stood up, and at his full height, looked down at the dog. "And what wolf respects the opinion of a dog enough to bother to lie to it?"

Duff growled, but knew it was true. He could hear his master approaching the edge of the clearing. He was a keen shot, and would certainly kill the wolf as soon as he sighted it.

Duff snarled, and ran into the woods again, baying as if he'd sighted their quarry. His master turned away from the clearing and followed.

The next night, Duff waited by the herd of sheep,  and he did indeed see the neighbor creep into the field in search of another lamb. Duff gave him a single savage chomp on the rear, and after that night, the neighbor lost his taste for lamb and finally took up gardening. 

Duff did not see the white wolf again for a long time, until the village decided they needed a new graveyard.

Duff was the only black dog in the area and everyone knew it, so it was decided that he would be sacrificed and buried first. His master wept, but Duff was stoic. His grave had been dug, and he would go to it, as was his duty, because he was a good dog. 

When Duff's master fell asleep, he stole out of the cabin and went down to the graveyard. He curled up next to open grave and fell asleep. 

In his sleep, Duff smelled blood, and he awoke. The great white wolf was limping towards him. In the moonlight, Duff could see a dark stain spreading out across the wolf's flank. 

"Good evening, dog."

"Wolf."

"I understand they're going to kill you in the morning. Put you in that hole, will they?"

"Yes. They will."

"Is that really what you want? You will not run away and save yourself?"

"No," Duff admitted. "I would like to be with my master, to protect him. But this will protect him too, I think. So I will allow it."

"You have a good quality, for a house pet," said the wolf. "I was shot by a hunter, and I will soon be dead myself. Long ago, you led your master away when you could have let him kill me. Perhaps I can help you this time." And the wolf jumped down into the little open grave. He rolled in the graveyard mud until he was completely black. He panted from the effort and lay down to rest. "There were are," the wolf said. "Now we could be brothers."

Duff looked down at the wolf in his grave. "Yes. We could be. My name is Duff."

"My name is Grim," said the wolf.

"I will stay with you, Grim."

The wolf grinned. "What wolves do you know that would care to die next to a dog?"

"Just one, I think," said Duff. And he curled up next to the grave, to be near to his friend.

In the morning, the gravedigger came to find a large black dog, or what looked like one, in the grave, dead. He shrugged and began to shovel dirt over it. At the edge of the graveyard, a big white dog watched. When the work was done, the white dog ran home to his master.

His master was astonished. If Duff could have spoken to him, he would not have had any explanation either. When Duff had awoken at dawn, his fur had become as ivory-white as the wolf's. 

Duff lived many years after that, and when he felt the age in his bones and knew it was time, he once again slipped out into the night, to the graveyard. 

His master found him there the next morning, curled up on that very first grave. He was quite dead, and his master buried Duff on that same spot. It was, after all, his grave. 

This was all a very long time ago. But if you ever find that graveyard, and wait until dark, you just might see a large white dog and a great black wolf darting to and fro, weaving through the headstones, playing for eternity. 

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ouch. There is a very different version of this in the drafts that I was almost through at 11 pm, and I was thinking I would get to bed on time tonight, but I just didn't like it. So I scrapped it and started over, which I never do (if that hasn't been obvious with some of these) but I'm glad I did. I hope I'm still glad when I'm dredging myself out of bed for work tomorrow.

Goodnight! 

The Hidden Constellations

The stars will move for you, if you can convince them. They like little gestures, and consistency. They've had their fill of heroes and odysseys; it is so easy for humans to set some noble goal and think of nothing but attaining it. It's charming, in a way, but it no longer moves them. 

A constellation is a name we give them based on our own perspective. They are not their true names, although some come surprisingly close. 

What does move them now are acts of kindness, over time. The heroes of old proclaimed to all what they hoped to do, and the stars had believed them, millenia ago. 

Today, tonight, every day, every night, they watch us still and look for other signs. Gentle words, kind acts, sparks of warmth between the creatures that spend half their lives in the dark. 

Only sparks, not fires. Fire consumes; what the stars do is fusion. They look for that; consistency, connections.  

Keep doing that, and they will move for you too. 

THE END

The Most Dangerous Meal Of The Day

Breakfast is the most dangerous meal of the day. Too often we sit to eat our scrambled eggs, hash browns, or banana pancakes, and we don't realize that the inhabitants of our dreams are still lurking behind us, having crossed the misty grey borderland between sleep and wake. Our minds are not solid things; they are gillnets with frayed edges that dreams and nightmares can wriggle through. 

As you sit to eat and begin to chew, if you are not careful, your teeth could begin to fall out, one by one by one, falling painlessly like ivory rain drops and clattering onto the plate and table and floor. Fall out and fall out, until you are swimming in molars, bicuspids, incisors, more teeth than could fit in a thousand gums mouths, as you gasp for air with a mouth of empty gums.

Or you notice a smell of burning toast, and the walls around you are in crackling flames, and billowing smoke surrounds you and all is orange and black and burning and then you hear sizzling like an egg being cracked into a pan of bubbling grease and smell your own blistering flesh as it runs off your body and puddles on the floor. 

Perhaps you were dreaming of being hunted by a pack of starving, long-legged beasts, with slavering jaws of jagged teeth and lolling crimson tongues. You're sitting at the table and jump as that deep baying bursts forth into the waking world, and guttural growls and snarls encircle you and you become the meal. 

There may be ways to prevent these types of oneiric seepage, and sleep scientists and occultists have formed and uneasy alliance to find them. 

Until then, they suggest skipping breakfast. 

THE END 

Sleep Paralysis

Every night, he dreaded falling asleep. Every night, he tried to fight it. He'd drink a pot of coffee. He played loud music. He downloaded addictive games onto his cell phone. He exercised. He'd write down everything he did that day. Tried an expensive lamp that mimics daylight. Ice-cold showers. Caffeine pills. Other, less legal pills. 

He got rid of his bed. Broke it up with an axe and burned it in the backyard. Threw every pillow and blanket into the flames. 

Every night, he'd fight it, and every night, he'd fail.  No matter what, at midnight, his body would betray him. He'd slowly collapse, deflating like a balloon. Crumpling onto the ground, he would fall asleep. But he wasn't asleep. He could hear, and he could see. But he couldn't move. 

Then the beast would come. 

He heard the claws clicking against the floor. Guttural growling, deep, that he could feel in his chest. It lumbered towards him. It looked like a brown bear, except for its face. The head was a elongated skull, like a horse skull, gleaming white and slicked with viscera. 

It hunched over him. The grinning maw pressed up against his face, snuffling and snorting through its bony nostrils. The incisors click-click-clicked. It tilted its head and turned an empty eye socket to look into his. It opened its bony jaws and spoke. 

"Go the fuck to sleep."

THE END

The Gods In The Woods

There were still gods in the woods. Little ones, mostly. Scampering through the roots of the great trees, or wrapping themselves in blankets of moss. They bounce up and down on the caps of mushrooms, and sail down the streams in boats of woven grass and leaves. 

They will hold mock battles with twigs for swords, and the cupules of acorns for shields. Dances are held every full moon, and they songs, lilting and chirupping compositions are older than the forest itself.

The old man limped into the woods to feed them. He brought nothing but his walking stick and his simple robes of rough-cut cloth. He found a warm patch of sunlight streaming through the towering trees and sat on a fallen log. 

And he did nothing. 

The gods of the woods do not need anything from us but our attention. Not even that, really. They need us to come back to them, for a little bit, and inhabit that hidden space that is apart from life and death. To be human is to exist in binary, a duality of us or them, losing and gaining, and agony and ecstasy. The gods don't do this, and they serve us by reminding us that we don't have to think like that anymore, if we don't want to 

He would not call it inner peace. His old injured leg hurt today, his back hurt every day, and his stomach hurt because he hadn't had anything to eat yet. And to all this, he said yes. We are always at the place where we always are. 

Just like the gods in the woods. 

THE END

Author's Note: I looked for the big gods, but I did not find them in this draft. Maybe they'll show up the second or third. 

Your Billion Future Selves

It has been only a handful of generations since humans had unlocked the ability to edit their own genetic code, and now there were no humans left. No true humans, anyway. They still looked like  humans, but biologically, they are now siphonophores. 

The Portuguese Man O' War is often mistaken for a jellyfish. It is related to jellyfish, but the jellyfish is a single organism, with one genome. The Man O' War contains multitudes. It is a colony; multiple units of creatures called zooids. Genetically identical, all from a single egg, but still individual. Each zooid becomea specialized to its role in the colony. And from the outside, it looks like one big jellyfish. These things that look like humans, are made up not of cells, but of, essentially, tiny humans. 

Before, a human might lose a finger. But now, there is no human to lose it. The finger was born to be a finger, the hand was born to be a hand, and the arm, and the torso, and the head the eyes the brain all of it, each one a zooid. The lost finger is alive, as a finger, and it knows it is alone. It will not survive long without the rest of the colony. Not long at all. 

It's confusing, I know, why anyone would want this. They're immortal now, functionally, these new humans. If a liver or a kidney fails, the lab can grow a new one. If the new human were to be cut in half at the waist, and the lab was sufficiently prepared, each half could be made into a whole. This wasn't done, at least not yet, but it could be. 

Individuality, down to the last body part.

Immortality achieved, at the cost of the self.

These new humans appear content, on the whole. Except those of us who work in the labs, raising the zooids into the parts they will play. We monitor every vital sign, every nerve, every . We get the same patterns, the same jagged waves on the electro-cellulargrams, over and over again. 

They are screaming. 

Author's Note: I really thought tonight was going to be the night I ended my streak. It's late, and I'm tired, and work was hard. But then Sibbitt went and wrote this really cool poem about a different kind of immortality and that got me to thinking...

This story needs work; I think the distinction between a single organism and exactly what siphonophores are is not explained very well. It's okay, because I think overall the story is headed in the right direction in evoking an atmosphere of existential dread for that very reason. At least that's what I'm telling myself because it is late and I must sleep. To learn more about siphonophores, visit your local library! Or you can read these notes I copied from Wikipedia and pasted below to re-read ah I struggled to convey how these things are very much alike in concept to a single organism, but the way they go about it is still uncanny as hell. Goodnight!

Siphonophores are highly polymorphic and complex organisms.[4] Although they may appear to be individual organisms, each specimen is in fact a colonial organism composed of medusoid and polypoid zooids that are morphologically and functionally specialized.[5] Zooids are multicellular units that develop from a single fertilized egg and combine to create functional colonies able to reproduce, digest, float, maintain body positioning,

The Town of Crows

The town of Corvus lay nestled in the verdant Carrina Valley. It was surrounded miles of cornfields, the engine of the town's economy. A railroad ran through the valley, ChenIn the middle of the largest field, Woodford Bennett was starting his last shift. He climbed up onto a wooden platform, pushed up the brim of his straw hat, and looked up into the clear blue sky, scanning for crows. 

The Carrina Valley was special. The crop yield per acre was three times that of the entire rest of the state. The town had to protect their investment. 

They had tried traditional scarecrows. But these crows knew. They would come by the thousands, darken the sky, and ravage the corn until there was nothing left. 

But they wouldn't hurt the corn if an actual person was watching over it. Woodford had been hauled out of an empty railcar by the railroad cops when the train had stopped to load up the corn. He had fallen on hard times, as evidenced by his threadbare flannel shirt, torn, frayed overalls. The railroad cops had made him an offer: keep the crows away from the corn, or get locked up in jail. He chose the scarecrow job. 

The cops had treated him real well after that. They even gave him a huge breakfast in the diner. Coffee, hash browns, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, and pancakes. Woodford hadn't eaten that well in months. He would have liked some scrambled eggs, but the server had said they didn't have any today. 

And now he was standing on the platform in the middle of a cornfield on a beautiful spring day. Best job he'd ever had, so far. He bent his head down to light a cigarette. 

A shadow fell over him, and he heard the sound of thousand wings. He looked up, and the crows were upon him. 

The corn would be safe for a few more days. 

THE END