keepsake

She promised she would tell me 

If she was going to leave me forever 

Although now that I recall that moment

(as I can recall every moment spent with her) 

She never specified exactly how

Puffy white cumulonimbus shaped like an anatomically-correct shattering heart?

Sliver of moonlight breaking through a blackout curtain? 

A recall on my exact prescription of antidepressants?

Clever girl

She must have known I'd know her anywhere

And march on

Despair sucking my boots into the mud

Can't stop moving

In case I'm wrong

(as I've been wrong so many times before) 

And she's still there, somewhere, waiting

almost tomorrow

Just kidding; it's never tomorrow. It's only always today. 

That isn't true. Time zones exist and so for some people it is tomorrow. Not for me. 

Wait that might not be true either. 

I'm in somebody's tomorrow, today. 

At least I hope I am. 

It's a good thing time is made-up or this could get pretty confusing. 

That isn't true. Time is real, it's just probably not exactly what we think it is. 

I can close my eyes and travel through time. 

Speed ahead to where I'm with you again. Oh wait, no. Then what would we talk about? Time travel? No thank you. I better proceed the regular way. 

If we could fast-forward through all the hard parts in life, what would even be left?

most scary

The most scary thing to me is snow. It falls silently from the sky, saps the heat of your body, and can bury you completely. 

Second most scary thing is moose. They can often be found hiding in the snow, waiting to pounce. 

The third most scary thing would be moose falling like snow, silent and cold, upon the unsuspecting landscape. 

We'd never see it coming. Well, I might because I think about stuff like this. But ultimately it wouldn't matter; I too would be buried under hooves, antlers, and their ridiculous tiny tails. 

Forewarned is not forearmed; I will meet my moosey fate. 

Never too late

I'm up too late. Today I was stressed. Work was very busy and I may have not had all my wits about me. When it's dark and everything is quiet and the AC kicks on to 76 degrees Fahrenheit (my preferred sleeping temperature) I like to putter around this admittedly not-very-large house and tinker. 

Or just think about tinkering. Looking at my bookshelves and mentally culling them because it's easier than boxing them up and donating them. 

Oh I'm taking Ender to work tomorrow morning and they have one of those free library things. I could drop some books in there. A little Batman, a little Catch-22, maybe some Dante. 

Because I have multiple copies of those. I don't know why. 

So I'll rest now, finally. 

Talk to you tomorrow. 

Return

To trying to be more open, more thoughtful, and maybe more introspective while avoiding the pitfall of self-aggrandizement. That small step and one giant leap from "I should be better" to just...trying to be better. 

"He prayeth best, who loveth best, all things both great and small" -Coleridge, Sammy T.

I'll tell you what I do love: the bidet I just installed. No more jumping into the shower immediately after every poop. 

I'm just kidding; I don't do that. 

I bet I could install one at work. A bidet, not a shower. Although a shower would be nice. 

Wait wait wait... self-improvement, not home improvement. Except where there's overlap. From what I understand, the self and the home are never really done. 

I should sleep. 

Goodnight!

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!

sticky mouth

Early morning apple pie

then back to bed

to be useless but happy

Clutch potential from the chill dawn

smother it beneath body and blankets

until a dog licks my face for crumbs

their life going by seven times as fast as mine

and guilt sets in for wasting time

Pawed

Too many mutts on too small a bed

We don't seek solutions to this problem

It's the kind we like

Resolve one; another takes its place

A paw on my face

Cheeky hounds

Line up North to South

Furry fat electromagnets

Living compasses

Pointing to you

Resting Phase

Warm toes, cold nose

There is no human experience that does not exist without its opposite, Melville said

Programmed in Emotional Binary

It's not the only coding language

Access granted to your inputs

Firewalls; defragmentation 

The cold reminds me of you because I miss the heat of your body against mine

Heartbeat like a cursor, ready 

Couched

Couch these words in thoughts on a couch

Poetry seeks the middle place

Where what we think and what we feel 

Mistake one for the other

I call it the middle place but it was the first

The wishbone split came somewhere after

When four legs became sometimes two

And then only two

Poetry is not for unfinished thoughts

But thoughts that can't be finished

Perhaps. I'm not sure. I like the sounds of it

The shape of your mouth when you say the words

The shape of your mind when you think the thoughts

Beckon, beckon, skittish connection

Our hands entwining 

Skin scraped by electric thickets 

A robot could have wrote this

I tell ourselves

But I thought of it first this time

And I sleep envious of the water coursing down your body

That would only rust me, maybe

We chain our dreams to logic

As if that safely keeps them

To exist in the same room as you

Is as small and as big as I can dream tonight

Rivers push against their banks

And make new curves and bends and breaks

Pebbles tumble sand and silt

As they carve out that middle place

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 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 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 

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.