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  Shredded leaves from the weekend’s storm

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  The kitten was chasing its tail. It watched the tip intently, then crouched, wiggling its rear, which made the tail tip wiggle too. That was the signal: the kitten pounced, then chased in mad circles until it trapped the tail beneath its front paws, only to let it go again--for mere seconds. Then once again it trapped the tail firmly beneath its claws. "Cats are so cruel, always playing with their prey," said Chloe. "Even when their prey is attached to them, " said Evan. #...

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  Good morning, Mastodon! Please welcome "The Bee Wife." It's a short story in an old style about a bereaved bee keeper and the swarm of bees that attempts to comfort him. The link here is to Kobo, but it's also available from B&N, Amazon, Apple, etc. if you search on "The Bee Wife"+ "Francesca Forrest"---or you can get it directly from me if you don't want to patronize that lot (message me). https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-bee-wife

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  It's not summer if I don't do some chalk drawings. Here's an American goldfinch eating sunflower seeds. #birds #AmericanGoldfinch #ChalkDrawing #ChalkArt #StreetArt

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  The game was played at 2 am in the supermarket parking lot. Two-player teams lined the perimeter. Scattered inside the parking lot were weird, random prizes: a pile of VHS tapes. A 5-lb jar of cashews. Etc. One player in each team sat in a shopping cart. The other was the pusher. The pushers pushed their partners as far as a chalk-drawn line, then let go. The carts hurtled on; you couldn't #steer them from inside. If a cart hit a prize, the team got to keep it. #wss366 #microfiction

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  fault line

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  Ridley's older brother Sam was the best at #skipping stones. He could get a stone to skip practically across Halfmoon Pond, or so it seemed to Ridley. Five, ten, seventeen skips. Riding a skipping stone would be more exciting than waterskiing, Ridley thought. You wouldn't be tethered to anything! You'd have to be really tiny, though. And how would you hold on? He mused on this a while. "Hey Sam," he said. "D'you think we could glue tiny straps on a skipping st...

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  Very funny, clever short story, "Herkimer Inquiriers, about a psychogeographer investigating disturbances in an Albuquerque neighborhood. Enjoyed the (queer) narrator immensely. https://reckoning.press/herkimer-inquiries/

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  Lord Danquedred of the #Bastion of Moans was the perfect #foil for Lady Larkmarie, a self-proclaimed #Spirit of Joy. Larkmarie wasn't actually all that joyful, what with her many medical anxieties ("Do you think I've exhaled too much today? How much do *you* exhale?") and her unpredictable rages ("WHY are there bees on my sunflowers? WHY??") But you only needed to stand her next to the silent, morose form of Lord Danquedred, and suddenly yes, she did seem quite joyf...

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  "There are 3 steps to becoming a sage," the old man said, authority in his voice & a twinkle in his eye. "First, rid yourself of encumbrances. By which I mean clothes." The crowd stripped. "Second, repeat the sound of the universe birthing itself." "Is that 'om'?" a woman asked. "No, it's moo." The crowd mooed. "Third, whirl round." They whirled. "I don't feel sagelike," someone said. "There&#3...

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  shopping-cart cryptid (crows are warning us about it ... or maybe warning it about us) #cryptids https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fjsfZGnBQyY

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  At first Misleidy created #cocktails based on phrases that irritated her as lead-ins for social media posts, things like the Buckle Up, the Strap In, and the Gentle Reminder. Then she took to naming them after depressing news (drink your sorrows, right?) Those drinks included the Overton Window Shift, the AI Boom, and the K-Shaped Economy. But more recently she's been creating drinks based on logical fallacies. Would you care for a Sunk Costs? How about a No True Scotsman? #wss366 #micr...

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  "Look up," said Evan. Above Bettina in the courtyard, barefoot footprints appeared & disappeared. "What's making those?" she asked. "People bouncing on a Marpinski #Film," Evan said. "Want to see?" They took an elevator to the next level. There, a thin, semi-opaque film was anchored to the sides of the courtyard. Bettina stepped tentatively onto it & began to bounce. She couldn't see do...

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  Six-year-old Marissa arrived at the family reunion in a #purple dress with gauze sleeves and a skirt of tulle, embroidered with violets. "Oh my," said an aunt with a smile. "What a little lady!" Just then Marissa went tearing after her older brother yelling, "HEY! PASS TO ME, PASS TO ME!" practically knocking him down when he didn't instantly pass her the soccer ball. "Well," said her mom. "She likes dres...

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  RE: https://mas.to/@RikerGoogling/116535355803394163 2026

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  #WritersCoffeeClub 10 May: What wisdom do you wish you could share with your younger self? I think she did okay just muddling along, but a thing I've come to think in the years since, and which I share with my friends is this: that we've handled hard things in the past and will to do so in the future. We may not know how, but we'll figure it out. Some stuff may not work, but we'll then try other stuff. We'll adjust. And we're not alone: we have fr...

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  Veena's lover had found someone new, leaving her full of sighs and tears. "Make a loaf of heartbreak #bread," her aunt instructed. "Let your tears fall into the dough, tell it all your feelings as you knead, then feed it to the sparrows when it's baked. You'll feel much better." Veena started to make a loaf, but she worried. What if the sparrows couldn't handle her heartbreak? She decided to share happy memories with the dough...

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  "You said the buyer was coming this evening," said Pereira, pacing and flicking a switchblade open, shut, open, shut. "So where is he?" Pereira was wearing one of those shirts printed with Rococo art--Jesus's ascension to heaven. Jesus's uplifted eyes gazed into Pereira's impatient face as if he were commiserating with Pereira. "I said he's arriving in *the city* tonight," Nick #hedged. "Not sure he&...

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  A #wss366 4-parter.... https://wandering.shop/@vollink/116520468070750512

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  RE: https://mastodon.ie/@thebeeguy/116513089620974807 Great thread with lots of sweet videos

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  RE: https://mastodon.social/@nantucketlit/116492021352671726 If you subscribe to @nantucketlit 's postcard project, you get these, hand-typed, with an illustration on the front. I was honored to be included, but it's been even more wonderful to be a subscriber: a real tribute to sharing handmade, human art.

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  I handed the customs agent my passport. She flipped thru the pages, glanced at me, glanced at her screen, frowned. "Step aside, please." This part of the process is always entertaining. "Your passport's #flagged. Jeri Wyldman's the name of a jewel thief wanted on 3 continents." "Wrong Jeri Wyldman. I do PR for Tractus Systems...Anyway, wouldn't a wanted jewel thief travel under a different name?" Eventually, they...

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  And here's Ivan Morris's translation of the intro to Sei Shōnagon's Pillow Book, same idea, even earlier (1002 AD) "In spring it is the dawn that is most beautiful. As the light creeps over the hills, their outlines are dyed a faint red and wisps of purplish cloud trail over them." (1/?) https://dn720003.ca.archive.org/0/items/the-pillow-book/The%20Pillow%20Book.pdf

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  #WritersCoffeeClub 12 April: How does being a writer influence your life outside the work. It makes me go places, and then those places change my life.

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  RE: https://newsie.social/@TheConversationUS/116391503744669686 "During my time in Koian I understood this as their collective refusal – a community’s decision to reject systems that had abandoned them and instead create their own terms for survival."

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  I've been offline the past few days. Let me catch up on what the #wss366 prompt words have been in that time... they have been... --"spat," for 10 April --"lean," for 11 April and for today, 12 April, the word is "ghost" Join in if you feel like writing something short and sweet ... or long and epic; we have both sorts on the hashtag. https://wandering.shop/@wss366/116390913770959324

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  @yogthos Studying Anglo-Saxon in college helps ;-)

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  I don't like the new-type prove-you're-a-human questions, e.g., "What things make you wake up in a cold sweat at 3:25 am, #dread hanging on you like a mildewed blanket? Where do the machines and algorithms get off thinking we're just going to volunteer our deepest fears? Nuh-uh, not me! Also, how about toning down the purple prose? A little lilac round the edges is ok, but that's full-on eggplant-purple. #wss366 #microfiction

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  Chefla and Nors spotted Gelnow sitting dejectedly on a bench. "So... you didn't #fare well in your evaluations?" Nors guessed. "I failed Sunsets," Gelnow mumbled. "The examiner said I didn't have a good sense of clouds & that my colors were amateur." "It happens," said Chefla. "People think Sunsets are easy, but there's a whole lot of second-order resonances, and the whole question...

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  #散歩Saturday