When she’d had enough, she boarded her petaled boat and sailed away on a convenient tide. She took her magic with her, willing herself not to care that the land would soon be empty of stories and hungry for wonder. She set her course by a shooting star and the memory of a waking dream. Where she might end up she did not know. This, of course, offered half the adventure and all the fun.
These are battle-weary warriors of late summer, scorched in the heat and short on rain. Their stories seldom told, their tattered bodies litter the landscape as their lives come a close. I asked her of the battles she fought, but she turned from me and sighed. She kept her secrets for another generation to spill and left me full of questions.
He believed it his destiny to be king of the world. Such is the ego of a frog in a pond. His power grew so great tasty morsels of fly flesh buzzed by him for dinner and his servants croaked in unison when he called them. He lost his crown somewhere in the shallows, but who could forget his amphibious face, his regal bearing? He had the makings of a legend and when his chance came, he would not miss it.
Every so often he donned his best camouflage and peeped at the world above to see if it was ready. He sniffed at the air and poked at the soil, checking for seasoning, marinade, and a full-bodied flavor. It wasn’t quite to his liking just yet, so he settled back into Below. After a million or so years of waiting, he saw no point in rushing dinner now.
The children were hungry, so their father sailed low over the orchard. It was a risky venture in the daylight. If they were caught, who knew what havoc would be wreaked by their presence. He tried not to think about it as he cast his net. When he pulled it up a handful of apples tumbled out. His children leapt upon them and ate their fill as he steered them to the safety of the clouds once more, his heart pounding and his sails full.
This baby hydra first appeared on the shores of the Bay in the summer of 2016. Most people looked upon it with an idle curiosity. Others, perhaps with some ancient Greek DNA hidden away, felt a shiver despite the August heat. Most important: no one did anything about it, and the hydra was left to grow, safe and hidden away in the cool depths of the Bay.
The sunlight winked upon the water’s surface, sending secret messages to the bottom of the sea. There the mermaids scooped them up in long lost buckets and relayed them to whom they belonged. Who that is, I cannot say, but I’ve always dreamt of hidden sea beasts, impossible and mythical, whose deep sea movements become the waves that greet us on the shore.
She fell from her branch and faded to gold from the forgotten bits of sunshine she’d eaten once upon a tree. Insects came and chewed at her flesh, styling her into a delicate filigree for the finest of fairies to wear to their moonlit balls and midnight masquerades. The day came when she was forgotten in the grass, and a little girl found her and pressed her in a book, little suspecting the wonders the tattered old leaf had seen.
We went away last weekend and our daughter was very concerned about what hotels were like. She must have asked us thirty times on the way to our hotel where she would be sleeping. Getting a bit frustrated with explaining that there are beds in hotels over and over again, we told her she would have to sleep in the bathtub. She was silent the rest of the drive as she thought that over. But we had forgotten that it was a four-year-old we were dealing with. She insisted upon sleeping in the bathtub when we got there.
Jennifer Shelby 