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the story hunter

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The story hunter hadn’t been to this area of the wood for months. The stories had flourished in the absence of their predator. If he stopped moving, and held his breath, he could hear the plot lines rumbling in the soil. Now and then a piece of dialogue slipped through, filling the forest with possibilities.

He heard dragons, and fairies, and the slumbering sounds of bedtime stories. It had been far too long since he’d heard such stories. He put his trap away and left the way he came. Best to leave this place for now, and give the stories a chance to mature.

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elephant trunks vs unicorn horns

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“Unicorns, harrumph! What’s a unicorn got that we elephants don’t? Sure, an alicorn, but that thing just looks cumbersome. The weight and the angle of it must cause those poor beasts terrible headaches. A trunk, now there’s a handy appendage. Breathing, picking stuff up, smelling things, making trumpet noises, and it even works as a hose. The possibilities are endless! What’s an alicorn do? It just gets you rumors about stabbing virgins and the next thing you know you can’t find any unicorns anywhere.”

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the climb to freedom

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Each step felt harder than the last, every one a victory of purchase. The sun glared down, its heat intense. “Uncaring old orb,” thought the toad. She gained another foothold, and another. Soon she would be at the top, and from there – well, from there she’d be free of that silly camera at last.

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scars of the fire that forged him

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The wood is charred, covered in inky scales. New cracks ran rampant through the scars of old flames. Rumor has it, somewhere deep inside, the fire still smoulder in his blackened heart. Ghosts of smoke are sometimes seen, or dreamt, or are mistaken with fog.

The wounded tree himself grows tired of the suspicion. He survived the lightning strike by some impossible means, and now he needs to rest and to heal, not reassure his neighbors the fire is out. Besides, if he wants to keep a lick or two of the fire that forged him, what business is it of theirs?

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the girl who lost herself in a spider-made labyrinth

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Gazing into the spider-made labyrinth, her mind grew dizzy and lost its way. She wandered ’round and ’round the web, unable to break free. A dying fly told her to run, but she found she couldn’t. When she passed a dewdrop, she stopped to scry inside, hoping for escape, but all she saw was spider. A stuck mosquito urged her to leave, but she couldn’t find the way.

A dragonfly flew past, his wing getting stuck, and she ran to him. He struggled in fury, and yanked himself free. “Wait!” she cried, as he flew away. “Take me with you!” He turned and gave her the strangest look, but he didn’t take her with him.

She sighed and set about mending the web, silk streaming from her body. She wondered if she’d always been a spider, after all. Foggy dreams of friends and books and human life were fading fast. There was little she could do but go back to the dying fly and finish off her meal.

 

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places long-forgotten

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The building appeared abandoned. To be sure, she knocked on the door with a vined hand and waited. No one answered but the rustle of the spiders who had already taken up residence, the whisper of termites in the walls, and the sad sigh of places long-forgotten.

She pushed open the door and looked around. The floor had caved in, decomposing into a banquet of nutrients for green and growing things. The roof had begun to crumble, allowing slips of sunshine and pockets of rain to come through. She sent up vines to widen the holes as she planted moss children and nanny mushrooms into the rotten floor.

Her work complete, she slipped outside again, her footsteps soft in the meadow without. She left little trace, but anyone passing the homestead would know Nature had been there, and took it for her own.

 

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the city gargoyle’s seaside retirement

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He began his life as a gargoyle in the big city. He spent his days staring into the window of a studio apartment across the street. Nothing much happened, until the day a clumsy wizard moved in. A few days later, an errant blast from her wand struck the gargoyle, and he found himself a free statue.

The gargoyle ran away without delay, escaping the city and heading for the coast. Once there, he found himself a decent perch upon a cliff. His days are now spent glaring out at the open ocean, thinking grumpy thoughts about fish, and frightening the occasional beachcomber.

On full moons he likes to stretch out his wings and soar around for a while, but he always returns to his seaside perch. “Home sweet home,” he tells the waves, still marveling at his luck.

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tales of a mushroom detective

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The man peered at the mushrooms with his magnifying glass, his cloak tossing behind him in the breeze. “Hmmm. An eruption of mushrooms can mean only one thing.”

“That it rained yesterday?” asked the boy.

“Of course not. It means dragons, or faeries, possibly a goblin.”

The boy crossed his arms. “What kind of a detective are you?”

The detective straightened, pocketed his magnifying glass, and winked. “The very best kind.”

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a most inconvenient gender swap

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It’s hard being a frog princess. People just aren’t ready for that gender swap. Boys poked at her with sticks, carried her around in buckets for hours at a time, and occasionally tossed her at a girl to make them scream, but they never kissed her. They never even considered kissing her.

Still, she supposed there are some small beauties to life as a frog. Her hair never got tangled, she didn’t have to go to school, and she could swim all day. Those things count for something, but she misses her old friends. She misses books and clothes and her old dog, Charlie.

So she sought me out and asked for my help. She wants me to ask you, if you know any little boys, to dare them to kiss frogs. This, she feels, just might work. It seems to me if little girls can do it, then little boys can find the courage too.

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how to trap a bit of sky

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He whispered to himself as he placed rocks into the puddles. Ancient rhymes and old spells spilled together without reason. He smiled to see pieces of the sky become trapped in the water’s reflection. A few more rhymes and he’d be able to smuggle them home in his pockets.

Not that he knew what to do with them. He’d probably just tuck them into jars and leave them on a shelf to frighten youngsters. It seemed a disappointing conclusion for his work and a sad fate for a bit of sky.

He added a new rhyme. The bits of sky grew restless, reaching up with wings which lifted them from the sand and flew them back up where they belonged. Much better to have invisible birds flying around than a chunk of depressed stratosphere trapped in a jar, he reasoned.