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dragon season

We live by the tide rather than the sun when the season’s on. The world revolves around our nets and dragon bellows, catch sleep if you can, there’s a bunk on the bridge. Pee off the side, or pull up a bucket, we don’t spring for luxuries. Besides, urine attracts the dragons from the deep. For gear we’ve got a case of beer and a slicker. There’s a harpoon in the hold, but it’s best we don’t use it. Better to lure them away from the village, far as we can. Rumors say the dragons have a quota of three per village. No more. No less. That’s why we go out three per ship. Kiss your loved ones goodbye, we might not make it. But know if we don’t, they’re safe for the season.

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The Scientist’s Apprentice

Baby blankets are soft. Halloween costumes are thin and catch on the unseen flaws of fingertips. Graduation gowns are the same, but thicker. You’re not missing much.

The lab coat is stiff, but they soften with use. Glass beakers are smooth and gently curved. They are pleasurable to touch. A lab should smell of disinfectant, never that iron scent of spilled blood or the rancid smell of death. Remember that.

A descent into madness smells like smouldering pine pitch. Expect to get the shakes. Everybody does. They’re just the last dregs of your sanity holding on too tight. You’ll feel better once you let them go. It’s half-pay till you’re good and mad, so take that as your incentive.

You’ll still see your children on your day off. Once per month. If they still want you in their lives, that is. Most don’t. But at least they won’t starve. Parenting is mostly self-sacrifice, after all.

Here’s the contract. Standard, but do sign it before you begin. It’s the only thing that can keep you out of the funny farm and in the lab. I don’t want to waste my time training you if you’re destined for the straight jacket swaddle. We scientists seek a different kind of therapy, don’t you agree?

Come on, give us a taste of your cackle before we begin your descent.

Ah yes, you’ll do fine.

Courtesy giphy.com.
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The beast at the bus stop

She stood at the edge of the snow bank, kicking at the road grime which collected there. When the snow sat fresh, she’d made herself a snow beast. One that would protect her.

The snowplow had wrecked it before it had the chance. Pushed it right into the snow bank. Like the bullies did to her at recess.

The road twisted away from her as she looked up to check for the school bus. Soon it would race around the far corner, stop in a squeal of protesting brakes. The door would open, the bus driver beckon. She would hesitate, she always did. Her bully waited for her at the back of the bus. Waiting for the bus driver to watch the road. Waiting to begin the morning ritual of terror.

She often thought of running into the woods. Hiding. Escaping. But no. It would be worse trouble in the end.

Her gaze flicked to the ground. Had something moved? Lumps of salt and sand encrusted ice, half-melted and refroze countless times, nothing alive in there that she could see. It shifted again, frosty crust sparkling.

A gasp of horror escaped her as it lifted from the roadside, not a dirty snowbank but her snow beast in a roadside camouflage. She couldn’t look away, even as she saw the school bus arrive in the corner of her vision.

The familiar squeal of brakes filled the air as the yellow bus mowed into the beast.

The beast growled and opened its terrible yawp.

It swallowed the bus whole.

The beast burped once before it settled back into the snow bank. The girl stood there, quiet, unsure of what to do.

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Tour Guide

Oh! Hi there. Are you here for the tour?

Excellent. The Bay is always restless in foul weather. Stirs up the mermaids, you know. Gets them all riled up and showing off in the big waves.

Unfortunately the dragons tend to keep to their caves. The damp isn’t good for their fire breathing and no one likes a whiny, chilly dragon.

What’s that? Oh, no refunds I’m afraid. It’s in the fine print.

If we get lucky we might see the local sea monster, who only comes out during storms. Well. Hee hee. He causes the storms so there’s something of a relationship there. You’ll love him. He’s better than ten dragons. You can see invisible monsters, right? Right?

Now, now, no need to be rude.

You see that patch of snow to your left? It’s actually a crew of ghosts what prowl this beach. Or, you know, part of the storm. Best err on the side of the fantastical, I always say.

What’s that? You’re leaving? Hogwash, you say? Not at all – wait! Look out for that storm wraith! No, I swear, this one’s real, don’t breathe that mist, it’s poison – aw. Lost another one. Not good for business. Not good for business at all.

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A Weathered Destiny

I’ll admit it, I was a terrible assistant. The wizard I worked for never received his messages. The coffee, if fresh, was instant. Ants on the sugar bowl, you get the picture. He hated instant coffee. Had a phobia of ants. Loved getting messages, said they made him feel less alone.

He might have done better with an actual person, rather than an old binder clip he infused with the first soul who floated past. Thanks for that, wizard. You bastard.

Few years back he up and died. Just keeled over mid-spell, so here I am, stuck living in this damn clip for all eternity, bored out of my mind. His kids tossed me in a junk pile with all his other crap. I mean, the view is better, but turns out rust itches like the dickens as it chews away at you. I’d crumble if someone tried to open me now, shove a sheet of paper in my maw. I’d stain it cruddy orange as crumbles of my corroding body skittered to their feet.

Not sure I deserve this. Not sure I deserved being trapped inside a clip to begin with. What the heck was he thinking? “I’m lonely and have a fetish for sentient binder clips?” I suppose I had some odd collections myself back in my human days. I liked to save the third metatarsal of all the little fairies I chopped up and threw into my stew.

I was famous for my stew. Set up a cannery and made a fortune. “Fairy stew puts a twinkle in you” remember that song? Your grandma might. That was me! Course I got blamed when the fairy population crashed. Darn things were so small it took three to stuff a can. Did my customers ever twinkle, though. Those were the days.

I know what you’re thinking. Did ol’ Wizard McGizzard trap me here as punishment? I doubt it. He was just a geezer without any gumption left for that sort of thing. He got lucky. I didn’t. Soon, though. This old body’s getting over-weathered. Soon it’ll be nothing more than dust. Then I’ll be free. I think. I hope. I guess I could end up spread out between a zillion cells, this one this memory, that one another, scattered to bits when the wind picks up. Maybe you’ll inhale me one day. Wouldn’t that be grand, now.

Well. Enough about me. What brings you here?

This post was written in response to the Daily Post’s prompt “weathered“

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runaway story

The story came to her in the early morning when her mind was still fresh from dreaming.

She had almost caught it when her alarm clock screeched and the story fled in terror.

It slipped beneath the crack of her door as she struggled to pull on her pants. She wasn’t far behind, but it was far enough.

Down the stairs, past the old library, she searched. Nothing. Her heart ached to lose such a story. Her fingers ached to write. Her mind longed to lose herself inside it.

She pulled back the coats in the old closet, whispering into the cedar scented shadows. “Story?” Nothing answered but the scritch of mice in the walls.

She crept into the wizard’s room, the one he rented by the week and reeked of charcoal, skunk, and sour feet. He was out.

She peered inside a blue potion bottle. Empty. But she could still make out the faint scent of the story.  It had been there, no more than a minute or so ago.

She closed the door with a click and hesitated. She crouched, checking the key hole. Dust. Pieces of a crushed and tragic spider. No story.

Her stomach growled.

The fridge. She hurried to the kitchen, grunting as she yanked at the door. There. Behind a plate of leftover ham. The story she’d been hunting. The one that escaped her.

She lured it out with a handful of papers and a promise of ink from the bottle in her pocket. Quiet, stealthy, she wielded her pen, her face a study of concentration and delight. The story relaxed at last, snuggling into the snow-white paper beneath her hand, knowing it was home.

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the child Santa forgot

Jane’s parents didn’t celebrate Christmas, but the media did. There was money to be made. From mid-November onward, Jane’s world was saturated with the spirit of Christmas. Santa always came through. A miracle for every child. Presents for everyone!

“Don’t worry,” her strange Aunt Ellie promised Jane, every year, “I’ll make sure Santa finds ya.” Her mind, Mum said, got hurt when Aunt Ellie was young. “Santa’s a magic fellow. He would never miss a girl like you.”

Like magic, there would be a festive envelope waiting on Christmas morning, tucked beneath Jane’s pillow where her parents would never see it.

An envelope stuffed full of expired coupons.

Buy one pizza, get another pizza free, expired October 7th. Twenty dollars off a round of golf at The Meadows. Good until August 22nd. Jane would pore over them, looking for some twisted pattern, a reason why Santa left those particular coupons. A clue to tell her what she had done wrong to anger him so.

It wasn’t until Jane was eight or nine that she realized the envelopes were from Ellie, stocked with the best intentions her broken mind could muster.

Jane continued to struggle with Christmas as an adult. She decorated trees and played Santa for her own kids, forcing herself into rituals she didn’t understand, or love, or care to. The smudge of old shame clung to the season like grime to a roadside snowbank. But she watched.

She watched for the children Santa was forgetting. Taking care to send them magic in whatever way she could. Sometimes it was a spare candy cane, or a coin left in their path, a toy tucked inside a hollow tree to be found some distant day. Passes to the zoo, ones that never expired, tucked inside an open backpack pouch.

She did it for Ellie, who Jane supposed had the idea in the first place. She did it for herself, to prove she could make her own magic, and she did it for the kids, because Santa wasn’t going to.

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a curiosity of culvert goblins

Keeper’s Journal, November 26, 2017

I discovered a possible new species in the Enchanted Forest today: culvert goblins. At the end of NaNoWriMo no less. I should be focusing on my novel, not documenting a new species, but such is life as Keeper of Imaginary Beasts.

culvertgoblin
a culvert goblin in their natural habitat

 

After some trial and error, I discovered the culvert goblins respond well to promises of hot cocoa and frozen blueberries. They may well have been starving in their respective culverts, or are possibly ruled by cravings of sweet things at both extremes of temperature.

Once inside the house, they huddled around the fireplace and its crackling fire, making me wonder if they have evolved from a medieval species of hobgoblin, bottlenecking to the culvert niche. I suppose the things are plentiful enough and tunnels have always had a mystical portal element that imaginary beasts are attracted to.

After consuming their promised treats, the sugar elicited an energetic response, causing them to grow too destructive for keeping indoors. The collection of dragon scales donated by the lunar dragons on their last visit was damaged, but I believe I can repair them with a bit of glue and time.

I was forced to turn them out-of-doors again when they refused to stop knocking at the fairy doors. Better cold than turned to toads or inside out by infuriated fairies. They returned to their respective culverts, muttering about the cold and offended by my refusal to let them hibernate in the kindling basket by the stove.

I’ll keep an eye on them throughout the winter, and am planning a trip to the local thrift shop for wool blankets to keep them cozy in their winter hibernation. I look forward to studying them more fully in the spring, but for now, its back to NaNoWriMo. The end is in sight!

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on the substandard housing of imaginary friends

The wind howled through the frame. Jagged metal stuck out from damaged joints. The bespectacled, high heeled woman pulled out her notebook, jotting things down.

bus

“Really, Lily, just because he’s an imaginary friend doesn’t mean you can get away with substandard housing. You’re what? Six years old? Old enough to take responsibility. After all, you imagined him. The least you could do is throw a tarp over the frame. Keep out the rain. This is hardly a proper stable for a unicorn of his sensitivities. Maybe build him a tree house. Imagine him some wings.” She sighed. “I’ll have to give you a citation.”

Bewildered, Lily took the paper the woman handed her. “Is this real?”

“It’s as real as that imaginary friend of yours.” The woman pointed her chin into the air and walked off through the forest, losing her balance here and there in her pointy heeled shoes.

Lily decided to get started on a tree house. Just in case.