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By MD
Yatsumo spent twelve years weaving the cloth for her marriage yurt. While she did that, her intended, Katsaki, created the framework. He set in the paving stones leading to the front door and helped Yatsumo to drape the cloth within the frame. For the final, decorative touch, Yatsumo and Katsaki together wafted the silky embroidered cross piece on the roof. With this task completed, their marriage customs were finalized and the two began their lives together as man and wife.
What Katsaki did not know, however, was Yatsuma’s propensity for hoarding. Over time, she collected plants, rocks, stray animals, foodstuffs – each item valuable and precious to her, while useless to Katsaki. At least, that was how he perceived it.
Over time, the cloth walls of the yurt bulged with assorted items and the framework creaked and groaned with even the slightest breeze. Eventually there was no room for Katsaki, although Yatsumo failed to notice this at first because of all the accumulated junk. One day, realizing it had been several days since she’d seen her husband, she called to him and heard his answer from outside. She flung open the door, not realizing Katsaki was standing right behind the door.
“Why are you outside?” she asked him.
Katsaki answered through the hole his nose had poked through the fabric window. “It should be obvious, Yatsumo,” he said. “You cannot fit 10 pounds of hay into a 5 pound bag.”
“You’ve bought me 10 pounds of hay?” Yatsumo could hardly conceal her excitement. “Well, bring it in. We’ll put it right here on top of the stove.”
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By BG
According to my grandmother, in the ancient world, it was generally believed that the gods desired to communicate with people. She said people built places they felt would be pleasing to the gods. For as long as I can remember, this was the reasoning for the big stone monstrosity built on the back acres of the family homestead. What I don’t get is why they felt the gods were going to show up for a visit and communicate with them. It is still there and someone in the family is still hoping. If it were up to me, I would make a few changes, tell everybody it is a haunted house and make some serious change by charging people to visit and have a good scary experience.
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A man in a broad-brimmed hat sits at a table with a cake.
By TNT
A man with a broad-brimmed hat sat at a table with a cake. Salima was writing in her journal and noticed him as she looked up, and she smiled at him. He didn’t smile back. He just sat and looked (she thought) at the cake with a depressed expression. The brim of his hat shaded his eyes – all she could see was his unshaven chin. She wondered who he was, she had not seen him at Starbucks before. She thought about saying hello and introducing herself. She was curious. He didn’t look like anyone else who came to Starbucks. A mysterious stranger. She really wished she had the nerve to speak to him. But did he speak English or any language she knew? She was certain he was foreign. Who wore a hat like that inside Starbucks? No-one.
She went back to her journal and became absorbed in it when a hand touched her shoulder. She heard a voice – a familiar voice. She looked up – it was her friend Alix. She glanced over at the table and the stranger was gone. The cake was still there. She asked Alix if she saw the man and Alix shook her head. Salima went to the barista and asked “Who was that man in the slouched hat who sat at that table?” The barista, named Jim, shook his head and said “What man? That seat has been empty all evening.” Salima asked about the cake. “Oh, I don’t know. It must have been left there by another customer.”
Salima left Starbucks and talked to Alix about the man. Alix thought Salima was having a vision or flashback.
To be continued.
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Goddard began the year working for his cousin, Luther Goddard, who manufactured clocks in his shop in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
By CT
Goddard began the year working for his cousin, Luther Goddard, who manufactured clocks in his shop in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. It wasn’t the job he preferred, but it was a job.
By April, Goddard was bored. “Clocks are by-and-large uninteresting things,” he said. Luther, of course, couldn’t fathom this as he loved clocks: the designing of them, the making, the decorating, and the bell-like tones of them.
By July, Goddard was heartily sick of the whole business. Luther decided that they would have a booth at the local fair. He put Goddard in charge.
“At last! I can have some fun!” Goddard planned a hoopla, and resisted any attempt to disclose his plan.
Luther arrived at the fair just in time to see the large striped canopy draped with signs. “Buy One, Get One Free.” “Fireworks!” “Open.” “Credit Cards Accepted.”
Before Luther could run to the booth and stop the foolishness, the canopy erupted with fireworks–propelled clocks whooshing sky-high.
Goddard started looking for a new job the next day…in Wisconsin.
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Behind the adventure and glamour of the frontier wars were hard political realities.
By RC
I knew that it was my “cross” to bear and so I did it – despite my feelings and the personal sacrifice. Because, behind the adventure and glamour of the frontier wars were hard political realities.
“Yes, it was war which had drawn me to the West, as it had so many young men, but all too often it was politics which shaped our lives, even the politics of war.”
So my father had written in that last letter home, and I will not give you the whole of it. He had been filled with passion and ideals at the beginning, but the “realities” of politics had driven the idealism out of him and he was left a broken shell of a man, leading a group of “things” which never appreciated his sacrifice. I say “things” but I think you know what I mean. The war to liberate them could not really make them like us. And I mentioned the “west,” but it was really all over the world in time. I wrote about it in many volumes, which I later carried to the sea, letting the waves carry it away. That was my cross to bear.
This was before I boarded the space ship with the remaining humans, bound for some other place in the universe, and left behind what had become the “Planet of the Apes.” Perhaps some human would come back to earth in a thousand years – but I hoped not.
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Hamilton was now touched by feelings quite new to him, by something more than sentimental concern.
By CC
Hamilton had kept the thing in a jar in his back yard for a few months, removing the lid when it rained and dropping in pieces of fruit now and then. He wasn’t sure what it was – but it wasn’t a human child. Perhaps it was a changeling? He didn’t know what the thing ate, but apparently it didn’t need much food. Hamilton didn’t really know why he kept it in a jar to begin with, just that it seemed a little precious to him when he saw it first, with its long iridescent hair and violet eyes.
The changeling was actually a hybrid, half gnome and half fairy, and had, because of this misfortune, had been banished from both camps and forced to wander the countryside alone, foraging for his survival. He was named Abrychemin Volegolai and was quite capable of lifting the lid of the jar himself and crawling out any time he pleased, and this he did every night after the misguided Hamilton went to bed. Abrychemin would slip in through a window and eat whatever he pleased from the fridge, sometimes a good leg of lamb, sometimes a container of ice cream, and once, a Caesar Salad with half a bottle of dressing. He suspected the Fairies had kicked him out not only because of his gnomish appetite but because he never gained weight on it. Yet, he thought idly. It had to happen some day. He knew that the DNA would kick in eventually.
As much as he liked the fridge, the sad thing was, Abrychemin liked his jar equally well. It felt safe in there, and it was amazing that anyone actually wanted him.
One day while Abrychemin was dozing in his jar, Hamilton took off the lid to take a look at him. Hamilton was now touched by feelings quite new to him, by something more than sentimental concern. He thought, I’ll set it free, and if it loves me, it will come back. So he left the lid off the jar and set a small ladder against his garden fence.
The next day he found Abrychemin sitting on the ladder, swinging his tiny little feet to and fro. Hamilton sat down on the ground next to the ladder and said, gently, “Aren’t you the most precious little thing! Am I feeding you enough?”
“Glad you asked,” replied the little creature. “Let’s have a proper lunch for a change.”
After lunch, Hamilton made up a little bed for Abrychemin on the sofa. Hamilton left the ladder up by the fence to reassure him of his independence, but the next day Hamilton found the ladder carefully placed behind the shed.
