Marian Allen's Blog, page 363

17 The Cat In The Canaries @StoryADayMay

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Katya Greymalkin here.

Mom tricked me into giving her an idea for today’s story. If you’ve been following Mom’s Story A Day May posts, you know she’s been trying to talk me into doing her stories for her on Saturdays, since I post for her on ordinary Caturdays.

Today, I said, “If you don’t stop teasing me about it, I’m going to … run away from home!” (I wouldn’t, of course, but that’s what I said to her this morning.)

And she said, “Aha!” and wrote this story.

The Cat In The Canaries

by Marian Allen

One day, a long-suffering cat named Katya decided her human needed to be taught a lesson, so she (Katya) ran away from home.

She took nothing but the fur on her body, trusting to her instinct and her wits to provide everything she needed. She was also extraordinarily good-looking, which didn’t hurt.

The expressway was within easy walking distance of the house, and Katya reached it without trouble or incident. A motorist who had pulled over to take a call on his cell phone (for, of course, no one would be silly enough to try to drive and talk on the phone at the same time) saw her and fell under her spell. When she hopped into his car through the open window, he allowed her to curl up in the passenger seat and ride with him to the next big town. Traffic slowed to a crawl near an airport; with a meow of thanks, Katya jumped out of the car and cat-footed to nearest terminal building.

After scanning the destinations on the board, Katya narrowed her choices down to two: Sardinia or The Canary Islands. She borrowed a quarter from a newspaper vendor, flipped it, and it was settled.

Levitating onto the appropriate counter, she said, “I’d like a one-way ticket to Tenerife, please.”

“What are you paying with? Your good looks?”

“Yes.”

“Here’s your ticket,” said the ticket seller. “And here’s your change. Have a nice flight.”

Katya’s only problem on the trip was the difficulty of avoiding being petted, but she tucked herself under a seat in the first-class section and only came out to feast on the salmon and pate de fois gras the flight attendant put down for her.

At last, the plane landed.

The attendant requested the other passengers wait until Katya had disembarked, which they were happy to do.

“Welcome to the Canaries,” the attendant said, as Katya passed her with a jaunty ear-flick. “Enjoy your stay on Tenerife.”

But she didn’t.

Before she left the terminal, she heard someone reading from a cell phone guidebook, which said that the name “Canary Islands” came from the Latin for dog, because the first Europeans who landed on the islands found large, fierce dogs there. The tasty little birds were named “canaries” because they came from The Canary Islands, that was true, but the islands were named after dogs, not birds!

Katya used her large green sparkling eyes to enchant a fellow tourist into letting her use his cell phone to call her Mom.

“I want to come ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-m!”

“I miss you so much,” wailed Katya’s mom. “I just bought you a ticket on the next flight out.”

“First class?”

“What else? Nothing is too good for my kitty-kitty-Katya.”

So they were reunited, and never quarreled again.

~ * ~

Note to Mom: Flattery won’t work, either.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: If you ran away from home, where would you go? Where would you wish to go?

KG

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16 Sleeping With Raymond Chandler @StoryADayMay

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I’ve been sleeping with Raymond Chandler for some years, now. That’s what I call my sleep apnea bi-PAP machine. I even bought a silver-tone charm shaped like a book with “Raymond Chandler” on it, which I attached to my machine’s carrying case for easy identification in any possible luggage jumble.

I’m sorry today’s “story” is so lame; that’s the way random prompts and daily stories go sometimes.

Sleeping With Raymond Chandler

by Marian Allen

It was about ten o’clock at night, sometime in October, with the moon shining and a look of hard wet rain on the fallen leaves. I was wearing my monkey pajamas and fuzzy pink argyle-patterned bed socks. I was ready for a big sleep, and I didn’t care who knew it.

I hadn’t been sleeping well, waking up snoring, or with my heart beating hard enough to break a rib from the inside. It didn’t make for sweet dreams.

I had been to the sawbones. “Sleep apnea,” he said, which turned out to be sawbones lingo for waking up snoring or with your heart committing battery on your ribs. For this, I paid him a ten-spot.

He sent me to a sleep lab where they wired me up like I should have been sitting in a metal chair instead of lying on a mattress. They strapped a mask on me that took me back to those fallout shelter drills everybody used to have, gas masks and survival crackers and that strange new item: water in a sealed bottle.

I slept like a baby on Benadryl.

So here I was, a machine next to my bed that cost more than my mother’s first car, crawling under the covers, ready for another three-way wrestling match between me, Old Man Morphius, and sudden apnea death.

I strapped on the mask. I switched on the machine. Air pushed into my mouth and nose, like spring breeze.

The next thing I knew, it was morning. It was like being clubbed unconscious, without the headache.

I named the machine Raymond Chandler, because he created The Big Sleep. I would never sleep without Raymond Chandler again.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character has trouble sleeping. Why? What does he/she do about it? Does it work? Or does something else happen as a result of the attempt?

MA

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15 The Souls Of Bees @StoryADayMay

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I’m sure the souls of bees go to heaven — assuming there is a heaven. Nothing people as love as much as beekeepers love bees could do any less.

I apologize to my apiphobic friends, but this was my random prompt. No actual photo of actual bees, so maybe it won’t be so bad.

The Souls Of Bees

by Marian Allen

“Good thing, heaven is infinite,” said the beekeeper angel.

“Why?” Its assistant, a human soul, handed the angel a honey-packed frame and slipped an empty one into its place. “I mean, I agree, but why do you say it now, specifically?”

The assistant had kept bees on earth and could imagine nothing more heavenly in eternity than tending bees without wearing a protective suit, calming the bees with smoke, or fearing stings.

“Think about it,” said the angel.

Eternity was a good time/space for thought, but this particular consideration didn’t take long.

“Because worker bees don’t live long, and a bee dies when it stings, so there are a lot of them.”

“Bingo!” said the angel.

“How many hives are there?”

“As many as there are souls like you.”

“Are there enough of us?”

“There are exactly as many as there are souls like you. Always. Exactly that many.”

The assistant almost asked how that was possible, but it remembered where it was and didn’t.

Angel and soul worked in happy peace until all the filled frames were in the carrying case and all the empty frames were in the hive. Sunlight and flowers and the smells of flowers and honey surrounded them. Bees buzzed with contentment.

The soul chuckled. “I’m still not used to it. It’s still odd to see the workers loafing around and the queens gathering nectar and making the honey.”

“This is a funny place,” said the angel. “The last shall be first and the first shall be last. We laugh about it a lot.”

They took the frames in to extract the stored sweetness from the happiness of the bees of heaven.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write something positive about something people fear.

MA

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14 Marked For Life @StoryADayMay

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Marked For Life

by Marian Allen

“Don’t bother.” The old turtle kept one hand on the pushbroom and scratched the edge of his shell with the other. “Ain’t no need.”

Oliver felt like slamming out of the empty bar, the way he’d slammed out of the other places he’d applied – or tried to apply – and been turned down. But there was something different in this old guy’s face, a sadness and a kindness that made the young raccoon want to talk, instead.

“It’s the mask,” he said. “People see a raccoon, and they think, ‘thief.’ I can’t help the mask, you know. I can’t just take it off, any more than you can just take off that shell.”

“I know,” said the old turtle. “Nobody knows better than I do. So you never been in trouble with the law? Never stole? Ever?”

Oliver couldn’t meet the old guy’s eyes. He’d been a lot of things, but he’d never been a liar. Never wanted to be.

“I stole plenty,” he said, defiantly. “Broke into trash cans, barns, storage containers, you name it. Went through a cat flap, right into a kitchen, climbed up a cabinet, and cleaned out a cookie jar.”

“That what you get busted for?”

Oliver, startled, snapped his full attention back to his questioner. “How’d you know?”

“I can tell by the way you talk you ain’t from around here. They boxed you up, drove you a long ways, and let you out where you don’t know nobody and you don’t know the territory. But you’re lucky, and you stay alive and you learn how to get along in the new place.”

“How long ago did it happen to you?” Oliver was dangerously close to relaxing his guard, having finally met someone who not only cared but understood.

“Long time,” the old turtle said. “Long time.” He pushed at the broom a couple of times, then said, “I’m ’bout to lock up for the night. If you’re here at sundown tomorrow, you got a job. I’m too old to dance with this broom.”

“You’ll put in a good word for me with the boss?”

“I am the boss, son.”

The next night, Oliver heard the click of glasses and the rumble of conversation from his post in the kitchen, not from the windy, lonely dampness of the outside. He had never been happier than he was now, up to his elbows in soapsuds, hands busily washing glasses and tapas plates.

Not such a rotten world, after all.

~ * ~

And now, because it’s food day at the blog, here’s a tapas recipe. We like these with pasta dishes, but they’d be good for appetizers or snacks.

Garlic Cheese Toastbreadolive oilgarlic saltcheese

Cut the bread into “fingers.” Brush the pieces with olive oil and sprinkle them with garlic salt and cheese. Broil until the bread toasts and the cheese melts.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Crime, reform, kindness, lie/honesty.

MA

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13 Cows Of Contention @StoryADayMay

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Cows Of Contention

by Marian Allen

Daisy and Maisie had lived happily together on a shelf in the house for many years, but what had always been a source of entertainment had suddenly become contention.

Who knows how or why these things happen? The same words, spoken so often they had worn their meanings down into mere smears of acknowledgment, like “Hello,” “How’s it going,” or “Have a nice day,” grew points and edges.

“The lady said we’re china,” Daisy said, the familiar statement that had once been an opening to exploration now flat and tightly shut.

“She also said we have Dutch patterns painted on us; I can see them, even if you can’t: curly blue bits and windmills.”

“We’re Chinese.”

“We’re Dutch.”

“Chinese.”

“Dutch.”

What would once have become discussion, speculation, and shared wondering now turned to hostile silence.

With stamps of all four hooves, Maisie approached the edge of the shelf and peered over. She closed her eyes and jumped. She landed on the rug and fell onto her side.

Daisy struggled to her feet.

“Maisie! Maisie! Where are you? What are you doing?”

Waving her legs and rocking, helpless on her side, Daisy nevertheless shouted back, “I’m going to China to find my roots!”

Angry again, Maisie shouted back, “Oh, are you? Well, I’m going to Dutch to find my roots!” She jumped down, too.

With a dreadful clatter and a hideous hollow feeling, her lid flew off and tumbled under the couch.

“What was that?” Daisy mooed.

“Oh! Oh! The top of my back came off! The part with the tip of my tail!” Maisie sat back down and cried.

“Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, my poor Maisie! I would help you find it, but I can’t get up!”

Vibrations through the floorboards told them rescue approached: The lady was coming.

“What are you guys doing on the floor? That darned cat! Katya, stay off the curio shelves, dang it!”

Daisy whispered, “We’re curios? I thought we were cows.”

Maisie whispered back, “Maybe curio is a breed of cow. The kind made of china with Dutch paintings on them.”

The lady restored the cows to their comfortable spots, with an extra dusting and polish for good measure. She found Maisie’s lid and fitted it lovingly in place.

After their adventure, the cows were closer than ever, and took great care to keep their disagreements friendly and their differences intriguing rather than divisive.

The cat, who had never even thought about the curio shelves before, began to eye them speculatively.

But that may be another story.

~ * ~

I’m posting at Fatal Foodies today on the topic of Milk Soup.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write about friendship in crisis, or runaways, or disaster.

MA

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12 Becalmed At Sea @StoryADayMay

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The characters in “Becalmed At Sea” are from my currently out-of-print fantasyish novel, EEL’S REVERENCE. I say fantasyish because, in this book and its accompanying short stories, mermayds are natural, not fantastic. They’re each capable of producing either eggs or sperm, and they aren’t mammals, so they don’t have, you know, lady parts, so I tend to call them by male pronouns to avoid conjuring up lady-part imagery in the reader’s mind.

Becalmed At Sea

by Marian Allen

Deep below the water’s surface, the two mermayds left the current they had been following and regarded the keel of the small boat above them.

Marlin, the one with red hair, said, in the high, rapid underwater speech of the mermayds, “What’s a boat that small doing this far off shore? They must have been caught in that storm on the coast yesterday.”

Blennie, criss-crossed with puckered red scars from neck to fluke, and with eyes small, sunken, and weak, said, “Who cares?”

Marlin joggled Blennie’s elbow. “You care. Let’s go see if they need help.”

“I thought we were in a hurry for the gathering.”

“So let’s hurry.” Marlin shoved at the water with his long, powerful tail. When he saw his companion hadn’t moved, he looked back.

Blennie hugged his own damaged chest and called, “Stay out of harpoon range.”

Marlin returned – safely – and reported, “I was right. They were heading up the coast when that storm blew out and grabbed them. If we can get them a wee bit east, they can catch the evening exhalation and make land. Maybe not where they really meant to land, but land.”

“Their problem is not our problem.”

Marlin didn’t argue. He had raised more tads than most mermayds, and knew better than to try to reason with that sullen obstinacy. Not that Marlin’s friend was a tad, but the mistreatment Blennie had suffered at the hands of two landwalkers had turned him in on himself.

“I’m going to see if enough of the others will help turn and tow the boat,” Marlin said. “I’d like it if you stayed here so we can find it without getting cricks in our necks from looking up for it. Or you can come along and stay at the gathering once we get there.”

Blennie wanted to leave the boat’s occupants behind and forget they existed, but Marlin had taken him in after the … incident, and deserved better.

“I’ll stay,” he said.

“I’ll be quick.” Before the last echoes of his words had faded from Blennie’s ears, Marlin was out of sight.

Blennie floated in place, flicking a webbed hand or a fluke now and then to counteract a pressure fluctuation.

After one such correction, a realization akin to joy flooded him: He could follow Marlin and tell him a breeze had come up and the boat had sailed away. By the time the gathering was over, the humans would all be dead.

He imagined the two-tails, sunscorched and desiccated, all their juices sucked dry by the treacherous air.

He shuddered in horror and shame. Only two landwalkers had hurt him. Others had rescued him, and still others had given him safe passage back to the sea. Still, those two weren’t alone in their hatefulness.

Before he could decide what to do, much sooner than he expected, Marlin returned with six others, all former nurselings of Marlin’s.

“They were coming out to meet us,” he said, and Blennie knew, whether Marlin did or not, that it wasn’t Blennie they were coming out to meet.

He still refused to help, but the seven easily turned the boat and towed it to where it picked up a breeze it could tack into and ride to safety.

Marlin and his nurshen surrounded Blennie when they returned, included him, swept him along with them to the gathering, gracing him with all the marks and behaviors that said he was equal family.

Blennie hoped Marlin didn’t suspect the temptation he hadn’t resisted but only outlasted. It wouldn’t have surprised him, though, to learn that hope was vain.

~ * ~

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Sailing, boat, fishing, revenge, the sea.

MA

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11 Nurture Day for Holly @StoryADayMay #SampleSunday

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Not everyone has children, and not everyone is blessed to have Mom with them, but everybody was either nurtured by someone or can choose to be a nurturer. So Happy Nurture Day to everybody!

Nurture Day for Holly

by Marian Allen

It was Head Librarian Holly Jahangiri’s first Nurture Day as director and house mother of the Council City Living Library. Her predecessor had retired a scant two daybatches ago, taking with her all the “#1 Librarian” mugs the books had given her over the years.

So now, Holly stood gazing with some surprise at her desk which was festooned with bright paper streamers and inflated pratty bladders painted with “Happy Nurture Day!”; a package on the desk looked much too tall and lumpy to be a mug.

“SURPRISE!” Voices bombarded her from every side, as the living books jumped or sprang or, in a couple of cases, fell from their hiding places.

“Open it open it open it!” This was said, Holly wasn’t surprised to note, the abridged War And Peace; he was always in a hurry to get through things.

She undid the wrapping and still didn’t know what it was: Two spotty animals, with disproportionately long legs and necks stood side by side, their necks gracefully curved around to look over one another’s shoulders. One of them had a pink and white ribbon tied around its neck.

“It was African Adventure‘s idea,” said War and Peace. “And A Clockwork Orange carved it.”

“Yes,” said Holly. “I recognize his work.”

African Adventure said, proudly, “They’re lions. That’s a kind of African animal.”

“I added the ribbon, myself,” said Mrs. Dalloway. “That’s how you can tell them apart.”

“It’s lovely,” said Holly, touched, not for the first time, by the affection that grew between living books and their caretaker. “I’ll never forget this day. And, no matter how many books from how many planets I may read in my life, you lot will always have a special drawer in the file cabinet of my heart.”

Then they all had cake.

~ * ~

The real reason there’s a ribbon around the neck of one is that my #3 stepdaughter accidentally knocked the statue off its table and the neck broke off. Then she glued it back rather crookedly before I got home and, when I noticed the break, blamed it on her #2 son. Naturally, I discovered what had really happened, because I always do, whether I want to or not. I tied the ribbon on because I love her anyway.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write about someone who helped you to grow.

MA

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10 Nurture Day for Holly @StoryADayMay #SampleSunday

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Not everyone has children, and not everyone is blessed to have Mom with them, but everybody was either nurtured by someone or can choose to be a nurturer. So Happy Nurture Day to everybody!

Nurture Day for Holly

by Marian Allen

It was Head Librarian Holly Jahangiri’s first Nurture Day as director and house mother of the Council City Living Library. Her predecessor had retired a scant two daybatches ago, taking with her all the “#1 Librarian” mugs the books had given her over the years.

So now, Holly stood gazing with some surprise at her desk which was festooned with bright paper streamers and inflated pratty bladders painted with “Happy Nurture Day!”; a package on the desk looked much too tall and lumpy to be a mug.

“SURPRISE!” Voices bombarded her from every side, as the living books jumped or sprang or, in a couple of cases, fell from their hiding places.

“Open it open it open it!” This was said, Holly wasn’t surprised to note, the abridged War And Peace; he was always in a hurry to get through things.

She undid the wrapping and still didn’t know what it was: Two spotty animals, with disproportionately long legs and necks stood side by side, their necks gracefully curved around to look over one another’s shoulders. One of them had a pink and white ribbon tied around its neck.

“It was African Adventure‘s idea,” said War and Peace. “And A Clockwork Orange carved it.”

“Yes,” said Holly. “I recognize his work.”

African Adventure said, proudly, “They’re lions. That’s a kind of African animal.”

“I added the ribbon, myself,” said Mrs. Dalloway. “That’s how you can tell them apart.”

“It’s lovely,” said Holly, touched, not for the first time, by the affection that grew between living books and their caretaker. “I’ll never forget this day. And, no matter how many books from how many planets I may read in my life, you lot will always have a special drawer in the file cabinet of my heart.”

Then they all had cake.

~ * ~

The real reason there’s a ribbon around the neck of one is that my #3 stepdaughter accidentally knocked the statue off its table and the neck broke off. Then she glued it back rather crookedly before I got home and, when I noticed the break, blamed it on her #2 son. Naturally, I discovered what had really happened, because I always do, whether I want to or not. I tied the ribbon on because I love her anyway.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write about someone who helped you to grow.

MA

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10 Katya and the Lagomorph @StoryADayMay

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Katya Graymalkin here.

I don’t know why Mom is being so testy this year. Last year, she wrote very nice stories for Caturday and never nagged me to do it for her. Maybe it’s because she’s been line-editing an omnibus edition of the SAGE trilogy; line-editing always makes her testy. Here’s what she came up with today.

Katya and the Lagomorph

by Marian Allen

One day, a selfish and lazy cat named Katya went walking in the woods. She liked to catch chipmunks and bite off their tails, telling them, “Chip and Dale don’t have long tails, do they? If you want to be in a Disney cartoon, you have to have a cute, stubby tail.” Then she would leave the tails on the back porch so her Mom would think she was keeping the place free of critters.

Today, the chipmunks (the ones who still had their tails) were off doing something chipmunky, and the short-tailed ones were in Hollywood, auditioning for Disney.

Katya rounded a corner of the woodland trail and found herself face-to-face with a rabbit. The rabbit walked on her hind legs and wore a paw-length dress (hind paws, that is).

“Well, well, well,” said Katya. “What kind of rodent are you?”

“I’m not a rodent,” said the rabbit. “Rabbits are lagomorphs.” She bopped Katya on the head with her purse.

“Ow! Mom told me,” Katya said, rubbing her head, “but I thought she was making it up. Doesn’t matter. How would you like to audition for Disney?”

“Disney-schmisney,” said the lagomorph. “I’m busy.” She bopped Katya again.

“Ow! Stop doing that!”

“Get out of my way, then. I don’t have time to stand around resisting the insincere blandishments of counterfeit talent-scouts.”

Katya, who was selfish and lazy but no fool, ducked the next blow and moved off the woodland path.

The lagomorph disappeared around the bend in the path.

From that day on, Katya always gave woodland critters a wide berth, and the rabbit in the dress continued her regular occupation of scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head.

THE END

Katya again: In case you don’t know, that is So. Not. True.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: A brave and clever animal (you) meets an animal who doesn’t fight fair (not you).

KG

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9 Roustabout @StoryADayMay

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Roustabout is written in memory of an animal I only “met” over the internet. He was a sweetie. The carousel is actually mine, made by my mother to her own design. It used to be fancier, but the grandkids loved it so much all the decorations have fallen off. We used to have mice, and I could hear them running in their wheel long after they had passed away and the wheel was gone; the “sound” gave me a great feeling of contentment.

Roustabout

by Marian Allen

Humphrey was a rat. This isn’t meant in the pejorative sense; Humphrey was an actual, literal rat, with a long pink tail, a whiffley nose, bright black eyes, jazz hands, and everything.

Two other things were actual and literal about him: He was late (as in “shuffled off this mortal coil”) and he was bored.

At first, it had been great to be late. Rats have lamentably short life spans, so Humphrey’s memories, while lovely, were relatively few. Paradise was … well, paradisical, but it just wasn’t Humphrey’s idea of a good time. It just wasn’t.

One night, in the bar, over a foaming mug of raisin juice, Humphrey spilled his lament to a fellow patron.

“Go back, then,” his confidant said.

Humphrey brightened. “Can I? May I?”

“Sure! Nothing simpler. Dive off a cloud and bing bam boom you’re wherever you most want to be.”

“Really?”

“Seen it happen many times.”

“You done it?”

“Not me, mate. I like it here.”

“To each his own,” said Humphrey, in the ritual that followed souls even into the afterlife.

“Be a funny old world if we were all alike,” his confidant responded.

Dear, innocent Humphrey knew no better than to take the advice of someone he met in a bar. Luckily for him, this particular advice was good.

Humphrey dove off a cloud and bing bang boom he was back in the home of his late human. It was the middle of the night, perfect for poking about.

But where was the rat cage? Where was the flannel he used to curl up in? Where was the familiar smell of clean rattiness that only the nose of a rat could detect? And what was the smell of clean something-elsiness that his sensitive whiffley nose picked up now?

Two black forms crept out of the night, patches of white glowing on one of them. They were much larger than Humphrey, and their noses were shorter, and they had weird, hairy tales.

“Wh-what are you?” Humphrey asked.

“We’re cats,” said the totally black one. “Thomas and T.C. What are you?”

“I’m a late rat. Humphrey.”

“Humphrey?” The one with white on him said. “Get away, not really? Andrea’s Humphrey? Pull the other one; it’s got bells on.”

Humphrey was flooded with joy. “You know about me?”

That was enough to make the cats laugh, which Humphrey took in the affirmative. He smiled a sweetly ratty smile.

But, it turned out, the cats were bored at night. Andrea, otherwise perfect as she was, slept the entire night away, and got cross when the cats woke her up to have fun.

“Wait here,” said Humphrey. “I’ll be right back.”

He popped back to the bar to consult his new friend.

“Nothing simpler,” said his resource. “Tell ‘em to pop out o’ them bodies and they can play without breakin’ nothin’.” Then he added, in the cryptic code Americans found so puzzling, “Bob’s yer uncle.”

Humphrey jumped back to Earth and reported his finding.

The cats looked at one another and, in the same breath, said, “Carousel!”

Andrea had a beautiful, hand-made stained-glass carousel music box she absolutely forbade the cats to play with, although it fascinated them. It had four figures on it: a black horse running all-out, a rocking horse, a unicorn, and a pegasus.

Now, with Humphrey’s muscular little soul’s help, they wound it up and, after a bit of good-natured squabbling over who got to ride what, the three animal’s spirits jumped on and rode, over and over, to their hearts’ content.

This was only one of the delights Humphrey brought with him.

Andrea could never figure out why small things were moved in the morning but nothing was ever broken, but she knew the cats slept a lot during the day, and she knew she felt unaccountably, peacefully, furrily happy.

~ * ~

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Carousel, horse, unicorn, rocking horse, pegasus, pets, the afterlife.

MA

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