Marian Allen's Blog, page 398

#Caturday Katya’s First Post

Copyright 2013 by Andrea Gilbey

Mom FINALLY added me as a contributor. And she calls me lazy! I’m not lazy, I’m a cat. What’s her excuse?

Don’t get me wrong: I love Mom. I love her a lot! But sometimes I have to tell her about a hundred times that I ate some of my food and I want her to fill the bowl back up to the top. And sometimes I have to pretend I think Charlie’s (he doesn’t want me to call him Dad) sawdust pile is a litterbox before Mom will clean my real one. Yuck!

Before I forget: Mom wants me to remind you that this is the first of the month, so she has a new Hot Flash on the Hot Flashes page. So go read that and then come back here.

Mom just finished the Story A Day in May challenge. Her friend Andrea Gilbey from way over in England made her the badge at the top of this post. See the cat, just about right in the center, where cats ought to be? Andrea has pet rats, and sometimes I worry that Mom will shave my tail so she can be more like Miss Andrea!

I liked it that Mom still made it be Caturday on Saturdays by posting stories about cats. She also made friends with two terrific cat bloggers, Mr. Nikita and Elvira Mistress of Felinity. I think it was because their Daddy Kiril lets them have their own blog that made her realize I ought to do Caturday at least SOME of the time!

Here is the blog of Mr. Nikita and Miss Elvira:

The Opinionated Pussycat

Mom also ran across this blog we both like, even though it’s mostly about dogs. Miranda is a greyhound who got rescued twice and now has cancer, and her Mom blogs about how she’s doing, about Matilda’s brother, Kes, and their sister, Livvy, and about therapy dogs and rescue dogs. (Cats, too!) Their web site is:

Matilda’s Journey

Mom says if I write any more, people will get tired and stop reading. Get tired? Of a cat? I think not.

But I’m getting bored, so I’m going to go do something else. Bye-ee!

PROMPT FOR CATS: Write about when you first found out some cats don’t have a forever home.

KG

31 @StoryADayMay The One and Only

At larst! I can’t believe I’ve done it. A flash fiction story every day for 31 days. I never expected to finish the challenge, I just expected to have fun with it and to do more writing than if I hadn’t made the attempt. But I did the deed, and I met some wonderful writers and made some new internet friends along the way.

As Rex Stout’s armchair detective, Nero Wolfe, would say, “Satisfactory.”

My husband says today’s story should be, “Vini, vidi, vici,” which is what Caesar said when he successfully invaded Britain. It’s Latin (naturally) for “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

But here is what I actually wrote this morning:

The One and Only

by Marian Allen

I never thought I’d ever get to actually see Rani Barlow in person. Never thought I’d get to talk to her on Skype or text with her or email her, or she’d read my blog every day. Never thought we’d be best friends. But it happened.

Of course, you know how they say, “I wouldn’t talk to you if you were the last man on earth”? Pretty much it.

The scientists kept telling us to stay calm and wash our hands frequently and avoid crowds and don’t travel, but whatever it was that everybody was calling The Plague just kept spreading.

Every day, we expected them to come up with a vaccine or a cure or something, but they never did. This time, they never did.

At first, I hardly noticed the difference. I spend most of my time in my room, anyway, telecommuting to my job, playing online games, video chatting – you know, an active professional and personal life.

I didn’t know the company folded until the direct deposits stopped. The banks closed not long after that. Players dropped out of the multi-player games until it was just me against the program, and then the program stopped running. People stopped answering when I paged them. It was weird, going to my social networks and seeing the activity streams just sit there, with no updates ticking by.

I switched from looking at people I knew to global view, and was kind of relieved to see that other people were still around.

Not, you know, around around, but alive. The ones who could speak English and I were happy to connect, but every day we lost more of our new network than we added.

Then there was just me.

Maybe they weren’t dead. Maybe their part of the power grid just went down and they didn’t know what to do about it. That happened to me, after a while.

So I took whatever electronics and batteries I could fit in my backpack and picked a car and started driving, looking for signs of life.

Food wasn’t a problem. When I got hungry or thirsty, I raided a grocery store. I broke into diners and made coffee every morning. I kind of had to go practically vegetarian, because meat and dairy don’t last long without refrigeration, although I did have canned meat, and of course that orange cheesy stuff that comes in the big blocks – that lasts forever.

I checked the net every day, and I updated my blog every day. My visitor count was, like, zero, but I kept on, hoping somebody would find me.

And she did. She left the first comment my blog had had for months. I was like, OMG! Rani Barlow? Are you punkin’ me? Really? Really? Because I am such a fanboy!

She was really nice! She gave me her contact info, and I called and we Skyped. I was actually, really, literally talking face-to-face with Rani frickin’ Barlow!

When she gave me her address and asked me to come out there, I couldn’t believe it. She said she’d rather come meet me halfway so we could see each other sooner (!!), but she was taking care of her mom and some other people (I told you she was nice!) and she couldn’t leave them.

So I headed out there, gassing up the car when I found a pump that worked, switching to another car that still had gas when I didn’t have any luck with gassing up what I was driving.

Every day, I updated my blog about my adventures, just for Rani. Every day, we talked when she wasn’t taking care of her sick people. Every day, she looked sadder and more stressed out, and cried when we talked because her mom or somebody else had died.

I was within a day’s drive when she stopped answering my calls. Instead of breaking into a motel room for the night, I decided to push on and see my movie star friend as soon as possible.

She told me the last time we talked to just walk into the house, that the door was unlocked, so I did. The smell really took me back in time. It had been so long since I’d smelled fresh death, I got kind of nostalgic, if that makes any sense. It was almost like having people around, you know?

I went looking for the room Rani had Skyped me from, and I found it. And I found her.

I hadn’t missed her by much. She was stretched out on a couch, and she almost looked like she was asleep, except that her beautiful violet eyes were open. And, honestly, they weren’t very beautiful anymore.

So I was alone again. But at least I got to see Rani Barlow in person, sort of.

Scratch that off my Bucket List.

~ * ~

Tomorrow is the first of the new month, so I’ll have a new Hot Flash (micro-mini flash story) on my Hot Flashes page, and Katya has promised to make her first post. The next day is Sample Sunday, and I’ll have a slew of exciting (to me) announcements.

MY WRITING PROMPT FOR TODAY: 1 and write about the time the Internet introduced you to someone.

MA

30 @StoryADayMay Extraordinary

I’m getting punchy; I admit it. Today’s story is based on the comments of new blog reader Pete Laberge, the influence my Steampunk-writing pal Katina French, and author/pirate Ted Mark Crim, who laments that he doesn’t have his own Alan Shore. And, pursuant to that last thought, of course this story is heavily inspired by one of my favorite shows of all time, BOSTON LEGAL, starring the incomparable William Shatner.

Mr. Shatner, by the way, will be at Fandom Fest in Louisville this year, as will I (I’ll be part of the Literary Track, not one of the Big Names).

Extraordinary

by Marian Allen

They had picked up the notion from a series of science fiction stories and had given it their own unique twist. Now, the very sight of a man in a frock coat and a feather boa caused felons to disengage from their employment and slip into the shadows.

The League of Complicated Gentlemen could have been a cadre of Evil Genii (plural for genius, in case you don’t know), were it not for the leadership of their founders, Denny Crim and Pete LaShore.

As Denny had said, whilst choosing his first boa, “Outlay versus income.” His eyes unfocused as he repeated, “Outlay. Income. Outlay. Income.”

“We’re talking about money, Denny,” Pete reminded him.

Dreamily, Denny said, “How much?”

Pete snapped his fingers in front of Denny’s face. “Why aren’t we trying to take over the world?”

“Not cost effective. Setting up lairs, paying henchmen – excuse me, henchpeople – parts for fiendish devices, getaway airships, and so on and so forth. Countless failures. Bribes. And then what? Suppose you succeed? What have you got?”

“The world?”

“Yes, but what do you do with the damn thing? If you own it, you can’t buy anything. It’s yours!”

Pete conceded the point.

Denny chose a green boa (“The color of money.”) and Pete chose royal blue.

They had just paid for their purchases when the door opened and a man slipped in. He wore black trousers, a horizontally striped black-and-white jersey, a black cap and a black mask. In his hand, he carried a bag marked SWAG.

“That man is up to no good,” said Denny. “I have a feeling.”

Pete raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

The man reached into his bag and withdrew a repeating pistol.

“What did I tell you?”

“Denny, when you’re right, you’re right.”

The criminal brandished his pistol, as criminals do, and shouted, “Hands in the air! This is a stick-up! When I have stolen sufficient funds, I will – dare I say it? – TAKE OVER THE WORLD!”

“Excuse me,” said Denny, “but what will you do with it?”

“Silence, future minion!”

Denny held out his recent purchase. “Do you like this boa?”

“Seek not to buy your safety with baubles!”

“No, does it make me look fat?”

“Are you mad?”

“Well, maybe just a touch of the Mad Cow, but I’m basically sound.”

While the miscreant was thus distracted, Pete formed his own boa into a loop, cast it over the villain’s head, and pulled.

“Gack!”

Denny drew a repeating pistol of his own and fired. A flower of red blossomed on the right-hand side of the striped jersey.

“I’m shot!”

“We can see that, Captain Obvious,” said Denny.

“How did you know my secret identity? Curse you! I am foiled!”

Pete, happy to see that the shop had one of the new telephonic devices, dialed the constabulary.

Before they could arrive, Pete retrieved his boa and trussed the malefactor with more of the shop’s stock (with, of course, the shopkeeper’s adoring consent). He and Denny left, not needing to be celebrated for their quick-thinking heroism.

That evening, as they sat on Denny’s balcony smoking cigars and drinking strong whiskey, their boas rippling in the light breeze, Denny said, “That was fun. We ought to do that all the time.”

“Shoot people?”

“Well, yes, but I meant foil crime. We could open an agency, form a firm.”

“A firm what?” This was not a question to ask Denny, for his eyes unfocused again.

“An agency to fight crime,” said Pete, bringing the conversation back on point. “I like it. We could call it,” he waved his cigar, “The League of Complicated Gentlemen.”

“Denny Crim’s League of Complicated Gentlemen?”

“No, Denny.”

“But I’m the leader, right? Because I shot the first bad guy.”

“You’re the leader, Denny.”

“Because I shot the guy.”

“You did.”

Denny considered. “I like it. It’s better than ruling the world. Less paperwork.”

The rest is history.

~ * ~

MY WRITING PROMPT TODAY: 2, Crane — Denny Crane — Who’s yer daddy?

MA

29 @StoryADayMay #recipe Dinner For Three

Food day at the blog, so today’s story has food in it. The countdown number today is three, so I had to think of a three thing.

The first thing I thought of was the three blind mice having their tails cut off with a carving knife, but I couldn’t find a recipe for mouse-tail anything. I suppose I could have come up with one, but I couldn’t find a recommendation for the proper wine to serve with it, so I discarded that idea.

Here’s what I ended up with. I’ve attempted to write it in British, which is my second language (my first is American). I hope I haven’t made too many mistakes in translation.

Dinner For Three

by Marian Allen

So me and Mimsy and Flora was having a kind of a cook-out. We was on the long hols and decided to camp in the woods behind the house. Mum didn’t fancy it, because she said some psycho tramp could come do us proper, so we said we’d just like have the afternoon and do a Girl Guides supper and be in before dark.

We dug a bit of a trench and built a fire in it (Mimsy’s dead good at that) and put a tin pot of water over it. When it was nearly on the boil, we dipped some out for tea and started the stew.

Mum had contributed the ingredients. She’s a good old girl, really. We’d cleaned everything and cut it into cubes and bagged it, and bagged a bit of salt and marjoram and that, and carried it out in an insulated bag. Now we took turns putting stuff in.

We pretended it was gross stuff we’d foraged and all, but it was really beef and onions and potatoes, with salt and pepper and marjoram and a bay leaf. We put it in a bit at a time, so the pot didn’t lose the boil.

Then we settled back and did a send-up of this fat bird at school who’d pissed Flora off.

The stew was just beginning to smell like food when these two old blokes staggered out of the woods.

“Cor,” I said, “drunk at their age!”

They looked like they’d been in a fight, too.

One of them sort of pulled the other one along, like they were just taking the woods as a shortcut, but the other one tried to chat us up. Disgusting!

You never know when a drunk is going to turn ugly, though, so we played along a bit, told him he’d see better days and that.

When they were gone, I was like, “I hate to say it, but it looks like Mum was right. Let’s scarper.”

I kicked the dirt back into the fire trench and packed it down. Flora put all our bits and bobs into the carrier, and Mimsy and me put the lid on the pot and used our jackets to hold the handles as we carried it home to finish on the cooker.

We told Mum it was the insects that drove us in. If she’d known she was right and we was wrong, she’d have never let us hear the last of it.

But we never went into those woods again.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: 3, Macbeth and the three witches

MA

28 @StoryADayMay How Tortoise Got His Shell

Four days to the end. Will you be glad? In a way, I will. In a way, I won’t. I’ve had a great time pulling things out of this ragbag I call my head.

Today’s story tells how the Four Divine Animals of my trilogy, SAGE, came to be. There are probably many stories that tell this same thing in many ways, as is the way with origin stories.

If you enjoy this story, I invite you to buy the SAGE books: The Fall of Onagros, Bargain With Fate, and Silver and Iron.

How Tortoise Got His Shell

by Marian Allen

The storyteller, Farukh, from the distant land of Sule, was always welcome in the market square. He settled himself upon his pillow and began.

#

Long ago, my children, when the world was new, the Mother of Life created the Four Divine Animals. She began with Tortoise, for everyone must begin somewhere.

~He mimed shaping something with his hands, regarding it, reacting in surprise and disgust, and putting it carefully away from himself. His listeners laughed nervously, for Tortoise was a dangerous – though irresistible – figure to mock.~

The Mother had made Tortoise’s body low to the ground and soft, something like a lizard that’s lost its tail.

“I’ll put it aside,” the Mother thought, “and dispose of it later.”

Then she made Dragon.

~His mobile hands sketched a graceful shape in the air.~

She made Unicorn.

~His hands all but brought the land’s favorite figure into their presence.~

And, last of all, the magnificent Phoenix.

~He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers, and his listeners imagined flames.~

The Mother of Life was pleased with these, and turned back to Tortoise, certain she could do a better job on him now.

He was gone.

While she was distracted with better creations, Tortoise had seized his chance and slipped away.

~The audience laughed. It was such a Tortoise thing to do.~

“The Mother made me, and now she wants to destroy me,” he said to himself. “Me! Her firstborn, and the crown of all creation! We shall see about that!”

He crawled, and he crept, and he slunk, and he skulked, until he came to an armory.

Of course, he didn’t know it was an armory, for Tortoise was still very stupid.

~No one laughed at this. Indeed, many on the edge of the crowd edged further in, or cast apprehensive glances at the ground.~

Men and women came and went, fitting themselves with breastplates, choosing shields, donning helmets, testing swords. Through the open door, Tortoise watched the soldiers learning and practicing, learning and practicing. At night, he would change his shape to that of a man, outfit himself from the armory, and mimic what he had seen.

Even Tortoise can learn, if given enough time, and he became good enough to insinuate himself into the practices and learn even more.

Then, one night, The Mother of Creation found him.

“I wondered where you’d got to,” she said. “You need to come home.”

“And be tossed into the pot of Creation and made into something else? Do what you can, but I won’t come willingly!”

Tortoise returned to his original shape, with a breastplate beneath him, a shield covering his back, a helmet on his head, and knives at the end of every finger and toe.

The Mother picked up the shield, but Tortoise caused it to stick to the breastplate beneath, and there he was, encased in armor.

“Very well,” said the Mother. “Let it be as it is. Nevertheless, you are coming home.”

And so the Four Divine Animals were reunited. The others were delighted to meet their kind and charming elder brother, as you may imagine.

~This was too much, and the audience laughed until they cried.~

And, from that day to this, no one has ever seen a tortoise without its shell – unless they’re about to toss it into a pot and make it into soup.

#

Coins clinked into Farukh’s hat and his audience dispersed, off to buy what they’d come to the market place to fetch. Farukh tied the coin-heavy hat – now a full purse – at his waist, picked up his pillow, and left the town. As he rounded a bend beyond the last outlying farm, a man in black armor fell into step beside him.

“I was listening,” he said, jerking his head back toward the town.

“Were you?” The storyteller grinned, teeth bright, eyes glittering. “Did you like it?”

“As well as I like any of your witless stories. In other words, no.”

The storyteller laughed as the armored one melted into the shadows beneath the trees.

~ * ~

Today is Tuesday, so I’m at Fatal Foodies, posting today about the first fruits of the season.

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: 4

MA

27 @StoryADayMay Hand of Judgment

The countdown has begun in earnest. Five days from the end of the challenge, I see the possibility of my finishing it.

Today’s story is short — STOP CHEERING! — in tribute to my new internet friends Nikita the Cat and his sister, Elvira, Mistress of Felinity. Their daddy, Kiril Kundurazieff, helps them post 100 word cat stories on their very own blog, The Opinionated Pussycat. This month, they’ve been chronicling the adventures of Aubrey, who was stolen from his boy but escaped captivity.

In honor of Nikita, Elvira, Aubrey, and Kiril, today’s story is exactly 100 words.

Hand of Judgment

by Marian Allen

How many times had his mother’s hand smacked his young bottom? How many meals had it helped prepare, helped serve? How many times had it gripped his head, turning his face toward his plate while his mother ordered him to eat so the children in Asia wouldn’t starve?

How many letters had it written his grown self, questioning his decisions, criticizing his choices, dampening his enthusiasms?

Hospital beeps marked time as he sat beside her bed, waiting, hoping. He took the offending hand between both of his, lifted it and kissed it.

Come back, he told it. All is forgiven.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: 5

MA

26 @StoryADayMay #SampleSunday The Price of a Boa

On this, the final Sunday of Story A Day in May, we visit the childhood of the fictional Holly Jahangiri of Llannonn.

Holly appears in the short stories “By the Book” and “The Pratty Who Saved Christmuss.” The planet Llannonn also appears in FORCE OF HABIT.

Ted Mark Crim is colorful fellow of the good-with-weapons sort, co-author of The Shandahar Chronicles.

The real Holly Jahangiri can be found looking at the world from a fresh perspective.

The Price of a Boa

by Marian Allen

Juvenile Holly Jahangiri sincerely regretted hiding from her mother. If she ever got home safely, she promised herself, she would apologize and would accept any penance her mother imposed.

All she had wanted was another five minutes looking at the ships in Deep Blue Sea Harbor. Their home, Zilla Village in Meadow of Flowers Province, was inland, and they seldom visited the seaside. The sea called to Holly. Sometimes she toyed with the notion of leaving her birth demographic of Rural and joining a Wandering Tribe, perhaps one of those who went down to the sea in ships.

Now Holly was in trouble – deep water trouble! She had hidden aboard one of the ships, had fallen asleep in a lifeboat, and now she was a stowaway.

And not just any ship. A peek at the flagstaff showed the black banner with the white skull that marked the ship as a pirate vessel. If the pink bow had been on the side of the skull’s dome, Holly would have been somewhat comforted by knowing the captain was a woman, but the bow was at the skull’s throat; the captain was a man.

Oh, well, nothing to do but face the music. She crawled out of the lifeboat onto the apparently empty deck.

A heavy hand clamped onto her head and turned her around.

The hand released her.

Before her, stood the most terrifying sight of her young life: a man of heavy muscularity, in a three-cornered hat covered with bits of things. He wore a trim beard, a white blouse with puffy sleeves, a plaid skirt, knee socks, and shoes with buckles. Only two kinds of men dressed like that: men who liked to dress like Naughty Schoolgirls, and men who were very, very, very, very, good with weapons.

“Aye, look yer fill,” he said gruffly. “Captain Tedmark Crimm is who ye’r lookin’ at. And who am I lookin’ at?”

The dread pirate Tedmark Crimm! Of all the ships in all the world, she had to stow away aboard his! “J-juvenile Holly Jahangiri. I didn’t mean to steal a ride. I’m terribly sorry. I only wanted to see more of the ship.”

“That you will, Stowaway Holly Jahangiri, that you will.” He roared an order, and men and women in all manner of colorful costume swarmed around. “This is Stowaway Holly Jahangiri,” Captain Tedmark Crimm said. “Put her to work.”

And they did. They took away her Rural tunic and sash and gave her bell-bottomed trousers and a shirt of horizontal blue and white stripes. They taught her to swab the decks, trim the sails, batten the hatches, and weigh the anchor (it was very heavy).

One day, when she was in the hold, checking to make sure the pesky water sliders weren’t into the ship’s stores, she heard a tell-tale pop.

It was a sound the pirates mimicked for her often, sometimes with glee at frightening her, sometimes in deadly earnest. It was the sound, they told her, of a basehart poking a hole in a hull.

Baseharts usually lived 20,000 leagues under the sea, but sometimes, in what the sailors imagined was a coming-of-age ritual, one would surface and poke a hole in a ship for no apparent reason.

Holly ran toward the sound – and the sound of water hitting the deck – and found the hole. Seawater squirted in at an alarming rate, right onto the seabiscuits! If she ran to report, everyone’s favorite food would be ruined!

She called for help as loudly as she could and did the only thing possible. She stuck her thumb into the hole, plugging it. Again and again, she called for help, but no one could hear. Surely, her absence would be noticed! But no; everyone would assume she was working somewhere else. How long would it be? How long must she stand here like a living cork?

They came looking for her when she missed a meal.

The ship’s carpenter plugged the hole and the ship’s healer bandaged her swollen thumb.

As the healer put her gear away, the doorway darkened, filled with the sinister figure of Captain Crimm.

“Saved me ship, did you?”

“Saved the biscuits,” she answered.

He laughed, white teeth gleaming. He gestured for her to follow him on deck. There, he said to her, but loud enough for the crew to hear, “We’ve taken a vote. We’re making port at full speed. Back to Deep Blue Sea Harbor, where I think there’ll be someone waiting for you.”

“Mother!” Holly tried not to cry, but she was a very young pirate, and the fun had worn off. The fun had worn off half-way through swabbing the first deck.

Captain Crimm, Holly learned, had sent word by carrier seagull back to port as soon as she had been discovered. He was ruthless, but he didn’t want anybody’s mother to worry.

When Reformed Pirate Holly Jahangiri saw her mother standing on the dock, waving both arms and smiling and crying at once, it was all she could do not to jump in and swim to her.

Their embrace would have called for a swelling of violins, had there been an orchestra nearby.

“And,” Captain Crimm growled, “with yer mother’s permission, I present you with this.” He snapped his fingers and the ship’s quartermaster handed him something from the ship’s treasury.

It was a purple feather boa. A feather boa! Sign among her people that the wearer had accomplished something that made them a valuable member of society!

Holly’s mother nodded, beaming with pride.

“Wear it in good health,” said the captain. He touched two finger to the brim of his hat and hurried back aboard his ship, before the manly tears could fall.

And so, Juvenile Holly Jahangir earned her purple feather boa and the respect of her people. And put her new skills into practice by mopping the floor every seventh day for a season, as restitution for the worry she’d caused her mother.

It was, she thought, worth it.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: Is that a purple feather boa in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

MA

25 #StoryADayMay #Caturday The Beckoning Cat

Today’s story got odder than I expected. The fabulous Christine Campbell has been doing Story A Day, too, and she’s been all about a pint of milk, so some of that leaked over onto my story. On Facebook, somebody posted a beautiful picture of a cat that seemed to be beckoning, and the multitalented Andrea Gilbey suggested it as a prompt. So, the following:

The Beckoning Cat

by Marian Allen

Dee eased her metal walking frame through the back door and onto the porch. If she fell again, her son would put her in a Home for her own good, in spite of the CareFree Alert necklace she had to wear 24/7. Good or no good, she wanted to squeeze out as many days here as she could, the way she squeezed out every possible penny of her government check.

What she was doing now wasn’t an extravagance. Not really. She only bought milk a pint at a time, these days, but she still couldn’t use it all before it went bad. Wasting food was a sin, with so many people hungry; so she’d been taught, and so she believed.

So, when a gray-and-white tabby had begun showing up in the yard of an evening (probably a feral cat, she thought, living in the woods beyond her suburb), she had taken to leaving a bit of milk in a saucer for it. She left it up here, on the porch, on the wide shelf with her scarlet geraniums, and she propped the screen door open just wide enough for a cat to slip through.

The cat came every evening, and the milk was gone every morning. She supposed it was the cat who drank it, though her Irish grandmother, Mama Deidre, for whom she was named, used to leave a dish of milk for the fairies every night.

This evening, though, the cat stood much closer than it usually did. This evening, it stood at the bottom edge of the ramp that led from the porch door to the back walk. It placed a paw on the ramp, then lifted the paw, pads toward itself, in a human gesture of beckoning. It did it again. And again.

Dee trembled all over, a signal she recognized as her body telling her it was about to lose strength. She backed up to a chair and lowered her fragile bones into it just as her legs gave way.

This was happening more often lately. It wouldn’t be long before she’d have to make use of that long-term care policy her son had been paying for for so long.

She closed her eyes until the dizziness passed and what strength she had returned to her limbs. Back on her feet, she looked for the cat. It was exactly where it had been. It beckoned again.

Well, time was short and life was fleeting. One last adventure, be it filled with grace or horror.

Dee considered writing a note to let her son know where she’d gone in case she didn’t come back, but decided to just go.

She inched out the door and down the ramp, not wanting to end the escapade within touching distance of the house.

The cat trotted away for a few steps, then turned and motioned with its paw in that oddly human gesture.

She followed into the premature twilight of the woods, where fireflies had already risen and crickets tuned up for the night.

Moving was strangely easy now. The path beneath her walker and her feet seemed smooth yet not slippery. The cat led her to a clearing where a dozen or more other cats waited. The air shimmered, and in place of the cats stood as many small people, with wide-set eyes and pointed ears, dressed in beautiful clothes. Dee’s visitor-cat was a woman in a flowing gray dress trimmed with silver, so delicate it might have been made of cobwebs and moonlight.

One final time, she raised a hand and beckoned Dee forward. With each step, Dee became smaller and stronger, until she left the walker behind and faced the small woman eye-to-eye.

The cobweb cat spoke in a voice like honey. “Never let it be said we don’t pay our debts. Your milk has been well worth the price you paid for it.”

A woman dressed in orange and gold held a large mirror of polished silver where Dee could see herself in it. She saw her younger self: strong, with skin of peaches and cream, and hair like spun copper. Her gown was of blackberry and bittersweet trimmed in milky white.

As she joined hands with her new family, she wondered if her son would find her, cold and free, in a chair on the back porch, or if he’d find an empty house and a mystery.

That thought flickered away like one of the evening fireflies, and Dee knew only joy.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT TODAY: milk, beckoning cat

MA

24 #StoryADayMay April in Paris

Dang if’n I ain’t gone and writ a gol-durned romance this morning! This is blowing me away: I just never know what’s going to come out.

Charlie was away for lunch yesterday, so I “treated” myself to a steak, and you’d think I’d eaten an entire cow instead of a relatively small piece of one. I don’t know how lions do it. Being all-but-vegetarian has ruined my digestion.

Ah, well, life is full of these lessons and sorrows.

ANYWAY, here is today’s story:

April in Paris

by Marian Allen

The waitress, her voice husky from the Galois I’d seen her smoking earlier, said, “Madame? S’il vous plait?”

I tore myself from watching Paris pass on the other side of the cafe’s railing and looked at her. A man stood behind her.

She said, still in French, of course, “There are no more tables. May I seat the gentleman with you?”

He was squat, with receding black hair, his complexion a dusky pinkish-brown, pudgy jowls clean-shaven but dark with the heavy beard beneath the skin. He flashed me a grin when his darting eyes swept past me.

I didn’t really fancy it, but I didn’t want to put the waitress to the trouble of asking someone else. “D’accord,” I said, and was glad I had when she offered us each a white wine on the house for sharing a table.

When she had gone to fetch them, my table companion spoke to me for the first time: “Thanks. Uh, mairsee.”

A fellow American. I was tempted to continue to speak French – good French – just to enjoy his pitiful attempts at it.

He busted me, though: “Oh, you’re American.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How could you tell?”

“Your watch. American off-brand, lower mid-price range, only sold in the States, nothing you’d buy for a souvenir or get as a gift.”

I made a note to buy a new watch in the morning.

“You seem to know a lot about watches.”

At least speaking to him made his eyes rest on me instead of trying to check all of his surroundings at once.

“I’m part of the costume team at Prime Studios. I’m a detail man. We’re here on location.”

The waitress brought the small plate of bread, cheese, and fruit I’d ordered.

“Mairsee,” he said, pulling out his wallet. “I’ll get it.” He pointed to the plate, tapped the table, and pointed to himself.

The waitress told him the price for two, I translated, and he paid.

“I appreciate you letting me sit here,” he said. “God! It’s good to talk to somebody outside of work! How long you been over here?”

“A month.” An entire month of a precious three, gone. But two, two, two lovely months left to savor.

“A month? And you aren’t crazy yet? How can you stand it?”

“How can I stand Paris?”

“Everything is so … foreign.”

I took a sip of wine so I wouldn’t have to respond to that.

He lifted his own glass. “At least the booze is good.”

When the waitress brought my table-mate’s food, I locked gazes with her and asked her to package the rest of my order to take away. She apologized, and I assured her I didn’t blame her, and that I would be back many times more during my stay. She carried my plate off to await me as I left.

“What was that all about?” he asked, as if he had a right to know.

“I was expecting a call, and the waitress told me it had just come. I’ll need to take this with me and hope I can finish it later.”

“Oh. Where are you staying? Maybe we can get together while we’re both in town. Americans in Paris, yeah?”

I considered telling him I was leaving, but the heart of Paris is surprisingly small, and the odds were good our paths would cross again.

“Forgive me,” I said, “but I don’t know you. I prefer not to say.”

“Oh, right, right, sure. Smart girl. Lady. Woman. Person.” His eyes flicked about again. The fingers of one hand drummed on the table. Those of the other arranged and rearranged the silverware.

I suddenly thought of Lenore, my Parisian landlady’s sister, who had spent a year studying in California and had never stopped talking about it.

“You need a guide,” I said. “Someone fluent in French and English, who knows Paris but longs for America.”

He almost relaxed, just contemplating it. “Yeah, I do!”

“Is there a number where you can be reached?”

He pulled out a business card, pulled out a cell phone to check the number, and wrote it on the back of the card. “They gave us these when we got to the set,” he said. “Had to leave our real phones at home.”

Their “real” phones. I took the card. Lenore would love him.

Such is Paris.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT TODAY: Place, time, time of year, weather 1 loves, 1 hates

MA

23 #StoryADayMay Dealing With Djinns

My friend Kat French has a Steampunk novella coming out Real Soon Now from Echelon Press, in an anthology called ONCE UPON A CLOCKWORK TALE. Maybe that’s what inspired this, along with prompts from the website of a new internet friend.

Dawn M. Hamsher has a page on her blog, The Write Soil, of story prompts. Using a secret method of my own (today’s date), I chose one prompt from each column for today’s story.

Dealing With Djinns

by Marian Allen

Prince Massoud, son of the caliph, rubbed the lamp for the third time.

For the third time, the djinn appeared before him, this time with a sharp-toothed grin and with sparks in its deep, black eyes.

“Your final wish, O Master!”

The prince waved a hand toward the towering wall of glass beside them. “Roxana, bride of my heart, is imprisoned behind this unbreachable barrier. With your help, I have slain the sorcerer. Again with your help, I have restored my father to health and sense. Yet my soul is still dead within me while Roxana’s enchanted prison keeps us apart.”

“And your wish?”

“To rescue her.” Having dealt with the djinn’s wish fulfillments before, the prince added, “Part of the wish is that she and I both survive, whole and well.”

“And live happily ever after?” The djinn’s grin was truly terrible.

Prince Massoud nodded.

The djinn waved a hand, and a basket appeared. It was of woven wicker, large enough to hold two people. Above it rose a canvas bulb of scarlet and gold, filled with hot air from the fire pan just beneath the opening in the bulb’s bottom.

“This is my dream come to life!” Prince Massoud, eager as he was to see his bride once more, could not resist a quick inspection of the airship, which he had only seen in his imagination before this. “It does work!”

“Does it? Do you dare make the attempt? Shall I summon a commoner to test it for you as part of your wish?”

By way of answer, the prince vaulted into the basket.

The djinn laid hands on the basket’s rim, its long, pointed nails jutting toward the prince’s vitals. “My freedom?”

“My wish has not yet been granted. This airship is only the possibility of success, not the reality.”

The djinn released the basket. The airship, under the prince’s direction, rose through the crisp, clear air of the mountaintop fastness. The wall of glass slipped past as the prince rose.

At last, the wall ended! The prince pulled ropes, pulled levers, opened airlocks, and – Yes! – the steering mechanism worked as he had designed it on paper in the secrecy of his chambers! The ship turned and flew over the wall, toward the doorless glass tower where Roxana languished.

Even as the ship approached the tower, the princess appeared in the tower’s window. She jerked back out of sight, and was replaced by a ghastly white demon, a servant of the now-dead sorcerer, leaning out and aiming a crossbow at Massoud’s heart.

Massoud’s leather-and-steel armor might have stopped the worst of an ordinary arrow’s force, but a crossbow was another matter. He knew better than to expect the djinn to protect him.

In the split second it took him to calculate his best course of action, the demon shrieked and went head-first out the window.

Roxana appeared again, still holding one of the demon’s boots, she having grasped the thing’s ankles and overbalanced it.

In a moment, Roxana was beside Massoud in the basket, their arms about one another in a quick embrace.

Then she was, as before, as always, working with him as if the two were of one mind and one heart. She alone knew of his dream of flying through the air with the power of controlled fire. She had seen the plans, listened to his explanations, traced his diagrams with her slender fingers, asked questions that had strengthened his design.

Together, they swung the airship around, heading back over the wall. Below them, more of the sorcerer’s demons shot impossibly powerful crossbows, some of the arrows piercing the bottom of the basket. The princess cried out, as one of them sliced the edge of her bare foot.

Then they were over the wall.

The djinn appeared, so large it was standing on the ground but as tall as the wall of glass. Its face filled the sky.

“My freedom,” it said, voice booming, breath blowing the princess’ hair in streamers behind her. It flexed his fingers and raised one hand, razor-sharp nail pricking a tiny hole in the canvas airbag.

“When my wish is fully granted,” the prince shouted.

“Now!”

Roxana stepped forward and stood, arms crossed, and gave the djinn a Look. There was no magic in it. There was no pleading in it. There was no seduction in it. It was implacable, unyielding, irresistible.

The djinn withdrew its hands.

When the airship landed, the djinn waited, once more only a little larger than life, next to it.

“You have granted my three wishes,” said the prince.

One eye on Roxana, the djinn said, “You are still far from home, without provisions or attendants.”

“All I asked for was Roxana. You are free.”

“I will not take pity on you and send you safely home.”

“You are free.”

“I will not come to your aid, should you find yourself in danger between here and your palace.”

“And I say for the third time, ‘You are free.’”

The djinn vanished.

Roxana and Massoud indulged in a lingering embrace, gathered some wood for the airship’s fire, and went their way.

And, eventually, they lived happily ever after.

~ * ~

MY PROMPTS FOR TODAY: hot air, fingernails, glass, the clean crisp air

MA