Marian Allen's Blog, page 400

12 #StoryADayMay #SampleSunday Rustler

I suppose every day this May is sample day, since I’m doing a story every day. Still, we must maintain our pattern. Mr. Monk says so.

As I said last Sunday, I promised the real Holly Jahangiri she could be in at least one story this month. She was in last Sunday’s, and she’s in today’s. Another pattern? Time alone will tell.

Rustler

by Marian Allen

Assistant Librarian Holly Jahangiri of the planet Llannonn was glad to relax and enjoy the scenery – as far that was possible from the back of a moving pratty – and let the guide lead the way.

Copyright C. Jane Peyton
used by permission

The seven women riding between Holly and the guide were, like Holly, experienced prattywomen. It was a desire to return to their roots that had inspired these seven Living Books to volunteer for a transfer to this back-country branch. The same desire had motivated Holly to accompany them and see them safely and appropriately settled. She loved getting back to the country, where she could wear a rustic tunic instead of city clothes, and her purple feather boa wasn’t a personal hallmark, but was just something people wore.

When they reached the town, with its traditional one-and-two-floor mudbrick buildings carefully contoured to leave no edge or corner, the townsfolk greeted them with pulled forelocks and happy smiles.

Holly saw a man who could only be Branch Librarian and Living Book Shane standing in front of a long, two-floor building. He was dressed appropriately for his Terran text, in what people from Earth called shirt-and-trousers. When she had dismounted and got close enough to greet him, she could see the material was of Llannonninn make, carefully detailed to resemble Terran denim and flannel.

Clever.

Another man stood next to him, a dart gun strapped to his side. The darts were undoubtedly loaded with a subcutaneous placator, a sad necessity in these somewhat lawless regions.

Shane introduced the man as Sheriff L. T. Tehxxann.

The guide unloaded the pack pratties and gathered all the beasts’ reins. “I’ll take these to corral,” he said to Holly, pulling his forelock in respect.

“Okay. Then come join us.”

The Dahzh City Living Library was only a set of rooms set aside for that purpose by the town’s largest hotel. Branch Librarian and Living Book Shane led Holly and her group into the hotel bar, where they could sit on something that didn’t move.

“I was getting worried,” he said. “We’ve had some trouble with pratty rustlers the past couple of days. Not likely they’d have the guts to tangle with a librarian, but you never know with fellers like that.”

Holly and the new books met the settled volumes and moved their luggage into their chosen rooms on the upper floor. She was relieved to find the facilities were clean, airy, and well-appointed. She would never have left Living Books in a library that fell short of the high standards Head Librarian Devra Langsam of Council City had taught her.

The squeal and blatt of an enraged pratty rent the air.

Branch Librarian and Living Book Shane bolted across the hall and down the stairs, Assistant Librarian Holly Jahangiri at his heels.

By the time they reached the corral, it was nearly empty. Only Holly’s and Shane’s pratties were left, the lingering redness in their pupils and the scraps of cloth between their teeth testifying to the refusal of librarians’ things to be stolen. The “guide” was nowhere to be found, but the cloth in the pratties’ mouths were identifiably from his tunic.

Sheriff L. T. Tehxxann lay on the ground, shot with his own subcutaneous placator, snoring gently.

“Take care of him,” the branch librarian said, swinging onto his mount. “I’m going after that thieving varmint. We know who he is, now, and he knows it. By the time I catch up to him, he’ll be so worried he’ll probably be on his way back to confess.”

Several of the Books lifted the sheriff and carried him into the hotel. Holly calmed her pratty and watched the branch librarian ride off into the sunset.

“Don’t worry,” she told her pratty, who didn’t actually seem all that worried. “He’ll be back.”

~ * ~

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

MY PROMPT TODAY: rough country

MA

11 #StoryADayMay #Caturday Mulligan’s Cat

This is another beat of the story I started yesterday. There’s a transition between, but I’m not posting that. Why? Because it’s a down-beat, not a beat.

Thank you, Story A Day, for getting me started on this story. I’ve been wanting to write about Rat-Trap even since I dreamed about it for the third time.

Mulligan’s Cat

by Marian Allen

We settled at an outside table big enough for seven and waited for Mulligan to bring our order. I made the mistake of looking out at the ocean, and nearly got blinded by the sun on the waves. The raggedy old fishing net hanging over the outside area gave, like, no shade, but there was a great breeze off the water.

Something pushed on my leg. I cut a look at Steve-o to my left, thinking he was giving me a private signal to check somebody out, but he was talking to Lucas, so I looked down.

A cat was standing on its hind legs, one front paw on my thigh, one front paw tucked up against its furry chest.

My mom would have fussed at me for petting an animal when I was about to eat — like any of us had washed our hands after the drive — but my mom wasn’t there.

It was a big calico, bigger than a lot of dogs I’ve met.

A man at the next table said, real loud, “Would you look at that?” The people with him made those surprised noises people make. The man leaned toward me and said, “She doesn’t take to most people.”

You know how it puffs you up when anybody says that about an animal or a kid. I scratched the cat behind her ears.

“Is she yours?” I didn’t think so, because he had on a service station uniform, but he could live here and work in town.

“Nah. That’s Mulligan’s Cat.”

That made sense. A seafood restaurant was the perfect place for a cat, wasn’t it?

“I’m surprised there aren’t more.”

“There are, but not in the restaurant or out here. She won’t have it. Chases ‘em off.”

I got pulled into some argument Luis and Tony were having, absentmindedly petting the cat and scratching behind her ears. If I stopped, she poked me until I started again.

Finally, Mulligan brought out our food, a tray the size of an extra-large pizza pan mounded with food.

“Nice cat you have,” I said.

“I don’t have a cat.”

I pointed to her. She was so big, standing on her hind feet, her nose was level with the table.

“That’s not my cat. What would I do with a cat?”

The next table had emptied Louis and Tony’s argument.

“A man at the next table said she was yours.”

“Everybody knows I don’t have a cat. She hangs out here, that’s all.”

“But he said–”

“He said what? Exactly?”

The guys were staring at the three of us: me, Mulligan, and the cat. They weren’t even digging into the food mountain, even though it smelled like Paradise for your mouth.

“He said, ‘That’s Mulligan’s Cat.’”

“That’s right.”

“She’s your cat, then?”

“I don’t have a cat.”

“You’re Mulligan.”

“Yes.”

“And this is your cat.”

“No.”

“You’re Mulligan.”

“Yes.”

“And this is Mulligan’s Cat.”

“Yes.”

“This is your cat.”

“No.”

Luis reached across the table and smacked me on the head. “Stupid! Mulligan’s Cat is her name.”

A woman older than my mom, wearing jeans and a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt, came out of the restaurant clutching the necks of seven bottles of beer, and all talk was over. Brent paid Mulligan, and we forgot about the cat.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT TODAY: restaurant, cat

MA

10 #StoryADayMay The Reason for Rat-Trap

Not much of a story today, but it’s turning out to be longer than I meant, so I’m posting the first scene and calling it a story.

I used to have this recurring dream about a place called Rat-Trap. Sometimes I would dream about a city, but the city would turn out to be next to Rat-Trap. Or I would dream about a store or a restaurant and then the dream would pull back and I would see those places were part of … You’re way ahead of me.

So I thought I would take Rat-Trap as my prompt today, and it’s turning into a longer story. Here’s the first beat.

The Reason for Rat-Trap

by Marian Allen

All us guys were so bored the summer after 10th grade, it sounded like a good idea when Brent said, “Hey! Let’s go out to Rat-Trap!”

I mean, that wasn’t something you did. Oh, sometimes tough guys went out there to drink or fish with guys they knew from school, and sometimes somebody who came from there would go back to visit. Nobody just went there.

But, like I said, none of us had summer jobs yet, and the grass grows slow, so there wasn’t any to cut, and we were antsy. So the seven of us crammed into Brent’s rattletrap and took off.

Brent took the by-pass around the city. Through would have been shorter, but traffic and traffic lights would have made it longer. And stinkier, and louder. And we might have seen something that took somebody’s attention, and then we would have had a big debate, and nobody wanted that. That always got into power plays and egos, and it was better when we all wanted to do the same thing at the same time.

So the city was in front of us, then on the left. The bypass went off to the right to go pass by some other city and we had to turn left into the old business district, where the tallest buildings were twelve stories and had brass plaques with their names on them, and the dates they were built went way back. Mom came down there a lot, so I felt right at home, and I kinda wanted to stay and poke around. –See what I mean about getting distracted from the plan?

I didn’t say anything, though, and Brent turned right and drove past the last row of office buildings. I’ve seen maps and pictures of other towns, so I know how crazy it is. We just go: suburbs, new town, old town, boom — scrub flats, ocean. Like there’s a line the buildings don’t have the guts to cross.

And then, so close to the sea it’s like it was washed up in a storm, there’s Rat-Trap.

The asphalt ended with the last of the buildings and turned into cement that turned into gravely sand. Up ahead was Rat-Trap’s hind end: scraggly yards, some of them fenced and some of them not. The “road” eased to our right, between the south fishing pier and a two-story wooden building with an outdoor extension marked off by a bunch of eight-foot poles with a fishing net draped over them.

“Mulligan’s,” Brent said, like somebody might say, New Orleans.

“What about it?” Leon was always the one who asked the questions.

Brent said the magic words: “They don’t card.”

After a breathless hush while we all ran that by our brains a couple of times to make sure we heard right, we cheered.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT TODAY: Recurring dream

MA

9 #StoryADayMay Surprise

My friend Jo Robinson of africolonialstories has given me the Super-Sweet Blogger Award. SHUT UP! I AM SO SWEET! I’M SUPER-SWEET! Jo said so!

ANYWAY, that means my story of the day will be very short. –I heard that sigh of relief. I’m right here, you know.

Here’s the story:

Surprise

by Marian Allen

He never took the alley home, but he did when we came back from our anniversary week at the resort. The rear garage door creaked and rumbled from disuse, stuck partway, then inched up far enough for him to pull in. I was afraid it would stick, but it closed more smoothly than it opened.

“Why the change? You hate change.”

He didn’t answer; he just opened the trunk and handed out the luggage, giving me the light stuff and hefting all the heavy stuff with his tree-trunk arms.

In the kitchen, I flipped on the light. He dropped the luggage he carried and flipped the light back off.

“Whatever,” I said.

“Put your stuff down.”

“Do what?”

“Put your stuff down. Right there. Right now.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer.

I shrugged and put what I carried onto the floor.

“Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

Again, no answer. I sighed and closed my eyes.

Taking me by the shoulders, he steered me out of the kitchen and across the front room carpet, onto the entryway tile.

“Open your eyes.”

I was facing the front door.

Above it, where there had been solid wall when we left, was a panel of stained glass, just like the one I had drooled over on Pinterest.

I could hardly get the words out. “How did you know?”

“Lola told me.” Lola, his sister, my friend.

The sun through the glass bathed us in multicolored brilliance. The colors shifted and flickered with the bobbing shade of the front birch’s breeze-shifting branches, just as I had fantasized.

A patch of red came and went, like a neon light clicking on and off saying:

I heart you

I heart you

I heart you

~ * ~

The Rules:

Thank the Super Sweet Blogger that awarded you.

Answer five Super Sweet questions.

Include the Super Sweet Blogging Award image in your blog post.

Nominate five other bloggers.

Notify your nominees on their blog.

The Five Super Sweet Questions:

Cookies or Cake?

Chocolate or Vanilla?

Favourite Sweet Treat?

When do you crave sweet things the most?

Sweet Nick Name?

Thank you, Jo!

Answers to the questions:

Cookies or Cake?

Caek.

Chocolate or Vanilla?

Chorklit.

Favourite Sweet Treat?

We spell it “favorite” over here, pal. And my favorite sweet treat is anything with chorklit in it. Or hazelnut. Preferably both.

When do you crave sweet things the most?

When do I not?

Sweet Nick Name?

Sugar-plum. That’s what I call babies. That’s the sweetest nick-name there is.

My Nominated Sweeties Are:

Cairn Rodrigues of Spoon!

Helen Ginger of Straight from Hel

Patrick O’Scheen with his dragon that looks like a bad bitey one

Pauline Creeden, the Book Ninja

Stephen Tremp, Author and Wormhole Test Pilot

MY PROMPT TODAY: red stained glass

MA

8 #StoryADayMay Magic Mommy

Wednesday is Food Day here, so today’s post has food in it. I’ve been a bit dark this week, but today’s post is, I think anyone will agree, jolly.

The Frog Sandwich and magic milk are things I made for kids and grandkids.

Yeah, we had fun.

Magic Mommy

by Marian Allen

Lana woke up from her morning nap wishing she could tell the other kids at preschool about Mommy, but she had promised not to. They had talked about good secrets that you should keep and bad secrets that you should tell, and Lana had decided this was a good secret and she ought to keep it.

She heard Mommy in the kitchen, setting the table for lunch. Click went Mommy’s shiny white plate with green flowers around the edge. Clack went Lana’s plastic plate with Pocahontas on it.

Lana got up, tucked Muggly Bear in, and padded into the kitchen in her sock feet.

Mommy looked and smiled. “Hey, there, Sunshine! Have a nice nap?”

“I dreamed about you being magic.”

“That’s funny, because I made you a frog-head sandwich for lunch.”

Lana scrambled onto her booster seat so she could see what kind of frog she had today.

FROG SANDWICH

Cut circles from two pieces of bread, or just cut off the crusts in a vaguely frog-head-like manner.
Put in whatever your child likes to eat.
Put a long, thin, edible thing sticking out of the middle of the lower edge. This is the tongue.
Put two roundish things on top of the sandwich. These are the eyes.
Feel free to sprinkle raisins or other small finger food around to represent flies.

Match filling, tongue, and eyes, of course. Some examples are:

ham, pickle, olives
peanut butter, celery, raisins
chicken, lettuce, water chestnuts

Mommy said, “What do you want to drink?”

She asked every day, and every day, Lana said, “Chocolate milk.”

“What’s the magic word?”

“Please!”

Lana took a baby carrot from the bowl between her plates and nibbled it while Mommy clattered behind her. Not looking was part of the fun.

“Oh, darn it! We don’t have any chocolate milk! You’ll have to have this regular old white stuff.”

Lana play-frowned at the glass, the offending white liquid making R2D2 and C3PO look like they were standing in the snow.

“Make it chocolate, Mommy! Please!”

“I can’t. You’ll have to do it.” She handed Lana a spoon. “Use your magic wand.”

Lana stuck the spoon all the way to the bottom of the glass. “Abracadabra, please, and thank you,” she intoned, and stirred.

Chocolate swirled up and through the milk, leaving it all good and brown.

“Wow!” Mommy hugged her and took the spoon to the sink. “Good job!”

She had peeked once and knew the secret: Mommy poured the milk, then squirted a bunch of chocolate syrup right down the middle. The syrup sank to the bottom, invisible until Lana stirred. That wasn’t magic, it was just fun.

When they were finished, Mommy helped her dress for preschool.

On the way out the back door, Mommy half-turned and snapped her fingers.

The dishes slid off the table and into the sink. Water ran. Dish soap squirted. Plates and glasses and spoons and cups clinked and rattled.

“I hate to come home to a dirty kitchen,” Mommy said.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT FOR YOU: Food for children.

MA

7 #StoryADayMay story Absence

No, I’m not away for the day. “Absence” is the name of the story. It’s longer than yesterday’s but shorter than the others I’ve done so far.

I said yesterday that I love writing exercises. This was one. I pulled three words out of a ramble I’d written down and never done anything with and, using the tone of the ramble, wrote this. I’ll put the three words at the end of the post.

Anywho, here it is:

Absent

by Marian Allen

I look through the window, down, down, toward the park, and the bench where we used to sit.

We walked along those paths so many times. We shared so many hot dogs from that vendor on the corner. We fed so many pigeons. Watched so many mommys and nannys walk so many babies. Cheered at so many races. Visited that zoo. Rode that carousel.

Your absence is an ache that never leaves. Your absence is a hole in my life that can never close, and it’s filled with all the love I can no longer give you. I love other people, but their love is their love. Yours is still with me, packing ever more tightly into the hole you left, aching, reminding me that you were there and now you’re not. And yet you are.

Sometimes the ache overflows and leaks down my face in the form of salty water and I know you’ll always be part of my life.

Sometimes the ache overflows and leaks into my brain in the form of memories and I know you’re very much alive.

Just absent.

I think about following you. I imagine opening the window and falling, down, down, down, toward the park, and the bench where we used to sit.

Then I turn away and take the stairs. I have a hot dog to buy, pigeons to feed, and people to watch.

~ * ~

I think that’s a happy little story. Of course, I am MomGoth.

It’s Tuesday, so I’m also posting at Fatal Foodies with a frittata recipe.

MY WRITING PROMPT TODAY: absent, window, bench

MA

6 #StoryADayMay story and Award

My online friend Jo Robinson of Africolonial Stories has given me the Versatile Blogger Award. Because fulfilling the conditions of the award is somewhat space-consuming, my story today is a micro-mini, like my monthly Hot Flashes.

Thank you, Jo. I love your blog; I love your writing; it pleases me beyond measure that you think well enough of me to grace me with this.

Award

by Marian Allen

They didn’t unveil it until after they had announced the winner and I came onstage to accept it. It was a lamp. The stand was a woman’s leg in fishnet stockings, the lampshade looking something like a very short skirt.

The crowd roared approval.

Taxidermists are a weird bunch.

~ * ~

Rules:

Thank and link to the person who gave you the award.
Tell seven facts about yourself.
Pass it on to seven other bloggers.
Link to specific posts on their blogs so they’ll be notified by pingback. I’ve also notified my recipients by commenting on specific posts, since I read them every day anyway!

Since Monday is usually Writing Day on this blog, I’m limiting myself to writerly facts. So here we go.

Seven writerly facts about me:

I love “Mary Sue” fanfic. In fact, I prefer it to any other kind. I’ve written some Star Trek TOS, some Pretender, and (in tandem with daughter #4) a Pretender/Early Edition crossover. My fanfic is camped out at my old abandoned WEBLAHG.
Writing exercises are AWESOME.
Research is DOUBLE AWESOME.
When I first put up a website, I made it myself by writing html code in Notepad plain text editor. I had a dial-up connection.
I started inventing stories as a child, started writing them down in junior high, won honorable mention with one in high school, had my first professional publication as an adult.
My first sale was to an online magazine called Bovine Free Wyoming with this flash fiction. My first professional-pay sale was to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s FANTASY Magazine; it was a horror piece called “Nightchild”. I sold two to her, the second (“The Dragon of North 24th Street”, now the final story in my collection THE KING OF CHEROKEE CREEK) appearing in the magazine’s final issue alongside an interview with Terry Pratchett.
Although I write almost everything on computer, pens and loose-leaf paper delight my heart.

I hereby pass this award along to some of my fellow Story A Day participants:

Fairy Tale Asylum

The Opinionated Pussycat

News from the Guild

A Keyboard and an Open Mind

Candid Canine

So there you have it. Go forth and enjoy!

MY WRITING PROMPT TODAY: Award

MA

5 #StoryADayMay #SampleSunday Culture Shock

I promised Holly Jahangiri that she’d be in at least one of these May stories. Since this is also Sample Sunday, I decided to do a Holly Jahangiri story today and refer you to the others, “By the Book” and “The Pratty Who Saved Christmuss“. Holly won the right to be a character in a story set on the planet Llannonn, the setting for my cop/sf/farce, FORCE OF HABIT, not once but twice. Fictional Holly has become one of my favorite characters, just as actual Holly has become one of my favorite people.

Also today: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JANE PEYTON, AUTHOR OF WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE, A CALLIE LONDON VAMPIRE ADVENTURE!

Culture Shock

a Holly Jahangiri story

by Marian Allen

Assistant Librarian Holly Jahangiri had never been off Llannonn before and now here she was waiting to go through Customs in a spaceport on Marner.

Head Librarian Devra Langsam had said, “I’ll be retiring soon, and you’ll take my place. Going to Librarian conventions is part of the job. You might as well (as they say on planet Earth) cut your teeth.”

“That sounds painful. Could I get a tattoo, instead?”

She shook off the memory in order to appreciate the current moment.

Beings from many planets thronged the disembarkation terminal, some with nothing physical in common with her besides their ability to live in the same environment. Some looked not entirely unlike the purple feather boa she always wore, and she hoped no one thought it had once been alive.

Natives of Marner, upright, bipedal, horizontally symmetrical, resembling a Llannonninn except for the Marneri all-body fur, stood behind counters or strolled about with the casual alertness that marked police officers everywhere.

Information kiosks blocked a clear view of the entire terminal, their screens alive with visuals, some of which gave her a headache but would be comforting and informative to a being with a differently wired brain.

A shove knocked her off-balance; she stumbled and nearly fell her purple feather boa. A native of Marner, this one covered in two-tone orange stripes, walked quickly away, without so much as backward glance, much less the heartfelt apology she could expect on Llannonn. She was off-world, indeed!

She heard her flight called and she and her fellow passengers sorted themselves into a line for inspection. Some things were the same everywhere.

When she reached the official, a smallish Marneri with short blue-gray fur, the official said, in the artificial language used for business, travel, and trade, “Anything to declare?”

It was reassuring to know that some things were, indeed, the same here.

“Yes,” she said. She hated to begin by causing trouble, but right was right. “A Marneri shoved me and didn’t say he was sorry.”

The official stared at her as if she had spoken gibberish. Well, of course, she had, but it was proper, gibberish.

Raised voices drew Holly’s and the Customs official’s attention. Two Marneri had another Marneri between them, searching the bags he carried, even combing through his orange fur. The slit-eyed look on his alien face was plainly smug.

“That may be he,” said Holly.

The Customs official called something to the others, and they brought their detainee over. When he saw Holly, he tried to break and run, but his captors tightened their grip.

“May I search you?” On Llannonn, that would have been a genuine question. Here, it was obviously a statement of intention.

Holly lifted her arms in compliance.

The Customs official found what she was looking for: a small sack in Holly’s right-hand tunic pocket.

The prisoner snarled as he was dragged away. Another official came and led Holly to a snug office, where she made a statement.

She was a few minutes late to the Convention’s introductory mixer, but it was worth it to know that courtesy was, after all, a universal value.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT TODAY: Smuggling

MA

4 #StoryADayMay #Caturday Dance by the Light of the Moon

It’s Caturday, so this story had to have cats in it. I hope Mr. Nikita, The Opinionated Pussycat, enjoys it. I’m pretty sure Jane will.

If I forgot anybody, I’m sorry. I’ve had so many fur friends over the years, some of the names get lost. The love never does, though.

Dance by the Light of the Moon

by Marian Allen

It was by happenstance I was walking in the woods that mild May night.

I only meant to step out onto the porch to gaze at the star-filled rural sky, to bask in the silver glow of the full moon, and to breathe deeply of the lilac-flavored air. As soon as I opened the door, though, our Russian Blue cat, Katya, darted out and bulleted off the porch. She streaked into the woods in spite of my calling her.

A familiar wooden clatter pulled my attention nearer. Joe, half Black Lab, half Dalmatian, plunged up the porch steps and capered around me, tongue lolling. He ran back down the steps, then up, then down, in the classic Lassie-says-Timmie-fell-down-the-well fashion.

Naturally, I followed him.

He led me into the woods on Katya’s trail.

Not far in, a kittenish mew made me strain my eyes to the right. All I could see in the moon-cast shadows were one white whisker and two green eyes. That was all I needed. It was Al, our youngest daughter’s black half-Persian. I wasn’t surprised to see Tiffany, my calico, come from the opposite side of my path.

Joe led me to a clearing. Katya sat in the clearing, but she wasn’t alone. My companion animals joined the growing crowd, all of whom I recognized: Our next-door grandson’s little hound, Roamer Bob, and all his mother’s cats. There was Emma. There was Josie. There were Oscar, Victor, Hugo… I forgot the names of the rest. Joe touched noses with our dogs Rufus, Honeybun, Gal, Jack, Farfel, and the little terrier, Lizzie Diggumsmacks. Al and Tiffany joined Katya and the rest of our cats: Amanda, Sergeant Margeant, and Charlotte. My mother and grandparents’ dogs, Monsewer (French poodle, of course), Princess, Bootsie, and Socks barely tolerated the adoration of the cats, Tammy, Roger, Sweetie-Pie, and Ozzie.

As if at a signal they and not I could hear, the crowd broke into ranks: cats lining up on one side of the clearing, dogs on the other.

A deathly silence enshrouded us.

Then rose a chorus of owl-calls, counterpointed by frogs and toads, from the bass of bullfrogs to the soprano of spring peepers.

To the rhythms and tones of this unearthly music, the two lines of animals moved together, then apart, then interwove in a complex pattern I could almost understand and anticipate.

Faster they moved, and faster, eyes half-closed in delight, paws tapping the ground, tails waving and wagging, pink tongues showing between bright teeth in the sweetest of animal smiles as the full moon graced us all.

Too soon, the morning birds woke and cried an end to the celebration. One by one, the animals faded with the moonlight, leaving me alone with Roamer Bob, Ozzie, Sweetie-Pie, and Katya.

The dog and other cats bowed to one another and headed toward their homes. Katya blinked slowly at me, washed a paw, yawned, and trotted past me back the way we had come.

After one last look at the empty clearing, I followed.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT TODAY: Cats, dogs, dance, happenstance

MA

3 #StoryADayMay Into the Breach

Imma jump right into this one and put the prompt at the end. This is one I got out of my bits binder. I don’t know what I had in mind when I scribbled it down, but this is what came when I read it this morning.

Into the Breach

by Marian Allen

The voice said, “Next.”

Uniformed officials opened gates in the four arenas within sight and admitted contestants two by two.

The keeper of Gate #3 drew a sword when more than two tried to push through. They had orders to let more than two in sometimes, but it wasn’t pretty when that happened. Melees were always messy.

This one was a wrestling match. Sometimes they were slugfests. Sometimes they were games of chance. A lot of them were talent shows; those were fun. Now and then, there would be puzzle-solving competitions or debates. Brain stuff. Those were Gatekeeper #3′s favorites. Most of them were this brute force stuff, though, and it sure got old.

But hold on! This one was different!

The combatants were unevenly matched, which usually made for a short bout. One was sturdy, almost to the point of bulkiness, vibrating with physical power. The other was slightly but noticeably smaller, slimmer, weaker. But the weaker one was holding out against the stronger, brain against brawn.

Gatekeeper #3 felt interest stirring in the usually impatient crowd around the arena’s edge, too.

The combatants circled, facing each other, but Big was just working up steam; Small was watching for an advantage. Big plowed in, shoving a shoulder toward Small’s torso. Small dodged aside, leaving enough leg in the way for Big to trip over and go sprawling. Quick as lightning, Small knelt on Big’s back, twisting one of those bulging arms up over the raging face.

The crowd roared rough blessing for the winner, for diversion in the infinity of round after round of combat that only mattered to those inside the arenas.

They roared too soon: Big bucked that broad back and flexed those steel-cable muscles and swept Small off onto the ground.

Small rolled and leaped upright. Big wrapped both arms around Small, squeezing mercilessly. Small’s head lolled back. Unconscious?

No! Small’s head snapped forward, hitting Big’s nose with a crunch that bounced off the wall of spectators. Big, blinded by pain, fell, but took Small down, too.

Hard to tell who was winning, now. The two were entangled, Big seeming to be everywhere, Small’s hand gripping Big’s heel.

A voice bigger than all creation intoned, “Time!”

The figures in the arena vanished, with no clear winner.

They’d be twins, then.

The voice said, “Next,” and Gate #3 swung open to let two more contenders into the arena.

~ * ~

MY WRITING PROMPT: The unborn chooses to be born, chooses parents, directs and compels it to happen.

MA