Kate Leibfried's Blog, page 3

Sparrow's Feathers [Story #15]

I'm writing 52 stories in 52 weeks. This is Story #15.

Sparrow woke up one morning and didn’t like his feathers.

“Just look at them,” he moaned, eyeing the brown and tan hues. “They’re flat and dull. What I wouldn’t give to have bright plumage like Cardinal or Blue Bird.”

Sparrow sighed and stretched a wing. He was alone in his nest and wished he had someone to complain to. Feeling low, Sparrow rested his head on the edge of his nest and watched the morning pass.

Squirrels scampered up nearby trees; people passed on the sidewalk; blue jays and gold finches flitted around. Sparrow admired their plumage.

“They are as bright as the city murals,” Sparrow grumbled, glaring at his own brown feathers.

Suddenly, he was struck with an idea. “Why don’t I paint my feathers? I could choose any color I wanted.”

Smiling, Sparrow swooped down from his nest and began to search for paint. He sailed past several painters who were painting newly-built homes, but they had all selected beige and tan and ivory tones. Sparrow already had too much beige in his life.
Then, he spied it. A group of college students painting outside in a garden. Their palettes were dotted with flamingo pink, violet, ochre, lime green, cerulean. Sparrow dove.
“Hey, stupid bird!” One of the students shrieked. “Get outta my paint!”
Sparrow ignored the reprimands and rolled around in the reds and pinks.
“Better!” said Sparrow as he jetted away. “Just look at my wings! They’re beautiful. Redder than a cardinal’s plumage, more vibrant than a robin’s breast. Look how they shine in the sunlight!”
Sparrow twisted and danced across the sky. He swooped to the tree level and told all the squirrels, people, blue jays, and finches to “Look at me! Admire the sheen of my feathers! Gaze at their vibrancy!”
“They look nice,” one of the blue jays commented, “but you don’t look like yourself, Sparrow. I hardly recognize you.”“That's the point,” Sparrow replied. “I’m better now. I’ve left old Sparrow in the dust with his ugliness.”
“Whatever you say, Sparrow.”
Sparrow frowned at the blue jay and flew off. He was going to find some birds that truly appreciated his colors. He was going downtown.

As Sparrow flew, he began to feel strange. A heavy weight pressed down on him; his feathers began to stick together and harden. By the time he reached the arts district of the city, he felt like a thirty-pound raccoon was riding on his back.
“Oh dear,” said Sparrow as he plummeted to the earth.
He did his best to steer, but only managed to careen sideways, straight into a brick wall covered with a mural featuring four, grim reaper-type men and a pale blue sky. Sparrow braced himself for the impact, but it wasn't enough. The hit was fatal and the poor bird eventually died, but not before he had a chance to look up and see the red and pink imprint he left behind when he hit the wall. “So beautiful,” Sparrow whispered as he expired. “The way the red contrasts against the blue sky…”
Today, birds of every color take their chicks to see the marred mural and point to Sparrow’s painted shape. “See, sons and daughters. That’s what happens when you don’t accept who you are. You end up as just an outline of yourself—no core, no center. Just a smear of pretty paint. Love the feathers you’re given, no matter their hue.”


Kate Bitters is a freelance writer, founder of Click Clack Writing, and author of Elmer Left and Ten Thousand Lines. She is writing a story a week in 2015-2016 on the Bitter Blog. Subscribe to follow her journey.

The Flood and the Demon [Story #14]

This short story is a little cryptic. See if you can figure it out...


I stare with plastic eyes at the demon on the other side of the world. It is yellow, smooth. It wears a tilted smirk across its orange mouth.
It’s been here for over a month now. Silent. Twin eyes pasted on me as I peer at it from the bow of my ship.
The mocking, the stares. I can hardly stand it.
When the twice-weekly deluge floods our world, the monster comes to life. Rollicking against the waves with drunken fury, it bashes itself against the hull of my ship again, again, again. Squeals of laughter peal across my painted ears; I do not know if it is the demon or our water god.
I am afraid, but I am fortunate. My companions are raftless and without the advantage of a sturdy ship to buoy them against the waves and the yellow monster’s lashes. I see them float past me, face down, ducking beneath the waves, then emerging. Sea horse has it okay, but the others are uncomfortable under the ocean’s surface; it’s no place for a giraffe or lady bug…
I shake the images of wave-tossed friends from my head. The land is dry now, silken. My boat is docked along the edge of the world, near my friend, Smith.
“Psst,” Smith says. He wrinkles a furry black nose. “Stop looking at it, Red Beard. There’s nothing you can do. It’s bigger than all of us. Stronger.”
“There’s nothing I can do,” I echo. “Not until the water comes, anyway.”
Silence between us.
“What’s on your mind, Red? You have a plan?”
“You might say that. You see—”
I pause and cock an ear. There’s a shuffling outside the world. A familiar sound of fabric falling—the precursor to our floods. “He’s here.” I whisper to Smith. “This is it, friend. We’ll be rid of the yellow demon once and for all.”
“Good luck, Red.”
With a squeak, our water god opens the spigot and our cue ball world begins to flood. My companions quake in fear and watch as the yellow demon rises. When the ground is but a memory, the water god pays us a visit. The demon leaps to life.
Rolling, undulating, speeding around the perimeter of the world, the yellow fiend knocks us over. Pop! Smash! Bang! He hits my ship and sends it spinning toward the deluge. Right where I need to be.
Another lap, I wait for the monster to spin toward me again. I see him rounding the curve, powered by the god himself. The staring eyes; the tilted smile. I grit my teeth and use the pouring water as a propeller, straight toward the monster’s oncoming form.
I rocket forward; the hull of my ship tilts. I clash with the demon head on.
For a second, I wonder if I’ve put on enough speed, if my momentum matched the monster’s.
It did. The yellow menace flies backwards, out of the flood, past the rim of our world. My companions burst forth with applause, exclamations, shouts of joy. They shuffle toward me to congratulate a job well done.
I nod at them and allow myself a smile. The demon is beyond the rim. How could he survive out there?
I pause my revelry and look up. The water god frowns his disapproval; the water stills. My companions notice a change drop across our world like a shadow; the air tastes serious and deadly. We wonder if we offended the water god for banishing his demon pet.
With a roar, the water god rises up. A pale giant. He stoops, stretches. Droplets fall off his skin and land on our faces, shoulders, hands. And then…a chill passes over my skin as I see what he’s doing. The water god retrieves the yellow demon from beyond the outer rim.
A collective gasp. A wail. Smith begins to cry. “No,” he blubbers, “it can’t be back. It can’t be alive…”
The water god brushes it off, reanimates the demon, sets it back in the water. But the mood has changed. The demon looks at us all, as if for the first time. Its cock-eyed grin is faded; it wears the look of someone who has survived a thousand tragedies. Pointedly, slowly, the demon nods at us.
We look at it curiously, then return the gesture. A mutual respect. An understanding that we, the companions, are a force to be reckoned with. The demon will back off; it will knock us with less vigor, less anger.
The water god is aware of a change among his underlings. During the rest of his bathing, the god is subdued, quiet. Eventually, he arises and drains our land of water. The light leaves our kingdom; peace settles over the lustrous white land.

Kate Bitters is a freelance writer, marketer, and author of Elmer Left and Ten Thousand Lines. She is writing a story a week in 2015-2016 on the Bitter Blog. Subscribe to follow her journey.

A note about this one: Did you figure out the setting? If you're truly stumped, let me know in the comments and I'll tell you what's happening...eventually. 

Eliza [Story #13]

I've made it 13 weeks in my 52 stories/52 weeks challenge. It's getting a little difficult, but somehow this story flew out of my head and onto my laptop. 
Eliza was a starer. She scrutinized the world from under a home-hewn haircut, spending minutes at a time taking in a feature on someone’s face or looking at a crushed insect on the sidewalk or examining the mud-splattered shell of an empty cigarette pack.
“Stop staring,” her mother would scold. “It isn’t polite.”
Eliza sometimes nodded, sometimes said, “yes mother,” and let her eyes rove somewhere else. More often than not, however, Eliza’s mother startled her so much that she jumped, yelped, jolted from her trance. It was never pleasant breaking eye contact. It felt like the plucking of several strands of hair that ran between Eliza and the thing she was watching. Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop, the roots.
Eliza’s eye contact became stealthier. She took to wearing sunglasses, even in church. Her mother would cuff her on the back of the head. “Take those ridiculous things off.”
She always obeyed her mother, but not without silently questioning the obedience. One day, Eliza would say to herself, I’ll be a grownup and I can look at whatever I want to look at. No more screams or slaps. One day…
Today’s object of study was a dead toad. It lay party shriveled on the sidewalk, legs stuck out at odd angles, tongue lolling out of its mouth. A few black flies bobbed up and down around its body. Eliza dropped to the ground, got so close her eyelashes nearly touched the jutting leg. She looked at the texture of the dried skin, noticed the glassiness of the toad’s eye. She mentally measured the length of the little corpse from jaw to tailbone and from outstretched limb to outstretched limb. The black flies dove and soared, landed and took off again and Eliza watched for patterns in their flight.
For nearly half an hour, little Eliza squatted on the sidewalk. She wanted to know everything about this dead toad. She wanted to understand what it would have been like to live inside its animate body. To hop, to crouch in the grass, to fling out the now-hanging tongue and snap up a fly. When Eliza’s mother finally discovered her, Eliza was kneeling over the toad, her straight, dark hair touching the sidewalk on either side of it like curtains.
“Eliza!” her mother screeched. “Get up off the sidewalk this minute, young lady. Do you hear me? Back away from that ghastly toad!”
“He’s not ghastly,” Eliza protested, leaping to her feet. She faced her mother. “He’s beautiful.”
“He isn’t. And we’re starting therapy for you tomorrow, young lady. There’s something wrong with you, you know that? Something off. I knew it ever since you were a little girl…”
The therapy started the next day, as promised. It kicked off a decade of treatment in which Eliza bounced from therapist to therapist, talking little, staring much. Her unblinking eyes unnerved the therapists. They all conceded eventually, dismissed Eliza after a matter of months with a “So sorry, Ms. Thompson. There’s nothing I can do for your daughter. She’s just…how she is. Try Dr. Breunheimer. I’ve heard nothing but good things about him. Yes, he should be able to deal with her…abnormalities.”
Eliza’s mother always stormed around the house for days after another therapist threw in the towel. She wrung her hands and paced, muttering about no good quack doctors, can’t even deal with a simple little girl, where did they get their degrees anyway?
Sometimes, Eliza’s mother steered clear of therapists for a month or two, but she always went back. The eyes—those x-ray vision, saucer-large, ocean blues—would always get her in the end. Those eyes could start a bonfire, she thought. Or read her thoughts.
The years, the decade passed. In the early years, Eliza got very good at concealing her inquisitiveness. She’d glance at a room and pretend there was nothing to see within it. No cracks along the base of the window, no cobwebs in the left hand corner, no roughly textured chair with streak marks under its wheels. She’d do her best to ignore the details of a place—all the interesting bits.
Eventually, it became second-nature to take in her world with only the briefest of glances. She could do it without thinking much about it.
And then. Then, she didn’t think about it at all. A room was just a room. A piece of rotting fruit was not an object to examine and turn over in her hand; it was fodder for the trash bin. A dead animal on the sidewalk was just a dead animal.
The last therapist was scarcely needed. She talked at Eliza and sometimes Eliza talked back. The therapist wore her hair in a tight bun with a few gray wisps poking out from behind her ears; she wore turtlenecks with pendant necklaces; she often donned the same pair of gray, slip-on loafers. Eliza didn’t notice any of these things. Curiosity had been drubbed out of her.
On a September day of her senior year in high school, Eliza’s mother fell to the kitchen floor. The brain aneurism killed her instantly; a crooked scowl hung on her face. Eliza ran from the next room when she heard the clatter of a broken dish, the thud of a body. She saw her lifeless mother and froze.

Her eyes could go nowhere but down—down to the rigid form with its glazed, bulging eyes and lopsided mouth. Eliza bent her knees and lowered herself to the floor. With every inch she descended, years of training shed away. The forest fell away and she began to count the trees, then the branches. She began to see rough patterns in the bark.
Eliza knelt over her mother’s frozen eyes and saw the dead sidewalk toad from her youth. Her brain did a snap-twist. She looked around. The room’s colors swirled in front of her eyes. The shapes, the textures. Had that bowl always been yellow? She stood and backed away.
She grabbed a stool from the kitchen counter and perched upon it. The lifeless form sprawled in front of her and Eliza looked at it unabashedly. No one told her to look away; no one struck her cheek.

She would call, eventually. Of course she would. An ambulance would screech into the driveway and paramedics would haul the body away on a stretcher, pretending there was something they could do to save her. But for now, Eliza wanted to look. To notice. She had years of seeing to catch up on.

Kate Bitters is a freelance writer, marketer, and author of Elmer Left and Ten Thousand Lines. She is writing a story a week in 2015-2016 on the Bitter Blog. Subscribe to follow her journey.

Tree Talker [Story #12]

I'm over a fifth of the way done with the 52 stories in 52 weeks challenge. For story #12, I was giving the following prompt from one of my writing groups: 

Which is the oldest tree in your neighborhood and what has it seen?

If you want to play along, try writing your own story before reading mine...



The moss-covered oaks arched over the road with typical South Carolinian hospitality. They extended their welcoming branches, blocked the beating sun, guided the way down the dusty gravel road. I studied them as we drove.
“One hundred-fifty years old, at least,” I muttered.
“What's that's?” said Rita, who was driving.
“The trees,” I replied, “they've been around since the Civil War.”
“Not you with the trees again,” Rita rolled her eyes. “I've had about enough of that.”
I glanced over at Rita. She wore a sun hat over her dark curls and a tight yellow dress that would have done well in the 1970s. We'd only been married two months and I was already wondering if I'd made a mistake. She didn't understand me and my gift. She thought I was either occasionally delusional or joking when I told her about trees whispering to me, telling me their stories.
I can't really blame her. I thought I was going mad too after I awoke from a three-week coma and started hearing voices in the forest. But that was five years ago, and the voices haven't gone away. If anything, they've gotten stronger as I've learned to listen to the stories that are tethered to their bark like a tap on a maple tree.
We're from Pennsylvania and the trees there hold ancient tales of surviving lumberjacks and heavy snow, of warding off diseases and watching friends perish under the greed of suburbia, their hides gobbled up by woodchippers. I mourn with them, and I celebrate their triumphs. A new acorn germinating in the ground; the peacefulness of an afternoon park; the sun playing over chartreuse spring leaves. Ordinary pleasures and tragedies.
The trees in the south are different.
As we putter along, I hear their low moans, feel the shadows of this place. The sun shines, but it feels cold, far away.
“Hanging bodies,” the sycamore breathes the words as it leans over the lane. “Men and women, by the dozens.”
“Life extinguished,” a twisted oak sighs. “Too soon, too soon...”
“The screams,” another oak laments, “they linger still.”
As we drive, I begin to see them vividly—bodies hanging over the road, swaying softly and turning first clockwise, then counter as the ropes twist and release, twist and release.
Rita had insisted on visiting the Winshire Plantation, had said it would be good for us. A dose of history, an architectural wonder. I wasn't terribly interested, but I nodded and went along. I hadn't anticipated the troubled history of the place; I didn't know the horrors the trees had witnessed.
How many slaves were hanged along this road? How many people were left without a spouse, a father, a friend? The screams of the living remain trapped in the tree bark, struggling as spiders in a web.
“Stop!” I cry out.
Rita slams her foot on the brake, turns to me. “What is it? Did you get stung by a bee?”
“About a thousand bees,” I say, shaking my head. I feel the contents of my stomach turn. I lean out the window of our Jeep Wrangler and empty my guts onto the gravel.
Rita stares. “Did you eat something, honey?” She pats my back. She's concerned, but I catch a hint of annoyance in her voice. Why can't she just have a normal vacation with a normal husband? Why had she settled for someone half-crazed and delicate? Maybe her mother had been right all along.I lean back and wipe my mouth. “I'm sorry, sweetheart. I can't go to the plantation. It's the—” I pause before I say trees. “It's a feeling I have. I can sense the pain of this place. It's so heavy...”She blinks at me, a bewildered owl. “But we have to go. It's only another mile up the road. What are we going to do? Turn around now?”
“Precisely. Let's get the hell out of here.”
I know that face. It's the one she makes when she's decided something and won't be swayed. She shifts the car back into gear. “We're going,” she says. That, and nothing else. I don't argue. The last mile is silent, tense. Except for the constant screams and throat gurgles whipping around my ears. Except for the moaning of thick-trunked trees.
When the car stops, I refuse to go inside the white-pillared house. “You go,” I say to Rita. “I'm fine out here.”
“Suit yourself.” I watch the yellow sundress float up the front steps toward a row of smiling tour guides and disappear through a set of French doors. I think of a candle, snuffed out.
Slowly, I turn back toward the road. It howls and sobs, a tunnel of past agonies. I walk toward it; I touch the first tree.
“I'm sorry,” I whisper. “Sorry for the lives that were taken; sorry for the pain you witnessed. Sorry for it all.”
The bark under my fingers softens, like the muscles in Rita's back after I rub them. The screams subside to a soft susurration. It's the sound my hound dog makes when he's having a bad dream. I pat the tree and move onto the next one. Then the next. At every tree I pause, touch its battle-scarred trunk, and comfort it with kind words and apologies.
When Rita finds me, I am near the end of the lane and she is angry. “Why the hell did you take off like that without telling me where you were headed? I looked all over kingdom come for you—and here you are, communing with the damn trees.”
“I'm sorry,” I say, laying a hand on Rita's shoulder. She doesn't soften like the trees, just looks at me with a half-puzzled, half-livid stare. “Just get in the car,” she says. “We'll talk about this later.”I shake my head. “I can't,” I say. “I'm not done comforting the trees. I need to talk to each one of them. They've been hurting for years; they've had no one to talk to.”
Rita sniffs. “You're being ridiculous. Get in the car.”
“I'm sorry, sweetheart. I can't. Not yet.”
“Are you seriously choosing a bunch of trees over your wife?”
“Are you making me choose?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
I turn to the next tree. “The bodies,” it moans, “they hang. They hang...” I touch its bark. I can't look at Rita when I say, “I'm sorry sweetheart. I'm no good for you. You need someone who pays attention to you, gives you all the love you need. You don't need a tree talker.”
“Damn right,” says Rita as she hits the gas. I briefly think about my suitcase, sitting idly in the backseat, but I'm not terribly worried about it. I have a duty to fulfill.

I stroke the bark under my fingertips.

Kate Bitters is a freelance writer, marketer, and author of Elmer Left and Ten Thousand Lines. She is writing a story a week in 2015-2016 on the Bitter Blog. Subscribe to follow her journey.

Magic Plastic Land [Story #11]

Image courtesy of quotesvil.comI stroll along plastic brick streets lined with cotton candy bushes, tasting the filtered air. Magic Plastic Land. Birds dip down and snatch gumdrops out of outstretched hands, their cashew beaks holding the prize until they return to their spun sugar nests with candied plum chicks. I watch the mother birds and keep walking, with a singular mission: to become deliriously, mind-numbingly happy.
But that's everyone's goal in Magic Plastic Land. Stuff yourself to the gills with sugar dreams and smiles. Listen to the saccharine music and forget about the melting icebergs in Nunavut and the pollution-choked skies in China. Those places are far away and their grim grayness doesn't cut through the rainbow delights of Magic Plastic Land.
All around, dancing feet. All around, giggles and grins.
Buy this, buy that. Feed the Cheshire grins on the fat cats' faces as they look over their sticky kingdom.
It's just how they want it—every fudge brick in place, every mind on the colors and floaty-feet, spinny-headed bliss. Visitors unaware they are walking around a live trap. (Can you spot the mice?)
A turtle rushes across my path, as only turtles in Magic Plastic Land can do. I cry out and trip over his multi-colored mosaic shell. My face hits the gold block road and I feel a scrape across my cheek. A flash of pain; a searing moment of reality. I look up.
The fat cat tower leans over the road. The Cheshire smiles beam.
A prickle under my skin. My breath comes hot and sharp. Every inhale brings syrup into my lungs and they begin to stick together. The tower.
I'm suddenly angry at the tower and the cats and the trapped mice world they created. I pick myself up off the gleaming ground and touch my stinging cheek. A medic bustles toward me, silver-haired and manicured. “Sir,” he says, “allow me to escort you to the medical tent. We'll give you hot chocolate and a free Fast Pass and--”

I hold up a hand and he trails off. “Go,” I say. My flat voice, my blazing eyes make the silver-haired man back away, shuffle off in the other direction. I watch him go, then turn my attention back to the tower. I take a step toward it, then another. Soon, I'm striding, approaching the kaleidoscope-swirled door with swinging arms and a set jaw. I have no plan, but I feel the need to do something, hit the switch that turns off the manufactured ecstasy. My hand reaches toward the door handle.


Kate Bitters is a freelance writer, marketer, and author of Elmer Left and Ten Thousand Lines. She is writing a story a week in 2015-2016 on the Bitter Blog. Subscribe to follow her journey.

Chain Links [Story #10]

Story #10 (in my 52 stories series) is really more of a poem than a story...but there's a story inside it. See if you can find it.

This one was written after winning the short course in the 2015 Babes in Bikeland alleycat bike race. 


Chain Links
Powered by candied ginger and ten thousand smiles, I ride.Fly. Soar.On the back of an aqua-colored steed.Summer air tickling my legs; sweat dripping down my chest.My body rides solo, my heart gallops alongside my community:Arms that hug and lift up,Lips that smile and speak affirmations,Legs that piston-fire us down alleyways and neighborhood streets,Over, under bridges,Along the Mighty Miss.
As I ride, I see old and new and not-yet friendsStreaming down streets in packs and pairs.I find allies stationed at stops,Encouraging, cheering, urging us toGo, fly, win.Conquer the streets with ourPiss and vinegar,Salty tears and candy smiles.Claim the streets and make themOURS.
I pound pedals to the finish line,Let my body collapse at the feet of cheering friends.No strangers here.They pick up my sweat-drenched bodyAnd I feel myself glowing from the inside out.Friends stream in:One, two, fifteen, four hundred.We circle together as links on a bicycle chain,And let the night pass.Something runs between us now:
Can words explain it?



Kate Bitters is a freelance writer, marketer, and author of Elmer Left and Ten Thousand Lines. She is writing a story a week in 2015-2016 on the Bitter Blog. Subscribe to follow her journey.

Shapeshifter [Story #9]

Story #9 of my 52-week series: a creepy little tale.
Spectacularly creepy image courtesy of The British Library photo archive

I’ve walked this earth in many different forms, but today I am a little girl. Not a precocious one, either. I’m the kind that wraps her arms around her mother’s leg and buries her face in the folds of fabric. The world is large now, threatening. My understanding of the people, parks, skyscrapers, buses around me blurs and I blink at them a few times to try to recapture what I once knew.Useless. My naïve brain fixes on the mission of the day: walk to the place where I will pay for my crime.
Just get there. Forget empathizing with the grubby birds in the bushes or the man in the stocking cap with an outstretched hand. They are beyond my scope today; I pass by them and feel their colors whirl away from my peripheral vision and out into the dark space I leave in my wake. I could turn around, recall the colors, try to see and understand the birds and the man, but I don’t. I keep moving down the sidewalk.
My head is tucked, not against any kind of wind, but against probing eyes. I fear that others will see the innocent glow I put on this morning, wonder what I’m doing alone in the hard streets of New York City. Their greedy fingers might try to rob or molest me…or worse, force me to transform into the beast that committed last week’s crime.
It would be over then. Useless to show up at the courthouse with forked tongue and raised hackles. Useless to plead my case with bulging, vein-thick eyes and a mouth dripping blood. There’s no empathy for monsters.
I drop my chin lower, into the collar of a newly pressed shirt. Thinking about beastie makes me swell and crackle; it takes all my effort to keep the seams from ripping apart, bursting into the streets. I swallow and focus on my stride—dainty footsteps, timid. The little girl strengthens, secures her place in my body once again. Right before she’s taken over completely, I pause in the middle of the sidewalk.

My upper lip curls into a crazed grin; the forked tongue slithers in and out. Within a heartbeat, the beast retreats. The little girl walks on.

Humanity Woke Up [Story #8]

This is a short one, so let me give you a little background...

The structure of the story itself is inspired by the six-word story written (purportedly) by Ernest Hemingway. The story goes like this:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn. 

Powerful, right?

I don't pretend to put myself on the same playing field as Hemingway (or whoever actually wrote that story--the authorship is uncertain), but I did give the abbreviated story thing a shot. Here's what I came up with:

Humanity woke up and draped Love over its shoulders.
The clamoring newspapers fell silent.

I made several iterations of this story and this is the one I like best. Maybe you'd like to take a stab at the abbreviated short story? I wrote mine with fourteen words, but maybe you can do ten? Or even five? I'd love to hear what you come up with.


Kate Bitters is a freelance writer, marketer, and author of Elmer Left and Ten Thousand Lines. She is writing a story a week in 2015-2016 on the Bitter Blog. Subscribe to follow her journey.

The Blue Potato Alien Incident: A Christmas Tale [Story #7]

This is week 7 of my 52 stories in 52 weeks series. Let's get weird...

The Johnsons were having a perfectly normal Christmas dinner when the tiny flying saucer showed up. It streamed down the chimney and through the crackling fire; it swerved around the carefully decorated Christmas tree, over the nativity set, and around several ceramic reindeer that Patricia Johnson kept on display (a new deer every year—she was up to about 45 of the jumping, kicking, frolicking, kissing statues).
The four members of the Johnson family stared wide-eyed and gaped-mouth at the little saucer as it came to a halt right between the Christmas ham and a basket of biscuits on the table. But, like any good Midwestern family, they didn’t scream or cause a fuss—they just sat quietly until a miniscule hatch door dropped into the biscuit basket and two aliens scuttled down the gangplank.
“Greetings earthlings,” one of them said, crab-walking toward Jason, the youngest of the bunch. When Jason didn’t reply, the alien turned to its counterpart and whispered loudly, “Why aren’t they responding? We were told to say that when we met them.”
“Well, it’s a bit cliché, i’n’t it?” Jason said, looking down at the alien duo. They resembled something like tall blue potatoes with a couple little arms poking out of their bulbous bodies. A set of crab legs supported their bodies and thrummed on the table when they stood still.
“Cliché, he says?” Alien One pouted. “We should have thought of something original. No matter.”
“Ahem,” Howard Johnson cleared his throat and caught the aliens’ attention. “I’m sorry to ask, but what are you doing here? Showing up in the middle of Christmas dinner, skittering over our biscuits. Bit rude, isn’t it?”
“Howie!” Patricia scolded. “Where are your manners? They’ve likely had a long flight from…wherever they’re from. Why don’t you offer them a plate and a glass of hot cider?”
Howard blinked at his wife. “Well, dear, I—uh…”
“Quite all right,” Alien Two held up a forked hand. “We don’t eat your kind of sustenance. Our preferred food source is scathing sarcasm and methane gases.”
“Ha!” Julia Johnson said from across the table. “Jason’s got plenty of both.”
“Does he?” the slit in Alien Two’s face curled up into something like a grin. “Maybe a snack later, then. Right now, we’d best get down to business.”
“Business?” Howard raised an eyebrow. “What business could you possibly have here?”
“We’re trying to understand what this Christmas thing is all about. We’re researchers, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“So, if you don’t mind, we’d like to start asking you some questions.”
“Ask away,” Patricia said warmly, “and if you change your mind about that plate of food, let me know. Howard makes a delicious creamed corn that you simply have to try.”
“Right,” said Alien One. “To business.” It pulled out a tiny box from some cavity in its body and pressed a button. “December 25th,” it said to the box, “6:30 in the evening. 124 Shepherd’s Lane, Lakefieldton, Minnesota, United States, Planet Earth, Solar System 152935, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group 92457, Laniakea Supercluster, Universe 31117094.” Alien One scanned the room. “Test subjects chosen for their normalcy. Upon cursory inspection, this appears to be the case. An average family by all accounts.”
“Hey now!” Howard squirmed in his chair. “We’re not that normal. We’ve got esoteric interests and…”
“Oh you’re quite wrong about that,” the alien said cheerfully. “You lot are as normal as it gets. Average by all accounts. Smack dab in the middle of all our scales. Now where was I?”
“Just getting to the questioning bit,” Alien Two reminded its counterpart.
“Ah, yes. Let me jump right in.” Alien One held its box between its own little body and that of Patricia Johnson. “If you’d please, ma’am, will you explain the relevance of this Jolly Saint Nick character to this whole affair?”
“I—um,” Patricia hesitated. “He brings good little children presents and wears red and has eight reindeer.”
“Fascinating,” the alien said, moving its entire blue potato body. “Only the good ones, eh? And how does he relate to your Christmas muse?”
“Christmas muse?”
“Yes, this Jesus fellow. How does he relate?”
“Ah,” said Patricia. “I’m—uh, not sure that he does. The idea of Santa Claus just adds a bit of fun to the whole thing, you know? Like bunnies at Easter.”
“Hmm. Okay. And the pine tree in the corner?” Alien One turned to Julia. “How does that fit into the whole scheme? Many pine trees where this Jesus fellow is from?”
“No, dummy. He was born in the desert.”
“Julia! Your manners.”
“Sorry, Mom, but everyone knows that.” Julia shrugged. “I guess we decorate Christmas trees because it brings light and Christmas cheer to everyone. It gets awfully dark in the wintertime.”
Alien One nodded. Alien Two scuttled forward and grabbed the box. “My turn,” it said, turning to Howard. “I’ll ask you this next one, if you don’t mind. Why do you slaughter pigs and put them at the center of your feast table? Is it a sacrifice to the Christmas muse?”
Howard hesitated. “Well, no. That wouldn’t make sense, would it? Jesus was brought up in the Old Testament traditions, so he didn’t eat pork, did he? Or shrimp cocktail, I suppose,” Howard glanced down at the shrimp tails on his plate.
“Hmm,” Alien Two said. “But do you suppose this Saint Nick fellow would approve of Christmas ham and shrimp cocktails?”
“I—uh, I suppose he wouldn’t mind much. German, wasn’t he? At least I think that’s where the Santa Claus legend began…”
“Okay, very good.” Alien Two turned to Jason. “Here’s one for you, young earthling. Where do all the miniature people fit in? You know, the ones surrounding Santa Saint Nick?”
“They’re called elves. They’re the ones who make the toys. But only for the good children. The naughty ones get lumps of coal.”
“Fascinating.”
The evening carried on like this. The aliens would take turns asking questions; the members of the Johnson family would take turns answering them. After nearly two hours, Alien One turned to the family and said, “I think we have what we need. Many thanks to all of you. I’ll send you a copy of my report once it’s written. A very Merry Christmas to you all.”
The pair skittered into the flying saucer and zipped away, over the Johnson’s cat (who’d been watching the aliens suspiciously from his cat perch and was now trying bat the saucer down with rapid swipes of his paw), past a mound of discarded wrapping paper, and back up the chimney.
The Johnsons sat, blinking at each other for several seconds. Finally, Patricia said, “My, the creamed corn has gone stone cold. How ‘bout I heat it up?”
***
Normalcy found its way back into the Johnson family. They kept the blue potato alien incident to themselves and went about their respective businesses—attending school, commuting to work, attending a variety of dull committees and clubs. After a few months, they forgot about the tiny alien researchers…until a letter arrived on their doorstep.
The address was so long it filled up the entire envelope and ended in Universe 31117094.Jason opened it first and pulled out the contents: A one-paragraph research summary. It read:
FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF OUTMODED CUSTOMS AND BIZARRE TRADITIONS OF HUMANOID SPECIESA brief synopsis of our findings from various interviews, conducted across the planet Earth, regarding the significance of the holiday known as Christmas.
Christmas is the embodiment of a centuries-long struggle between the dark forces of one, Jolly Saint Nicholas (alias Santa Claus, alias Kris Kringle, etc., etc.) and the light forces of one, Jesus Christ (alias Lamb of God, alias Redeemer of the World, etc., etc.). Using his minions to promote a culture of consumerism and greed, St. Nick rampages across the globe, striking fear into the hearts of children everywhere as they wonder if the red-clothed ogre will deliver them a gift of coal or a symbol of rampant Capitalism (usually in the form of a cheap plastic figurine or an electronic doodad). So great is the human race’s fear of this white-bearded devil, that they leave offerings of dairy liquid and sweetened dough to appease his indefatigable thirst for wonton consumerism and chaos. The counterforce of this dark menace is Jesus, a newborn child who is usually found surrounded by donkeys, camels, and various robed people (Wiccans? Druids?). We can only surmise that they are forming a protective wall around the child so that the reindeer-riding menace does not snatch him out of his cradle. Many families attempt to capture the positive forces that this Jesus character represents by decorating sacred pine trees with lights, but the wrapped gifts under the sacred pine—symbols of Santa’s dark dominance—often undercut the entire notion. Furthermore, the humanoids seem to dwell very little on the conflicting symbols of the bizarre Christmas holiday. They prefer to happily eat ham, buttered biscuits, and various sugar doughs (often bedecked with another coating of sugar, for good measure) as they listen to seasonal music and drink sugar-egg beverages.
END OF SYNOPSIS. DETAILED REPORT TO FOLLOW.

Jason stared at the paper for a couple seconds. He shrugged and set it on the table. “Sounds about right.”



Kate Bitters is a freelance writer, marketer, and author of Elmer Left and Ten Thousand Lines. She is writing a story a week in 2015-2016 on the Bitter Blog. Subscribe to follow her journey.

Witch Hunter [Story #6]

A sequel to week #5. For maximum enjoyment, I recommend reading last week's story before diving into this one. But hey, it's your life.

Story #6: Witch Hunter www.katebitters.comWe are still five kilometers out, but I swear I can smell her. Cloves, mixed with barley wine and something sharp, like raw onions. Sour, pungent aromas that make my stomach curl like a water-starved leaf. I swallow and remind myself that catching someone's scent five kilometers out is preposterous, that these are just the echoes of odors of ones like her. Ones I've killed.

My sled hits a rut and I am jostled from my thoughts. In an instant, I become aware of my cold-numbed cheeks, the soft fringe of my fur-lined black hood, the heavy breathing of the sled dogs as they strain against their harnesses. They were born with running in their blood, just like I was born with a thirst for justice.
My husband doesn't understand the quickening pulse, the boiling-blood feeling when I read about another witch attack. He'd rather patch the holes in our fence or install another lock on the front door and pretend that will fix things.
My eldest two are a lot like him--complacent, hopeful that someone else will take care of the problem so they don't have to dwell on it much. But my youngest understands. He and I share long discussions over rye toast and lox about what it means to be a Venro--a witch hunter. He smiles when I don my black robes, hugs me around the waist, and whispers, "Catch her, Mommy. Make us safe."
Tonight, I hunt for him.
We're nearing the cottage now. I lead two other Venros and their dog teams; the overhead stars map our way to the north and east. The modest town Birtaverre lies several kilometers behind us, shivering between fjords, cowering under the witch's watchful eyes. I picture her alone in her house, conjuring black spells and dreaming up tricks to play on the village. She's a young witch, we've been told. Just coming into her own. When we stopped in Birtaverre this evening, some of the villagers defended her, claiming that she mostly keeps to herself. But others were relieved by our arrival. "You can never fully trust a witch," one wide-eyed man said. "Turn your back, and they'll snatch up your children for dinner." 
I nodded at the man, placed a caribou hide mitten on his shoulder. "That's why we're here, sir," I said. "To cut the head off the snake before it can bite."
I think about this interaction now and smile to myself. I'm proud of my career. I'm turning the world on a wheel, running my hands over it, and buffing out the rough spots. My family will live in a smooth-edged place.
A pinprick of light peers at us from the horizon. The hut. I feel my blood tremble through my veins; my grip on the dog sled tightens and I urge the team on. Soon, we will creep up to her door. Soon, we will burst through the home and pin the witch to the ground. We will slice her open and watch the evil flames in her eyes extinguish. 
We will feed her to the fire and listen to her flesh whine as it drips off the bone.
This is my gift to humanity. This is my gift to my children. My heart rattles against my rib cage as the dog team slows to a stop.


Kate Bitters is a freelance writer, marketer, and author of Elmer Left and Ten Thousand Lines. She is writing a story a week in 2015-2016 on the Bitter Blog. Subscribe to follow her journey.