Hello, Readers!

Happy Black Friday if you're partaking in the chaos that is "the biggest gift shopping day of the year". I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving (I'll save my rant about how much I dislike the American History [cough, lies] about the first Thanksgiving for another post when I have time to link all of my sources... and stop swearing about it.)

I have another, short writing prompt story for you. The image prompt was of a waterspout above the ocean. It looks to me like a very mystical tentacle is reaching up from the depths of the ocean and punching a cloud. And viola: You get Pete the Kracken and the Angry Storm Cloud. Feel free to share what the image looks like to you in the comments section! (Err... please keep it clean xD).

Pete the Kracken and the Angry Storm Cloud

Tired of a cold and choppy ocean setting, Pete the Kracken decided it was high time he told that no good, sun-blocking, soggy rain cloud to move on! Or he’d move him along for him. Yeah!

At first, Pete, despite being infuriated with a week straight of no sunshine, was polite when interacting with the mopy, low-hanging piece of sky fluff. “Hello! You there, in the sky! Yes, you! The fluffy one blocking the sun! Do you mind shifting to the left by a country or two? It’s getting a little too chilly in my waves for September weather, buddy.”

When the large cloud simply blew Pete a raspberry in response, he surprisingly didn’t lose his cool. Instead, he tried again. 

“Look, Mister. Don’t make me count to three!”

This time the cloud spoke slowly in a voice of low rumbling thunder. “Didn’t know you could count so high down there. Ha! Ha! Sorry Octo-Buddy. This here’s a prime sunbathing spot. I’m not moving.”

“Are you sure?” Pete asked, still trying to remain polite. “If you’re stuck or something, I could give you a nice push.”

More thunder rumbled as the cloud continued to laugh. “You? Push me? I’d like to see you try!”

“Only if you say please,” Pete responded, coiling his strongest tentacle for his best one-armed attack yet. He didn’t practice moon-jelly ball with the girl’s Kracken moon jelly team for no reason!

“Please?” The cloud continued to laugh. “As i-Ahhh!”

Pete let loose his best moon jelly pitch, punching straight through the cloud’s underbelly. Rain poured into the ocean and the little moon jelly reflected the sun’s light for a brief second before the cloud closed itself back up.

“I know you didn’t just punch me with a moon jelly,  Pete Kracken!” The cloud boomed, his anger so loud and tangible that sparks of lightning flew from his fluffy fists.

“Pete Kracken you get back here this instant!” The cloud continued to roar with a fury that shook the moon jelly and several drops of rain from his underside. His hot, angry shout was so strong that it began to churn the water far below. 

As soon as the cloud released its own wound up arm in search of him, Pete realized he had made a grave mistake in punching the giant, violent storm cloud. In terror, he dove in the deepest depths of the ocean to hide… and practice his moon jelly pitch. The next time that cloud was in his waves, he was going to send him clear to the moon! Just you wait and see!

It's All Chicken to Me

 Hello, Readers!

As promised, I have a second short story for you based on my local public library’s writer’s forum. I wish I could share the photo with you for this prompt, but I cannot find where the photo originated from, and I don’t want to steal another artist’s work.

Just know that the image was of two VERY judgemental chickens looking the photographer straight on. A red rooster stood on the left, a white hen on the right, and in the background, slightly blurred, between the two, was a second white hen who looked angier than a cat offended by a human sneeze. 

The image selected above is a placeholder image, if you will, found on Unsplash by Hanna Oliver @hanako87.

It’s All Chicken to Me

I cleared my throat, face growing hot, and tried again, “Bock? Bock bock bock bock, bock-bock.”

The two chickens just kept staring at me like I was offending their most ancient ancestors. Did I have my inflections wrong? No, no. I was fairly certain I sounded just like Peep when we had practiced together earlier today. 

“Uh,” why was my brain suddenly so empty? I knew more than just “Hello my name is Good Boy”. 

“Uh, Bock!” No. No. That wasn’t hello, it was bathroom. “Uhh…”

“Oh! Bock bock, bock bock bock.” I sat back on my haunches and raised my front legs, tucking my paws under my armpits to mimic wings. I flapped my legs and the feathers Peep and I had gathered and glued to my fur with pigsty mud began to molt off of me, drifting to the ground like light, powdery snow. 

The two chickens continued to look at me like I was using every chicken swear in the book… 

Peep wouldn’t have lied to me, right? No, no. Maybe I just had the wing movements wrong? I was pretty nervous. 

“Um, bock, bock, bock, bockbockbockbock-bock?” I tried again, flapping my forelegs quicker than before. More feathers swirled around me and the very judgmental chickens. 

What on earth was I doing wrong? This conversation shouldn’t be so difficult! Peep spoke fluent dog and chicken perfectly. 

When the Rooster cocked his head to the side, large beady eyes still focused on me and my incoherent chicken attempts, I panicked and turned tail. “PEEP!” I barked in despair.

As I ran away, I heard one of the chickens hiss in perfect dog, “What on earth was he wearing?”

“Wearing?” The Rooster demanded. “I hardly noticed. I was too busy worrying over how obsessed he was with eating our poop. He knows that can’t possibly be good for him, right?”

*Author’s Note: Yes, for those of you that heard the original version of this story, I did change the ending. After doing some quick Googleing, dogs aren’t as affected by grain in their diet. As long as the chicken feed isn’t medicated and a doggo isn’t eating ALL the chicken feed, it really isn’t that bad for them--so I decided to have Good Boy talking (bocking??) about something the chickens might be more concerned about.

 Hello, Readers! 

Boy, it sure has been a while since I’ve posted again, hasn’t it. Sorry! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying life. I wish I could tell you that I’ve been keeping up with writing (you know as this is NaNoWriMo)--but aside from a monthly prompt through a program I help facilitate at work… I’m really behind.

I can share with you a couple of the super short stories I’ve created thanks to some of those prompts! Below is a story that was created with an intriguing image that I found on McKenna’s author’s blog here. The image can be found to the left. 

To me, it looks like a pale, human hand reaching out of a hedge or bushes--but it can be hard to tell if the owner of the hand is standing and reaching through the bushes, or has fallen and is requesting help. Readers, what do you see? Feel free to share your short story responses to this image in the comments below!

The Mirror Bush

“Help! Arthur! Stop laughing at me and give me a hand!”

I couldn’t help my laughter. I knew it was rude, but it was just so… predictable. My twin was always stumbling about. Why would a last minute trip to Gran’s be any different? Especially given that the trip was on foot through the dense forest between our house and hers?

“Arthur!” She called again. But this time her tone was different. It was no longer annoyed but awed. “Give me your hand. You must see this!”

“If it’s another of your spider tricks I won’t do it!”

“No spiders,” she promised, reaching her hand back toward me once more. “But really. You must see this.”

“Can’t you stand up first, silly?” I demanded, reaching down for her hand.

 It struck me as odd that she had fallen into a bush and suddenly vanished, only her hand and wrist visible to me. But I didn’t have much time to ponder the oddity. As soon as our fingers brushed the weightless sensation of falling from a cliff sent my stomach rocketing into my throat.

“Ah!” I cried out, much like my twin had only moments before. I slammed my eyes shut and tried to shield my face with my hands. 

What was going on? I hadn’t even stumbled! Jillian was the one who tripped! And yet…

“I am standing,” Jillian whispered, and with her words, the falling sensation faded and my stomach returned to my abdomen. I opened my eyes, taking in the wonder in her eyes and the flushed color in her round cheeks. “That’s the thing of it. It’s like I never fell at all… except…”

“That falling sensation,” I finished for her. “It was like I was skydiving out of a rocketship or something-but! I didn’t even stumble. I just reached for your hand!”

“And look, Arthur! You haven’t even begun to take it all in,” She breathed, her usual bossiness masked by her continued awe. She stepped back gently, allowing me to see around her.

I don’t know what I was expecting to see, the inside of a bush, perhaps? Or maybe dense forest? Instead, I saw blue skies beneath my feet. Clouds floating away on a gentle breeze that blew across my ankles. 

My stomach flipped again and I began to feel lightheaded. I sank to my knees among the clouds.

“Sorry,” Jillian whispered. “I suppose I should have had you look up first.”

In an instant my eyes flicked from the bright blue sky beneath me, to the densely packed forest above. 

“But how?” I gasped, my brain failing to fully grasp the information being collected by my eyes.

“I dunno…” she whispered in response, arm outstretched high above her, reaching for the trees beyond her grasp. “ You don’t think…”

But she didn’t finish her thought and for once in my life, I didn’t rush to complete it for her. Instead, I forced her to say it herself.

“I don’t think what, Jilly?” I demanded, forcefully, intentionally, tearing my gaze away from the upside down tree directly above me, it’s full, vibrant crown of leaves reaching toward me instead of away. 

Her face was now pale, all excitement drained by her sudden realization. “Gran’s story,” she started, her voice sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. “About the mirror bush…”

“That’s just a story!” I exclaimed. “You know, to keep us from wandering off of the path between Gran’s house and ours.”

“But Arthur,” it had been years since I’d heard that pleading, whiny tone catch in her throat. “The sky and the ground are mirrored here, like they always were in Gran’s stories.”

“Oh,” the gravity of her realization and the topsy-turvy nature of oru situation gurgled hauntingly in my poor, nervous stomach. 

“Do you recall how the children got back to their world in that story, Jilly?” I asked softly, terrified of her answer, clinging to the feeble, flimsy hope that maybe, just maybe, I had remembered wrong.

“I do,” she whispered back, just as scared of her own answer as I was. “And I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

“You said there were no spiders!” I yelled angrily at her.

“I didn’t know… this isn’t some trick I concocted!” She argued back, her voice mirroring my own terrified rage. “I honestly just tripped!”

“Yeah and fell into an upside down world where elephant-sized spiders control the only portals back to our own world!” I cried, burying my head in my hands. “When Gran said your clumsiness was going to be the death of me I never imagined this.”