The book lay unopened for centuries. Julie didn’t know that, of course, when she clambered up Auntie Murphy’s attic steps to see how bad it was going to be.
Auntie’s will had been read just yesterday, and she’d left Julie everything in her 180-year-old house – the house she’d lived in, as well as her mother, and her grandmother, and her ….
When the attic door above Julie creaked open, she released a nervous exhale. Continue reading
“Stevie, I don’t have a creature inside me,” I insist. “In fact, there’s not much left to me at all,” I stare down at my decrepit body, hunched over from arthritis and age.
“That’s the point, Auntie!” Stevie exclaims. “The creature inside you is young. Vibrant. Viral.”
Readers: I’m Lucia, and my story began at the last post (https://roughwighting.net/2023/04/07/the-creature-within/) explaining that my brilliant nephew Stevie is convincing me to take a pill he invented that will help me become“the creature within.” At my old age, crooked with regrets, I decide to take the plunge, so to speak. Many of you guessed I will turn into a dragon, or a bird, a snake or a butterfly. Some of you even guessed I’d become a … well, wait, I’m holding the pill in my hand …
I always liked Stevie as a kid. He was kooky, and so was I. But I was in my mid-40s when he was born.
By the time Stevie was a teen, his intellect was genius level, and his nerdiness disturbed his two straighter-than-an arrow parents, so they put him in an advanced program at MIT and crossed fingers he’d be accepted by the other odd souls that hovered in the halls of techno academia. Continue reading
Two weeks ago, my neighbor Missy dropped off her parrot JOJO at my house and raced off to visit her ailing father in Florida.
At the time, JoJo, an ancient Psittacine, prophesized that Missy’s dad would die.
JoJo was right. (Parrot Plot Points)
Joan strolled around the tropical complex on a soft evening dotted above with stars.
Her trip to this island had been everything she hoped for on a solitary October vacation, escaping a stress-filled job, worrisome aging parents, and a soon-to-be ex-boyfriend. The days melted into each other as she strolled for hours on secluded beaches, sat at the ocean-view bar and slowly savored pink-umbrella drinks, avoiding the curious glances of those with family or lovers.
Continue reading
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