I peer down at Hank as I pet the top of his soft brown head while wondering, why had I never noticed this anomaly before? Continue reading
magical realism
Carrots and a Cat = Destiny
Denise had two things on her mind: carrots and Carl.
Carl loved carrots. Carl hadn’t talked to Denise in two weeks, three days, and 14 hours, and the only thing on Denise’s mind was to bake a carrot cake that would make Carl come back to her. Continue reading
READ-Y
When Julie opened the cover of the ancient book in the attic, the first page glowed opal, and letters began to float off the page, circling her like fairy dust. (Part I, The Ancient Book)
Julie should have been afraid, closed the book, and raced down the narrow ladder, quickly closing that attic ceiling door.
But instead her body relaxed as dozens of those letters surrounded her and buzzed like happy bees. The sweet soft buzzzzzz turned to whisperings from Spirits long gone and still here. Continue reading
The Creature Inside and Out
“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 …
The Creature Within
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
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