The Creature Inside and Out

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/creature-fantasy-character-fable-3195099/Rachealmarie“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 …

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From the Sea . . .

J..W. Waterhouse. / 1900

It happened at the dark of morning, when the sky turned from black to pewter to soft tangerine.

She rose from the surf, waterlogged, the seaweed and starfish whispering her name.

            Sassas. Sassas.

Sassas ignored their entreaties to return.

Once a sea creature, she’d long ago left that life, not of her own choosing at first, but now Sassas was comfortable on two feet connected to two tall long legs. Continue reading

What My Grandkids Won’t Believe

Ocean City NJ, lifeguard rowboadThe waves crest in and out, gray and blue, as the sun rises over the expanse of dawn-rose sand. In the NJ beach city I’m visiting, the sandy stretch is long and wide thanks to the humungous efforts of the state to save and preserve its beaches.

But of course that’s not what I’m concentrating on as I walk a mesmerizing pace past one empty lifeguard stand to another, each one symbolizing the length of two blocks.

I focus my attention, instead, on the being that’s following me, slowly, lazily, in the water as I stride on the beach in fierce wonder. Continue reading