Oscillate

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Sonia starts to collect her tools and put them back into her toolbox, a small green box with a cord attached to her belt. She leans back on the cushion that she brought down into the machine’s guts a couple months ago, giving her just the barest comforts. She tightens one more valve before putting away one of her smaller wrenches. The glowing light of the screen in the crevice of the machine asks if she wants to “Oscillate.” She nods.

The display turns a bright red and shows the words “DO NOT MOVE, OSCILLATION IN PROCESS.” Sonia closes her eyes and holds her breath as the machine starts to whirl alive. She listens to every hiss and scream of the device as it awakens, mentally marking if any need to be corrected. 

A large pendulum comes swinging down towards the crevice that Sonia is hiding in, just inches to her left. It swings right above the chalk mark that she made on the ground when she first became this ship’s mechanic. The job position opened in the first place because of a botched oscillation. She was incredibly grateful that they cleaned the place up before she joined.

(more…)

Saint Asodé

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Dearest Alice,

I know it has been months since I’ve last written. I do apologize for the delay. Life has thrown many odd events my way lately and I have been trying to decide how to address them appropriately. I hope you can understand. I will be brief going through what has happened because I have great news to share with you, my love.

You may remember me excitedly writing to you about Lord Hoare inviting me to his estate shortly before I left. Well, on the last leg of my journey I decided it would be a good idea to take him up on his offer and visit. We were already traveling down from Scotland, so it was on the return journey. 

I expected this to be a short diversion, hardly adding any time onto my journey. I’m so sorry for how late I am to return to you. But it is all worth it, I hope you will see that.

(more…)

Limited Release

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Becky slammed open her door yelling “Morgan!” She stuck her fingers in her mouth and pulled her lips apart to show her new braces. “Lewk! Imma monsher.” She gnashed her teeth and snarled at her friend laying on the floor eating chips.

Morgan bolted upright and said, “Holy shit! Was that today?”

“Yeah, sorry for being late. Mom took me to get them today. She had to go back to work, but she gave me money for pizza.”

“Oh, I can’t stay, my brother is going to get me in a bit. I’m helping him with some art project of his.”

“Lame.” Becky moved on quickly and closed her door. “It’s such bullshit, Dad said I wouldn’t have to get these if I got As.”

Morgan smiled. “You failed geometry.”

“Yeah, but the rest were As!”

Morgan put down her chips, stood up and walked over to Becky, motioning for her to open her mouth. Becky smiled wide.

Morgan leaned closer and said, “Does it hurt?”

“No, of course not! I’m not a wimp.” Becky lied.

Morgan laughed a little and flopped down onto Becky’s bed. “You’re so cool.”

Becky’s eyes opened wide. “Oh! You think that’s cool!” Becky jumped down to the floor and started rooting under her bed. First, she pulled out the record player that her parents got her for Christmas two years ago. And then she pulled out a red sleeve with the words “Limited Release” printed in black. Except for a small fold near the corner, the sleeve looked brand new. Becky started to remove the record from the sleeve and said, “You have to listen to this, okay? Just tell me what you hear.”

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5 Tarot Cards

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Today I’m going to be posting 5 tarot cards I’ve drawn and their artistic influences. I hope you enjoy!

The Two of Swords
Renee Magritte’s Not to Be Reproduced
The 5 of Staves
Witches Flight Goya.jpg
Francisco Goya’s Witches Flight
The Lovers
Renee Magritte’s The Lovers II
The Star
Burney Relief
5 of Cups
Pause at 1:30 for the inspiration

So these are some of the influences in the deck. There are many more coming in future cards. The Pieta as well as Gustav Klimt are coming in future cards.

I’ve been kind of busy lately with a lot of going away parties and art shows, so please bear with me. I will be updating this blog with more stories in a bit. I will have a lot of free time throughout August, so hopefully I can get a nice buffer and also work on some bigger projects as well.

The Milk of Human Kindness

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Alex began to unscrew the lid, gently screeching, of a small glass vial. He poured the contents in a circle around the table, just past the runes he found in his extensive research into the arcane and unknowable, which were surprisingly easy to understand.

He began chanting, as one does in situations like this. His particular chant was in Latin, specifically a dialect that has long since been dead, but was commonly found off in a northern set of mountains. As he butchered the consonants, which was not as important as you’d think, he started to light the candles around the table. The book suggested pure white candles, but Alex was hoping that the backlog of Yankee candles his mom had gotten him over the years would suffice.

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Making Memories

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“I hope the wait wasn’t too long, Mr. Boeing.” Said the doctor as he walked into the cold beige and white room.

“Oh, I’ve dealt with longer waits than this, but thank you for your consideration.” Mr. Boeing shifted his weight so he could better focus on the doctor.

“Do you have any questions before we begin?”

“None, sir. Your nurse explained the whole procedure to me clear as day. What a kind gentleman. My grandson is single. I should give him his number. They’d get along I think.” Mr. Boeing began to take out his phone as well as a pen.

“Maybe you can ask Mr. Clark after the procedure, right now we should be getting you ready to be put under. Have you had anything to eat in the past 8 hours?”

(more…)

About

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I write short stories, around 1,000 words each. The stories range from science fiction to fantasy, horror to comedy, light to dark.

I post them twice a month. One is posted on the 15th of every month, and the other is posted right around when the month switches over.

I often write about disability, feeling confused, and holding onto small hopes.

Please enjoy my stories.

Fickle

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Fickle saw the light filtering in from the still-closed curtains of the laundry room. “Rise and Shine,” Fickle whistled to themself. The morning was Fickle’s favorite part of the day. Everything processed quicker. There were fewer dangling bits of memory to slow them down as they thought about their tasks and place in the world, but they could not bask in this feeling. They had to get to work.

Their initial protocol, as usual, was to download their tasks for the day. Of course the list was pretty standard. There were no special events coming up, so the regular cycle of tasks was given to Fickle based on the day of the week. Today, Fickle had to clean underneath the couches as well as behind the bookshelves. This was Fickle’s specialty, the reason they were designed. Their arms could unfold and extend into harder to reach locations, allowing them to clean up all the difficult spots that used to take Momma moving the furniture to clean. Much less hassle if Fickle could do it by themself.

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The Tree That Wasn’t

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“Mom! Eemah! Where’s the tree out back?” Elijah was calling from the back door of the thin two story row house. “I wanted to show Carol.”

Mom, Lexi, called back to Elijah from her study on the second floor, “Oh, uh, we cut it down a few years back. Sorry love.”

“Why’d you go and do that? I loved that tree” Elijah took a step into the house and towards the bottom of the stairs.

Lexi exited her study and walked to the top of the stairs so she didn’t have to yell anymore, “It just needed to come down honey. You know how these things are. Now, no making a fuss. You can still show Carol the neighborhood.” Lexi looked around, “Where is she?”

“Oh, I’m just in the kitchen! Don’t mind me. Grabbing a juice from the fridge.”

“Don’t let her eat any of the hamantashen, Eemah made them earlier today.”

“They for tomorrow?”

“Yeah, guests are coming over.”

Carol walked into view, holding a half eaten triangular shaped cookie. “Hi Mrs. Breitman!” She took another bite while Lexi motioned to Elijah incredulously and Elijah shrugged.

“Well, I wish you would have told me, mom. I would have liked to have said goodbye.” Elijah looked down, turned around, and walked with his fiancée to the back door.

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