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Showing posts from September, 2018

The Lesson

'There's something about eighty,' said the old woman, 'that frees one from mortality.  How strange to think there was once a time when I feared death.  But that was only a symptom.  For what I feared was the metaphysically unknown.  A life filled with 'withouts.'  And now, I know what my life has been, and there is no need to fear 'withouts' — in fact there never was. 'My days are narrow things to my age-young dreams.  And the strangest thing of all is that I am content to sit and talk to you, cat.'

Fairies Remedy a Sick Day

From his bedroom window, Jack could see a frolic of fun laid out before him like a feast of all his favorite foods.   Balls were kicked and thrown.   Ants were burned (and eaten).   Dirt was piled, and then knocked down as great clouds of dust swirled their small tornadoes about the air.   Hoses were sprayed to the tune of glorious shrieks.   And Jack could participate in none of it.   This was because Jack was ill.   And illness meant one horrible thing: fun was forbidden.   Worst of all, the horrid truth was that even if he had been allowed, he would not have participated.   That was how fuzzy and painful his head was, and how bad his cough, and how achy his body.   Nothing made him feel better, and that was a miserable thought.   Thus, he had spent the day in bed, in a daze of hazy sleep, his head pulsing with un-expelled mucus, in general misery.             How annoying for Jack, then, when he awoke suddenly to a cleared head and easy breathing, only to look outside his win

The Dragons' Gift

               A glimmer of warm, mellow sunlight made its way through the crack in Tommy's eyelid.  He fought a groan, but it inevitably emerged anyway as it always did, with the knowledge that it was time to wake up.  But it was only one small hesitant moment, for the truth was that he had no desire to miss the morning.  Not when he had his job in front of him; especially not on as fine a morning as the sun promised this would be.               He threw on his clothes and a pair of thick boots, stepped out the door of his small cabin into the beaming rays, and drew his arms up over his head in an enormous stretch.  As Tommy opened his mouth in a wide yawn, a bellowing sound came forth.  But it had not come from him.  It was time to do the rounds; there were dragons to feed.               Alisand, Rean, and Sern were Tommy's dragons, and it was his privilege to take care of them.               Tommy's morning was spent hauling haunches of beef into the great barn, wa

Alice of Autumn

              Alice could almost feel Autumn; almost, because it wasn't here yet.  The leaves on the trees were beginning to spot, but not quite turn.  The air was cool, but not exactly crisp.  The scent on the breeze had ripened, but not yet begun to turn to cider.  It was exactly as September should be.               And that did nothing for Alice.               September was all very well, if one could take it in stride, but Alice wanted the leaves to turn now .  She wanted to rake up piles and piles of them, and then walk over their crunchy tops and smell their heady scent.  To feast her eyes on the colorful gourds that made up a beautiful table.  And to bike into an apple of perfect ripeness, tangy sweet, and taste juice just as it was meant to taste.  But it was not to be, for the leaves had not yet begun to fall, the gourds were too small to be picked, and the apples were not quite ripe.               Alice had waited all year for the Season to come again, and now,