Tiny dots of heaven.
That's what they were. Tiny dots of heaven.
Cats had always been the protectors of the gods, their defenders. It was why cats were so often walking abroad during the day; there was no time to spend in the home when one was on protection duty.
Some took their duty more seriously than others, but those cats would be punished.
They would not be given these tiny dots of heaven - a reward from above, a thank you from the Masters.
Of course, you had to put up with stupid names from the earthly ones, but...
The chill of the water slowly crept up his trunk, until it reached his tusks. He couldn't move...not that he even wanted to, any more.
They had won.
He'd faced adversary ever since he'd announced his intentions. At first from his parents, then from his friends, until he was the laughing-stock of the whole herd.
"How are you going to pole-vault?" they'd sneered. "You don't have any arms!"
"You think they're going to let you in the Olympics!? Ha! You don't even speak the same language as the humans...how are you even going to communicate your intentions?"
His parents had...
Harold finally decided to turn his life around while he was standing in front of the elevator.
Even though his meeting was on the second floor he hit the up button, buzzing with excitement at the possibilities of where it could take him.
"You been seeing the television?" the Guard said.
Huxton squinted, through the bleariness of sleep into the bleach of daylight, he only saw the form of the Guard, an outline of a man, faceless and without detail. Slowly, he sat up feeling as if his bones were brittle to snap. "What?"
He wished he could seem more heroic than a man who has been beaten and tied and imprisoned for days. He felt horrible with a dehydrated mouth that made sticky sounds each time he parted his lips.
"You been seeing the television? They say you is dead, man. They...
"If you weren't strumming that chord over and over, I might think you were asleep," said Howard.
"Yeah, you might be forgiven for thinking that," replied Memmy. "No, I just rest my head on the body of the guitar. Here. Like this." Memmy's head didn't move. It was already on the body of the guitar.
"Don't you guys play electic guitars," asked Howard.
Memmy didn't look up. "Not when we're depressed. Hey, hand me that bottle, would you?"
"Which bottle?" asked Howard.
"The one that's not empty," said Memmy. He still hadn't looked up.
Howard shook several in sequence. One...
She'd have preferred the electric chair to spending another night at her mother-in-law's cottage.
the mother in law doted and fussed over her son, as if he was a newborn. She made all the meals and cleaned everything and once she caught her wiping the mustard from his chin.
"Oh, I'll make the hotdogs, dear," she said. "Andrew likes them a special way. Wouldn't want you to waste all that time and not have them turn out. Why don't you go lay on the sand and get some sun. You could use it, you seem frightfully pale."
Emily forced a...
The new pope looked down on the moving heads, waving arms, heard the cacophany of sound, brass bands, singing in a multitude of tongues, watched the fluttering flags in the wind, saw the dark sky illuminated by millions of cell phone flashes as his followers took their shot of history. All around the world people watched tv, heard his first words, the blessing, the prayers, the gratitude.
I knew that it was a day most of them would never forget but gradually the magnificence of it would fade in the same way my memories faded of my father, the strong...
The car stalled. The roads were half washed out and the rain pounded like a blacksmith's hammer on the hood. The storms began a few days ago, but before that it had been a dry summer. After the first downpour, people started smiling and stopped fanning their faces. Life strained under the drops in vegetable and flower gardens.
After the first whole nights of dark heavy clouds, the constant grumble of thunder, people were still trying to be positive. Good for the forests, dry as tinder, they'd say. The river was too low anyway.
After a week and flooded basements,...
"Travel light, but take everything with you."
That was all the hastily scribbled note said. Now here I was, driving down the back roads of southeast Georgia, my eyes constantly darting to the rearview mirror, knowing someone - anyone - could be trailing me. What the hell had Erick gotten us into now? I wondered as I drove quickly, dust kicked up behind me as I sped toward the cabin. It was our agreed-upon meeting place in case trouble showed up.
My hands gripped the wheel tighter. Dammit! I swore to myself. I was happy, going to be married in...
The young man, a plough boy judging from the callouses on his hands and the traces of leather straps on his wrist from leading the horse, was startled by the question, but before he could confirm the wise woman's wager she turned away.
Her right big toe - the one she had given to the King of the Fey as payment for 'services rendered' decades ago - had begun to ache. Something (someone?) not quite evil, not quite wicked, and not quite powerful was coming. Not yet. But soon. Her throbbing toe a warning that an 'undecided' power was abroad....