She chased luck her whole life. She spent her days searching for talismans and her nights locked up in her burrow rearranging them, as if they demanded all her attention. The walls and surfaces piled high with luck to keep her safe, to bring wealth, to force love into her life. She was so afraid to fail that she failed to live. She shunned her friends, she shunned her family. She stopped eating. She stopped thinking. Nothing meant anything if she couldn't gather just one more object that held the luck she so desperately craved. Just one more leafy clover.
And just like that, spring happens. Yesterday, the trees still slept, and today their limbs are misted in the soft green that laid dormant for icy months. I smile at the blossoms and the 23 degree tilt that makes the magic of seasons reality. The air smells like thunder, loud and fresh. I throw my hands out and spin spin spin, my smiles unable to resist centrifugal force. They flow from my face and land upon clover and dandelions. I'm like the cat in the morning who has been awake while the house slumbered, and is ready for breakfast. Mmm!
You look at me and see a giraffe, long neck, square spots, lips for gripping leaves. Look past my surface. See my shadow, my pointy ears and swishing tail. Which one is real, you wonder. The light that hits me, or the light I block? Am I an herbivore or a carnivore who eats just enough grass to vomit on the carpet? I am this and that and more. I walk proud, humble, fearless, terrified. I sit in the sun and the rain. I live today full as a baked potato, and soon enough I'll be among soil and roots.
I call the rain, each drop a wish, a hope, a trouble bubbling. They free-fall through the atmosphere, then congregate, often teasing gravity further while they form rivulets, brooks, and cataracts. They tickle the hills of the land with troubles, hopes, and wishes. The hills hold them close. They hug away the wanting. "You are perfect," the hills comfort. "We need you to keep us green, just as our green breathes you out so you can rejoin the clouds." Each drop smiles from this love, each splash more fulfilling than the last while they soak in the darkness of soil.
Grobel peeked inside its statuesque friend to see if anyone had put a soul in there yet. Funder had yet to move since they met, but Grobel could tell a friend when it saw one. Usually they sat in silence, each one's memories a cloud questioning the present. Grobel had tried to help Funder find a soul so then they could walk around together, but it's trail of overturned pebbles and leaves only produced worms and dirt. Grobel started telling stories to pass the time. Each tale took on a life of its own, and soon Funder seeped with souls.
Buckets of yarn say around in their fuzzy, chunked-off rainbow twists, and discussed whether they would prefer to hug shoulders or feet, or be so ambitious as to dream of wrapping up an entire creature in order to hug away the winter air. An orange skein peeked over the bucket's lip to whisper to a hazy sky-blue friend that forest-green was too shy to flirt with sea-foam, but that sea-foam crushed on poodle-curly purple, who was tangled up with a tough crowd. Hazy blue itself wished to be socks, but the hand reached down and wrapped its fingers around periwinkle.
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StretchesThe brain needs to stretch before working out just as much as the body. Welcome to my stretch zone of stories in 100 words, and perhaps other bits. Archives
September 2019
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