Short Stories

Hello Blog Fans and welcome to my short stories page.

The following are pieces I wrote for writing contests or just because.

Three Tails

I’m uncomfortably aware that something is afoot. My keeper, the one who decides when I can go out (Never!) is working on a contraption. SHE keeps looking back at me with malicious thoughts on her mind.

What are you looking at Keeper? Warden! Don’t you even think of bringing that tape measure near my head again! I can only assume that after “Operation Cat Cone” went down in flames with me being the victor and you being the victim, that you now know better than try to dress me!

Ok, wait for it…YES! SHE is gone! Time to get back to work! OH ya…that’s the stuff. This patch is coming along nicely! If SHE leaves me alone now, so I can really get down to grooming, I may be able to get this bad boy to the size of a silver dollar by sunset!

Ah! SHE's back! Ow! What’s with the swat to the butt Warden? Now, back to the patch—wait... what is that? No! Get away from me! Don’t you dare come near me with that thing! No! SHE'S brought help! They’re tag teaming! I can’t get free! NO!

Hey! New Rocks! Look a plant! Oooo, I’m floating in a sea of…Hey! New Rocks!

Well, here we are the three of us in the boat. It’s a gorgeous day. The water is calm. The Master is a bit tense. Master’s young friend is anxious. I wonder why? Maybe I should check out the situation Um…no? I guess not. I’m being pulled back and have been told to stay put. Hmmm....it appears I’m not making my intentions clear. I just want to see how things are with the young friend. I’ll try again.

Yes, Master, I agree with you that on the way to the other end of the boat I may sniff a seat or two, maybe eat something off the bottom of the boat that I’m not supposed to, maybe have a good gnaw on a flotation device…it's my nature. On this we agree, yes?

Ok, so I’m going in. No? Stay? Master says stay. That’s fine. I’ll listen. If I obey something good may be in it for me later.

The shame, the shame of it all! The Warden will pay! I have rights, don't I? There must be a feline charter somewhere. .. If I want to bite and scratch and have a good chew on the same spot on my back over and over again FOR MONTHS, I believe that falls under the category “My Personal Business”! 

This humiliation will not go unpunished. This latest apparatus is called, I think SHE said, a "Tank Top"! What a lie! There is nothing "Tank" like about it! It's not made of metal, it doesn't have huge tires! If there is a gun like quality to the top, it has been removed! It's name is a falsehood of EPIC proportions! Cotton is the oppsite of metal and the spagetti straps make lousy tires! SHE and one of her minions slipped it on me despite my show of strength and now, because of this device I can no longer keep up with my plan for fur removal.

Everytime SHE, the doer of all things evil, looks at me SHE smiles! Do you think this is FUNNY? That I am but a plaything in your CIRCUS OF CHAOS? Well, keep it up Warden and we’ll see how  amusing you find the situation when I chew  ALL the bristles off your paint brushes in sweet heavenly revenge!

Ahh…I’ve tripped AGAIN! These blessed straps keep falling down! Not only does that make me look slovenly, I feel like I’m trying to walk through hoops!

When will the madness end?!

Wow! A new plant! I think I’ll check out what’s-hey, where’d this rock come from? OOOO! I shouldn’t put my face on that filter thing. OOOOO! I shouldn’t put my face on that filter thing!

So, things are good so far. Master and her young friend are not talking very much, but it is early. The young one looks cold. She’s positively huddled in the front of the boat! I suppose there is a nip to the sea air.

Oh dear, is she green?

I should investigate the situation. I should…no… again, I’m not going anywhere. Wow! That was quite a yank on the ol’ collar there! Master really means business! No problem, no problem, I can snack on this dog biscuit and observe the state of affairs from my position in the centre of the boat.

What is she- is Master’s young friend eating a dog biscuit too? No wonder she’s green…

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, SHE and those who bow to her rule, upped the ante. I am now loaded down with Diaper pins! Diaper pins I tell you! SHE has used these infernal, oversized, safety needles to bind me tighter in this Cotton Tube of Despair. Ok yes they do hold the straps up, and I've stopped tripping every few feet, but they are  the straps on the unsightly tank top that I am being forced to wear against my will! The insanity must end soon. Even if the Warden let me go outside, how could I show myself to anyone? A tough guy like me does not keep  his yard cred by strutting around his plot of land in a teeny tiny shirt!

Those pesky ravens…if they ever catch a glimps of me in my nightmare garment…I’ll never be respected again! Not that they give me the respect I deserve now now. They think they’re so funny and so big with their sqawking and laughing and beaks. Well, I’ll show them!

Let me outside! Let me…oh right, this top! Foiled again! I can’t be seen in this! It’s so unflattering and no one has noticed how filthy it has gotten!

OH, the Warden has returned.  What are YOU holding? What are you going to to do me now?!

Yea! Food now! Hey there’s  that big head looking at me!  And so many rocks one, two—

Yea! Food now!

Now let’s assess the situation. The fishing lines are out…two lines…no three lines…counting is a bit of a struggle for me…But it’s clear the lines are out, we are trolling for salmon and we are cutting through the calm water at a nice, easy pace.

What was that? I heard a splash!

Master just gasped!  Her young friend looks nervous.

Oh! There it is again! Oh and another one! Loud splashing everywhere! Leaping! Many leapings! I can’t count that fast!

It’s OW! Master, stop tugging! I’m trying to count the leaping fish!

Sharks? These fish are sharks? Master's young friend is yelling something about sharks. She’s squealing  in the front of the boat. She should really be looking and counting, like ME!

I’ve never seen anything like this! I should get closer. Ow, no…maybe not! Being pulled back from the edge…

Seven! Seven leapings! What are they ?Porpoises? Is that what Master is yelling at her young friend?

Awww…she’s crying, her young friend is crying, poor girl.  Awww she’s scared! Not me! I’m so excited I could…oh dear….a bit of a mess…ooo…ok now Master is really mad!

Is she mad at me? Or at her young friend? Why aren’t they paying attention to the seven leapings?

Oh, they’re gone, the seven.

They’re gone.

A fate of the most devious nature must be visited upon the head of the Warden.  I thought, once again, that my current situation could not be made worse, however it seems that the adage "Once you've hit bottom the only way to go is up." is not always true. I have discovered the hard reality that once you've hit bottom, a hole can be dug to enable you to fall into an even deeper pit of suffering.

The tank top was a profound scarring of my spirit. But this? This latest garmet, this seventh level of hell that some may call clothing is definitely the foulest of the foul.

I feel such loathing for myself that I can’t even stand to look at my beautiful feline form in any reflective surface! My svelte figure is…oh even just thinking about this hurts with a pain on a level  I didn't even know existed ...instead of an emasculating tank top adorned with Diaper Pins, I am now sporting a Diaper Shirt! NO! This cannot be!

First the Warden and her crew bound me in the material with the snaps at the front, as they were meant to. I’ve seen  the tiny ones of their spieces in these things and that’s the way they all wear them.  Then suddenly, because they didn’t approve  of me sharpening  my mighty fangs on the snaps, they tore it from my being and forced it onto me again. But now I don the garment on backwards! It appears that SHE and her crew mistook my tooth improving behaviour as a signal for help! They falsely assumed that  my actions were a display of distress. They though the snaps were rubbing on my soft belly and that I must be made more comfortable.

 Which actually...if I am being forced to confess, is kind of true.

But backwards!  Backwards shows SO many sins! It reaveals that the shirt is too small! It is stretched over my lissome form and my puffy fur sticks up in embarrassing tuffs between the snaps...and...oh the embarrassment is almost too much to bear...The worst, most insufferable, most macho sucking aspect of the entire "Operation Stop the Chewing"...is...There is a DUCKY on my shirt! A DUCKY! A DUCKY that can be seen by all and sundry now that he rides on my shoulder and not my chest!

He's cute and yellow and SMILING!  This is most grevious. This is my blackest day.

Oh boy...here comes that thing with the uh...fingers?  Hey the plants are gone!

Ahhhh! A big tube!

Yip...I wish I had some plants. I'm going to swim—

Ahhhh! A big tube! My rocks are leaving!

Oh boy, the thing with fing..things.

Yip...I wish I had some...I don't know...something green-

Ahhh! Not the tube!

Well, what a day, what a day. We're all good now...I think. Master is quiet, keeping things calm...but she seems sad...like a moment she never got to see properly will never come again.

Her young friend seems less sad and more worried. She's still pale...no still a bit green...did she steal another dog biscuit? No, she's drinking hot chocolate and scanning the water. I don't think she liked the...sharks? No wait, porpoises. Yes, the seven leapings. My -oh- my they were a beautiful sight.

Hmmm...Master seems annoyed at her young friend. Her young friend seems very sorry. I'm not sure why all the negative emotion. I had a blast; time for another treat.

Wow! I have plants! Oooo! My lips and that filter don't mix! Hey look! A rock!  Wish I had plants...

I have finally been freed of my distinctly adorable, but horribly humiliating, Ducky straight jacket. Now that the bare patch on my back has been replenished with a new stock of fur,the diaper shirts have disappeared.

I hope they burned them! I'd like to set them ablaze and then I'd whirl around the fire in frenzied "Dance of Destruction" as the diaper shirts were slowly turned to ash! "Who's smiling now DUCKY?!" That's what I'd say.

The Warden has allowed me to return to my rightful place, in the yard, but I am now subjected to a regular over abundance of preening from SHE of all things wrong and her followers.

Being forced to wear clothing fit for wriggling, squealing infant wardens incapacitated my ability to work on my new look. They never understood that  I wasn't infected, that I wasn't itching and biting a sore. I going for a bare patch, maybe two if I could manage it, ON PURPOSE, to give my normal charming fluffy appearance an edge. I thought that adding a "hint of mange" would be enough to keep those squawking ravens away and force  them to turn their cunning ways on another unfortunate scaredy Cat!

But the powers that be in my way for coolness remain convinced that I had an infection on my back and if I try to recreate the patches again, they will pull those Ducky Diaper shirts out of whatever dimension in hell they are hiding them in  and wrestle me to the brink of insanity while they cram me into an ill fitting, Ducky infused prison.

Now if I chew a great patch of fur off my front left leg, that will get their attention and maybe they'll want me to wear a rocking wrist band. Ya,maybe one with some spikes! Then those ravens will think twice about messing with a rebel cat like me. They'll end up learning at lightning speed that when you mess with THIS CAT, you get THE CLAWS.

 Afterword...

Mushroom the goldfish still resides happily in his tank, continually amazed by his surroundings every few seconds.

Lucky the cat is still around as well and feels the need to let his owner know that while outside is a good place to be from time to time, her studio is really the place he calls his own.

Maggie the dog passed away many years ago as the tale she was witness to happened when the author was a little girl and used to go fishing with her Grandmother.

***

Dry Tears

     Smoke from his cigarette drifted towards her still face. She remained motionless as it

coated her eyes, flowed into her nose, settled on her teeth. They would be coming soon. 

Any minute now he would hear the sirens that would signal that his end was near. Not

that it mattered. Life with her had been empty. Life without her would be exactly the

same: empty. He may as well see out his days in a dirty cell. At least in there the pain

would be inflicted by outside forces and not because of forces cutting him from the inside

out.

   He had made a terrible mistake; they both had and now here they were at this inevitable

end. Why had he found her? Why had fate not left things as they had been? The first

time, it had ended in the most inevitable way. They had said good-bye on her wedding

day.

   She had to marry that man, the man she did not love. The man she loved was too

simple, too poor and would never be accepted. Through his tears he had kissed her tears

away. He looked at her now: perfectly still, dry tears upon her hardened face. She had

begged him to do it.  She had said she would do it herself if he didn’t do it for her for if

she stayed with her husband he would eventually succeed.

The gunshots had rung loud and clear through the city streets. She had smiled as the hot

metal had pierced her heart.

    Sirens; the time to pay for love was here.

 ***

She is Light

She is light.

She is light in many forms.

She is the obvious bright light that makes you see everything clearly.

But she can be a flickering light, the light of a single dying bulb that only gives you glimpses of what is really there.

She is the sunlight through the window I have my back to, making me a faceless spectator to those in the room.

And she is the house lights in a theatre, exposing the audience to me as I stand on stage, watching everyone watch me and my mistakes.

She is the light of a full, rising moon; pure white radiant light that you can feel as much as you can see.

But like the moon she has a dark side that she will expose to no one.

She is a florescent light that hums constantly and always make me look awful.

But she is a spotlight; focused and when this light of hers is on me, when it follows me, I feel wrapped in her love and no one else matters.

She is candle light; soft and gentle and bright enough to fill a dark room.

But she is firelight, hot light that can burn you and it catches you alight when you least expect it.

The light, her light, is always on her, always in her, always shining on those around her for she shares her light and likes to find the light in others.

I love her light

I feel her light

I need her light

But there are times when I am afraid to be too close to her light.

For if her light ever went out,

So would I.