No Sloe Gin Tonight
The dryer was tumbling end over end. All the clothes inside, in a great whirl of fabric and color. Unseen to the eye. But heard. And the skyscrapers, outside the windows, stood tall and still. Very still, with their lighted attire. Their signs,...
Where the Marrow Should Be
"You don't like mating parties?" Field blinked. Turned ... and saw a pink-furred bat. Attractive. Bright-eyed. She'd snuck up on him. The champagne had obviously dulled his sensory reactions ... his ears, anyway. For his eyes were working ... and...
Sheltered from the Coming Cold
In the fall, shuttered, sheltered from the coming cold, the old, white farm-house buried in the marigolds, Field listened. Swivel, went his ears. Swivel! Quietly, blankly, he listened to that rain. The rain that relentlessly, ferociously...
Bon Hiver
It fell in flitter-fluttering flakes, like a million parachutes. It fell in a slate-grey, later-day light, the open horizon all hazy (where did it start, and where did it end), and all the naked trees, with their sky-reaching limbs, trying to...
Milty
It was all hustle-and-bustle outside, today. Everyone working. Everyone shopping. Everyone going. The sound of too many cars on the salted, chilly streets, with all those drivers driving so crazily. Engines sputtering. And a few...
Caught in the Rain
PART TWO OF FIVE Later in the same day. A few hours later. And the wind began to pick up. Field's twitching, sniffing nose pressed to the glass of the window (the living room window). Watching the clouds roll in. Watching the grey....
A Folded Bird
The night, now prematurely born (in a fit of time-changing, legislated scorn), struggled to breathe. Not yet weaned from the drug called 'warmth,' and that drug called 'day.' The drugs that simply couldn't stay. Leaving all in a state of...
Ebb and Flow
Akira was on a large, thick branch. Halfway up a sycamore tree. She scanned the area. It was night, the dead of night. And not even the moon was out. She took a deep breath and fired off a few echolocation bursts, which squeaked out into the black....
Scurry-ful
Nighttime. And an 8:04 yawn, and a 28-degree whisker-twitch, with warmth wafting from the closed oven, and gourds (yellow, green, and orange) in the middle of the kitchen table (in lieu of once-displayed flowers). And a ladybug crawling, barely...
Blue-Eyed
... February 5, 2006 ... After the anthem ... after God Bless America ... after the coin toss (tails won) ... After introduction, after interim. After the hype and the 67,000 ... after flash-bulbs. Fireflies and starlit. In a dome. In...
Scotch Pine
It was late. The outside barren. Bare. And white. Nothing of summer, or even autumn, remained. All a memory. All waiting to happen again. All in respite. Out there, the glitter-glistening icicles, like recently-invited guests, hung from...
Hoosier Tomatoes
They were sitting side-by-side on the kitchen counter, foot-paws bare, toes wriggling, not quite reaching the off-yellow linoleum of the floor. Cast in the soft, golden glow of a singular, sixty-watt bulb, which was hung in a fixture above the silvery,...