Author: Monica McHenney

Monica lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two foster dogs. She taught parents how to raise their toddlers for twenty-five years before retiring in 2015 to write. The secret to toddlers is to make sure you get enough sleep. Monica hasn't found the secret to writing, yet, but is diligently working at it. See links to her on-line stories on the publications page.

A Rainbow Future

Photo by Monica McHenney

The day before the election results come in, I’m anxious. I shuffle and create a spread, laying Tarot cards on the counter. The High Priestess represents my question. This card symbolizes divine law. The future is hidden, but intuition can be a flashlight in the dark. Which way to go? Towards integrity or expedience? It is an uneasy choice.

The Tower and the Ace of Wands (reversed) suggest a past where change has been postponed. We struggle to transform an outmoded system. It will take longer than one election cycle to develop the collective awareness required to come to consensus. In the short term, established institutions will remain in place.

How does one cope? The Hanged Man suggests a pause, a rebirth, and a reassertion of the feminine principle. Integration comes from a process of sifting facts, feelings, and thoughts together. Can we do it? The Six of Pentacles (reversed) points to money selfishly misused, an environment that must change. The Emperor is the X-factor, the unexpected outcome. The card represents rule by force under patriarchal institutions. If this is the election’s outcome, I hope we unite to change direction and reach for a different future under the rainbow card.

Who’s Going to Pick Your Vegetables When They Deport All the Immigrants? I Don’t See Any Proud Boys Lining Up.

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Immigrants are the lifeblood of America. They bring hope, energy, and optimism. Different languages and cultures enrich this country. We’re better together.

It’s a story that’s been told before. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We all came in on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now.” I heard it in a Malvina Reynolds song.

Most people don’t remember that song. The sentiment has drowned in a sea of anti-immigrant vitriol that’s threatening our most precious import.  And here you thought it was silicon chips or fast fashion. Don’t be fooled. We need a path, not a wall.

A Boy Lost My Glove

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Bunny tail, soft and furry warm,
The boy insisted that I keep it.
Who knows what it meant to him.
He had so little.

The boy insisted that I keep it.
The best apology he could make.
He had so little;
It seemed like a huge sacrifice;

The best apology he could make.
I told him words were enough;
It seemed like a huge sacrifice,
The guilt another blow to his fragile ego.

I told him words were enough.
Who knows what it meant to him,
The guilt another blow to his fragile ego,
Bunny tail, soft and furry warm.

An Elegy to Everydayness- a Pantoum

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Death disrupts life’s everydayness. 
Ends the companionship of eating together,
Evening walks and midnight talks
With friends and family.

Ends the companionship of eating together,
Thoughts shared, words and deeds. These bring us close
With friends and family,
Confer death its sting through everyday loss.

Thoughts shared, words and deeds, these bring us close.
Long before we die these precious threads loosen, 
Confer death its sting through everyday loss.
Everyday loss creeps up, settles in softly

Long before we die these precious threads loosen,
Evening walks and midnight talks.
Everyday loss creeps up, settles in softly.
Death disrupts life’s everydayness.

Living on the Edge of Time

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The dust flew in front of her broom raising a cloud in the moonlight. She swept when she wanted, ate when she pleased. The rhythm of the ocean, the lighthouse, and her life as caretaker filled her days and nights. The flashing Fresnel lens, its light constant, guided sailors in the worst weather. Guided them safely to shore. A guide is what she’d become. She knew the rocky, sandy, sea-stained cliffs.

She knew enough to steer clear. She’d learned on her own wreck of a life. In the damp ocean air, she watched the moon cycle through never changing phases.

No Longer Waiting

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Calypso, Circe, and Griselda waited to begin. They gasped with delight when Penelope arrived without Odysseus, a red and yellow striped hula hoop spinning to the sway of her hips.
It flew up. It centered itself. Now they were ready to roll.

The four joined hands and swirled madly around the hoop. Calypso’s sweet soprano lifted their hearts while Circe cast a spell of impatience that Penelope wove into a new adventure. Griselda simply danced. They spun faster and faster, until the hoop transformed into a Möbius strip. In one smooth move, they disappeared into a chaos of roiling branches.

Polite Turkeys

Photo by Monica McHenney

These turkeys were not plump. Their tail feathers didn’t fan behind them like traditional Thanksgiving birds in a children’s art project. I didn’t detect a red wattle around their necks. The ladies flock, soft spoken and prim. They make me question the news stories about grumpy, aggressive turkeys.

A mob of turkeys, a gang of turkeys, some turkeys might be felons, but not all of them. They’re not all alike anymore than people are all alike. It’s our diversity that saves us. I’d like to think so anyway. Still, we have a tendency to flock together, we birds of a feather.

Jack, the Giant’s Chef Extraordinaire

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Jack smelled promise in the beans before he traded them for his cow. He imagined a palette of flavors, a cassoulet fit for the king.

His mother fumed. “We need money now.” She tossed the beans into the Earth’s maw.

Overnight a beanstalk grew. It led straight to the giant’s garden where the giantess was weeding. She caught him red-handed stealing beans. “No you don’t.” 

“I only want to taste them.”

“Cook them well and you’re hired. Poorly and you’re dinner.”

Hours later, the ground shook. “Fee, fie, foe… what is that delicious aroma, Wife?” And the giant was satisfied.

Three Times a Charm


Steve Ford Elliott, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By the third attempted murder, I was onto my stepmother. It was the almond smell that gave her away.  When she showed up at the door, I cheeked the apple and did a fake faint. Overconfident, she left without checking my breathing. That evening, the dwarves and I made a plan.

Doc certified the death certificate and the dwarves laid me in a glass coffin. Sleepy’s in a narcolepsy group with a few royal types. Before you could say Prince Charming, I was in another kingdom. At the wedding, Grumpy wrestled Mommie Dearest into iron shoes;  Happy lit the fire

The True Story Behind the Princess and the Pea

Open Media Library

The pea was the best part of that night. 

The Queen said, “Rest well my dear. Eighteen mattresses should be comfortable .” But the wooden ladder the princess climbed to reach the top had splinters that pricked and lodged in her hands. She squeezed and pulled with her fingernails to remove them. She couldn’t sleep; the mattresses swayed every time she moved. 

So she brought a quilt to the floor and tried to sleep beside the bottom mattress where she smelled a pea. It exuded a delicious smell, earthy and sweet. In the morning she asked where she could find more.