Category: May Stories

Undercover Nature Lover

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After hours, a box arrived at Jenny’s apartment above the florist. For months, her boss had used her address for clandestine deliveries. The earthy smell was unmistakable. It was a priceless orchid trafficked from Brazil that Banyan had ordered for a private collector.

The next morning, she said “Nothing came.”

“Call them. It’s perishable.” He picked up a spray hose and walked around the shop in a snit.

Jenny called USDA enforcement and got an appointment for lunchtime.

When she left Banyan looked suspicious, like he knew she was turning him in.

Maybe he smelled the plant under her jacket.

Inspired by Lita Kurth’s, One Creative Prompt a Day

Fox in the Henhouse

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The judge banged her gavel, more in frustration than to bring order to the court. The charge: attempted chaos. The jury had heard from Chicken Little who alleged the sky was falling. The police claimed Fox spread the rumor subliminally on his bedtime story podcast. He then lay in wait around the corner from the henhouse, where he assaulted Little. Big Old Fox denied having done any such thing.

Little cackled, “We will all perish.”

Fox asserted she was crazy. Ugly, too.

The judge adjusted her spectacles and searched among her papers. “We have a process. I’m sure it’s here somewhere.”

Never, Never Underestimate a Fairy

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I’m not an ill humored creature. The opposite. Fairies have sweet natures. Ask anyone except Captain Hook. He and I don’t get on. And though Peter Pan and I have our differences, I believe he would tell you that I have a heart of gold. Literally, a gold heart. 

This is a problem. Greedy people try to do away with me. Hook has attempted more than once with a net of electric eel and kelp, but I always slip through the holes. Unless a fairy is in a snit, she’s size flexible and current impervious. Fortunately, I’m chill as gold.

It Takes a Princess to be a Queen

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Poor little thing, feet bare, bedraggled dress, beleaguered, and common. The prince says to me, “I’ve found a wife.”

More like a wet kit.

I could say, “She’s a sly one.” He would never listen. He has too good a heart.

So, I tell my maid, “Find her a gown. Let her sup in the kitchen. And lastly, make up the softest bed with the hardest pebbles inside as a test.” Maid’s done this many times.

The ungrateful girl eats nothing. The satin is not fine enough, the slippers too stiff. By morning, I know she’s a princess most uncommon.

A Mother’s Quandary

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My only daughter, a kind one her. Didn’t she bake a cake, ripe with almond scent, to bring her grandmother? To visit my mother is arduous, more than one day’s journey. Should I caution her? Could my daughter understand if I warned her about the treacherous nature of the beast we women become by the light of the moon? And as fate would have it, the moon is full tonight. 

I must trust my precious girl. I tell her, “Stay on the path, avoid strangers, clean yourself in the river along the way if you must. My love to Grandma.”

Cut Before the Chase

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Yeasty fresh rolls wrapped in rough textured linen, unpolished like the girl who carried the basket. Mist rose from woody ground to fill the heavy air. The young girl parked herself to rest under a tree.

Behind her, a rank smell rose. A wild laugh accompanied the odor’s owner, a creature of the forest who embodied all that tangled in trees and clung to rocks. “Tired? I have a shortcut for you.” 

“Where am I going, then?”

“Give something, get something.”

“I’ll give you what for.” She pulled out an ax from her red riding cape and cut things short.

Opossum on the Move

Photo by Peter Kessler

Our fence, her highway, three times that we know of. Once struggling in thick ivy, an ashen color, a naked tail that made us mistake her for a white rat disturbing the leaves. Next, she cased the neighbor’s vegetables. Finally, she came with two juveniles following in a line.

It was daylight, an unusual time for them to be about. Overcast, so that might have helped. The mother was scruffy, the youngest sleek with soft fur. We didn’t see them after that.

Maybe the camera scared them off.

Or is it that they change hunting grounds every few days?

Death, Natural and Not

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“The moment you accept your own death, something in you changes.”* Words spoken by a Ukrainian refugee slumped on a shelter bed, phone in hand. Resigned. Her words resonate, a reminder of my mother’s decline. 

Mom has changed. She says very little, sleeps a lot. No more raging temper tantrums over how much butter there is on the toast. Little things matter little, big things less. Nothing big like Russian planes threaten Mom. Nothing external. Nothing like this Ukrainian woman faces. And yet she is upended. Shuttling from hospital to rehab, death has crept inside my mother, weighing her down.

* From The Economist April 30, 2022 “The Wreckage Within.”

Ode to Post-Pandemic Gophers

Photo by Monica McHenney

The last time we met you was before Zoom was the go-to way to say “Hello.” A long time ago, but we remember.

Your three year old was a baby. She’s distant, no interest in meeting strangers. As long as you hold my phone for her, she likes the photo of the lizard camouflaged in the dirt.

“The ground is moving.” Enough to entice a child to get acquainted. It’s a tuft of dried grass, to be precise. A nose pushes up, sniffing the air, reluctant, the way we were when we took the risk to picnic in the park.

Never Try to Outsmart a Comedian

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Priest asks Jester to amuse him. In an elaborate ruse, Jester collects 300 roubles from Priest’s wife to buy 1200 pounds of fish. No fish. Priest doesn’t much like that trick. He can’t catch Jester, so he’s out the money.

Jester tricks Merchant by substituting a goat for himself. He tricks seven greedy jesters three times. The change ups are funny, as is staying one step ahead of a powerful adversary who’s not up to speed.

Abused by the jesters, Jester lures them into sacks to drown in the lake. An early grave to those who can’t outsmart a comedian.

From The Jester in Russian Fairy Tales by Aleksandr Afanas’ev