Category: October Stories

On Hallow’s Eve

Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

Rain-dappled moonlight pierced the clouds on a wet Halloween night. It cast a silo of light, illuminating a broom abandoned in a muddy field. The broom danced alone to silent music; a step, a dip, a leap. It wished for company. A witch materialized from thin air.

“I’ve come through the veil to find my sister,” she said.

The broom curtseyed, in the stiff way that brooms do. “Climb on.”

The broom got cozy under the witch’s woolen cloak, and with a few mumbled spells, the witch searched the Earth on the one night when living and dead mingle together.

Advice from an Older Me to My Six Year-old Self

Photo by My Duyen Van on Pexels.com

I traveled in time to my sixth birthday party. I spoke with my younger self. “Psst. It’s hard to wait when you’re six.”

“Yeah, it’s not fair. It’s my birthday. I’m last in line for all the games. My aunt said I should get to go first, but Dad won’t listen to anyone.

“Relax. Life is waiting in lines. You’ll learn to notice what’s important. You’ll see; that’s your superpower.”

“I’m mad and I’m sad.”

“You’ll remember the party that way. But learning to wait is valuable, even when you think waiting isn’t worth it. Also, Dad’s not always right.”

Thank You for Your Attention

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com

Concerned about CRIME! He is ready to lead. You know WHO! TRUMP’s been leading us the wrong way since the CENTRAL PARK 5! Such a strong response. But, those five boys WEREN’T GUILTY.

In 1989, SOME PEOPLE SAID that WE HAD TO DO SOMETHING. And so Trump took out that DEATH PENALTY AD against those innocent boys. And some people believed him. Like they do now. DON’T you BELIEVE IT!

WOKE crime. He’s on it now. National guards coming to a city near you, especially a low-life DEMOCRATic city. The crime rate will drop if PEOPLE stay inside all SCARED!

In Retreat

Photo by Frank Rietsch on Pexels.com

Lily had a cup of coffee and a bowl of granola after an hour of yoga. The beach was a ten minute walk away. She didn’t gag at the disagreeable smell of rotting algae. She reveled in it. The  sight of plovers hopping along, their beaks poking the wet sand to find breakfast, delighted her. The sunrise shone behind them.

She was beginning to enjoy the solitary days, the solo walks, the freedom to set her own schedule. A month after her partner passed, she had found  a natural habitat where death and life mingled and new mixed with old.

Fiction Interrupted by Facts

Autism scares the bejesus out of MAHA. I understand.

It’s a big complicated issue with multiple causes. Autism fits on a continuum of neurodivergence along with ADD, OCD, bipolar and others. If you have a child on that continuum, the last thing you want to hear is people playing a blame game. Your child is not a pawn. You want to do something.

I have been there.  Here’s an excellent place to start : https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/opinion/autism-rates-science-diagnosis-parent.html

The author of this essay has written a book: “Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism.”

And some good news about research being funded by the N.I.H.:

Next week: Back to fiction

Living on the Edge of Time

Photo by Robert Schrader on Pexels.com

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

Photo by veeterzy on Pexels.com

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

Photo by Nadin Sh on Pexels.com

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.

Witches: Part Two

Photo by Andre Furtado on Pexels.com

She saw him coming, saw him in the future, saw the pain and the pleasure, the sad ending to a tale she might have rewritten if only he hadn’t stirred in her the promise that she could be, for once and only, like other girls. A woman, not a witch.

She carried the child. Raven black hair streaked white, the mark of witches. Intuition stirred through her to foretell truths that no one would believe, the Cassandra gene.

Some don’t believe us. Some call us witches. We know their vision is blurred by greed and power and they are wrong.