Tag: Drabble

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

After the Funeral

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Sven was filled with Guinness and peanuts. Distracted by a roadside fruit stand, he ran a stop light.

An ordinary goat in a neon vest and hard hat was selling a variety of grapes: blue concords, tiny green Champagnes and four other kinds. 

“I’ll take a pound of the Muscat,” Sven said through his open window. 

The goat ambled over, leaned on the roof and stared. “You’ve had enough.”

But Sven wanted grapes more than he could say. “They’re for my wife.”

There were no grapes. There was no wife. Sven began to weep for grapes and so much more.

Contemplating the Future with a Roof over My Head.

Photo by Peter Kessler 2025

Men with pitchforks remove the roof. Outside, tarpaper shreds cover the ground around the house.  A few shingles made it down, too. In one short week, our roof will be guaranteed to last for another 30 years.  

I will be 104 when this new roof is old enough to be replaced. I’ll be barely hanging on, more likely gone.

My children plan to keep the house. Such faith. In thirty years this house could stand on a desert or a flood plain. There might be no house. It’s silly to speculate. The future is not guaranteed; but the roof is.

A Mother Knows

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A beloved king lived in a modest bungalow on the edge of the forest. His wife was the kindest and most beautiful of all women. Together they ruled the kingdom of Thryngia in peace and prosperity. If only they had a child to succeed them. 

A charlatan heard of their plight. He found his way into their confidence and promised to bring to life the stillborn child they had buried scarcely weeks before. The charlatan’s cousin, a witch, transformed him into an infant and raised him from the child’s grave. The queen was not fooled. A mother knows her child.

Gaslighting with the Little People

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The sly leprechaun winked for the camera. ”Roll it.”
Invisible fairies heckled the TACO king on the golf green. “Heh, heh, ho, ho, fascism has got to go.” Don-Don landed in a sand trap. Brazen, he carried the ball to the cup. Now he was trapped.

Leprechaun Productions scored better ratings than the three hour snoozefest televised from a cabinet meeting or the new show, Oval Office Apprentice with TACO king scowling at Zelensky. Nothing was as popular as the grifter-in-chief on the 18th hole pleading with a fire-breathing dragon. 

Don-Don abdicated his throne. The dragon hologram disappeared. The leprechaun winked.

It’s Busy Eating

Photo by Monica McHenney

Was there something delicious on the maple tree? It wasn’t the seeds, those sharp red propellers. Soft pod, brown, almost gray, shriveled as if it was a dried up blossom.

Squirrels eat maple flowers. They also chew the tubes on our irrigation system. Five gnawed holes, half an inch apart. No luck plugging them. When the sprinkler goes off, water spurts to soak the ground under the Tipu tree. 

The squirrel has a greedy little face as it pulls the branches to it, plucks the blossoms, takes a nibble, and tosses the husk away. We face off. His says, “Entitled.”

In a Post-Truth World, Nothing Matters ‘Til It Does.

Scream (1895) Edvard Munch by The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0
Apprentice reruns, Quanon posts, bread and circuses.
The Freedom Caucus thrives in a MAGA echo chamber.
Imagine them in heated debate over dancing angels on pinheads.
Rapture them up, please, before it’s too late.
Deliver us, oh Lord, from this theocracy.

They’re loyal to a simple truth: Truth Social.
Grifts, disruption, distortions, self-serving tripe, confounding
Crap written by cowardly charlatans.
What they say is different
From what they do.

His Darkness says, “I am your retribution. The future belongs to us.”
He lies.
Lured by a MagaVerse siren song,
They believe him. 
They break things with no thought for rebuilding.

Floating Island

Photo by Lance Reis on Pexels.com

The princess abided hiding away on an island. She kept hope alive for her people while her brother made his quest to free the kingdom from an evil wizard. Summer nights, crickets sang merrily and in the winter, deer fed on the hay she spread near her small cottage.

A loyal staff cared for the grounds and animals. They produced most things the household needed. The rest was magically delivered by an unmanned boat.

After he defeated the evil wizard, her brother arrived one moonlit night. They hugged, returned home to great acclaim , and the kingdom prospered under their rule.

Feather, Flute, Cloak

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(Continued from last week)

The Prince picked up the flute and played. Within minutes, a bird so large it blocked the sun landed in the field where the Prince stood. It said, “Put on the cloak and get on my back.” Invisible, the Prince flew to a drear castle where the bird left him to his fate.

He fingered the feather and the gate opened. An evil wizard greeted him. “Come to save your kingdom? First save yourself.” The feather became a sword. The prince flew at the wizard. His cloak protected him. The wizard’s anguished cry reversed the curse and freed the kingdom.

(Last installment next week)