The Way We’ve Always Done It
Once there was island nation called Potamus, where the trees grew short and stout and the residents lived on seaweed. The island was volcanic, and frequent eruptions of hot gas singed the treetops and forced the rain forest to grow out rather than up. The volcano was only middle-aged and mostly friendly. It still lay low in the center of the island rather than a mountain looming high over it. It would remain so for centuries to come for it was content to bubble and puff rather than build itself up with lava at the cost of destruction of life on the ring of land.
The creatures who lived on Potamus were gray and bulbus, with long tubular noses.
Fellowship; A Short Story
Tony growled a little and then acquiesced, "Okay." He laid the extra oars down along the hull of his boat and picked up one of his normal ones. He nodded at me to pick up one of mine. We each rowed with one oar, still breasted up. As the day wore on, so did I. I refused to admit it though, and rowed with all my might. We spoke little, which should have been a glaring alarm for me that something was wrong. But I poured all of my mental and physical strength into rowing, two hands on one oar, and I still grew more sluggish by the hour.
Darkness fell. Even though I couldn't see straight, I kept telling myself I'd be back to normal in the morning. When I finally lay down in my berth, the relief my body felt morphed quickly into gratefulness for Tony. Who knows where I would have ended up without his knowing friendship. That realization was the last thing I remembered before drifting off.
I can foggily recall two things from the days that followed…
When Mountains Move
One particularly foggy day, the child had gone in and out, unable to decide whether to play outside in the thick wet mist that had settled on the valley or find something indoors, such as a favorite book. While these things rolled like a sluggish marble around the child’s mind, this was happening outside:
“Come on, Hardy, won’t you play? Just for a little bit?” A voice like a low, persistent wind begged.
“No.”
“But we hardly ever get to play.”
“It’s still light out, and I smell rain. If it rains, our only cover will be knocked out of the air in an instant” The second voice rumbled.
“It’s not going to rain. It hasn’t rained in months.”
“It hasn’t misted in months either. Yet, somehow here were are shrouded in fog, and you’re begging me to play- what? A game of spades? NO, Correy.”
A high growl erupted from the younger, “Hardy! You’re no fun!”
It should be noted that at this time, the child searching for the cure to boredom was sure thunder rumbled outside. A break from perusing the bookshelves revealed nothing because the air still hung thick with mist. If human eyes could have penetrated the moisture in the air, this is what they would have seen.
Grief; a short story
I carried him eastward and laid him to rest where I thought he would be close to his mother and sisters.
I stayed two nights and one day there, fulfilling the traditional burial rest alone and leaving with the second moonrise. It’s an odd feeling, the leaving. You know that no matter how long you stay, nothing will change. But it doesn’t make it any easier to do.