Words, Feelings, Stories

İ came outside to enjoy the pleasant night, and hoping to perhaps see some of the fireworks I can hear so clearly. As i step out my door, and sit in my chair, I see, just above the treeline, the crescent moon. İ hear the pops and the bangs and the booms from all sides. İt sounds as if the village of Bethel is reenacting war between the north and south, with occasional rat-a-tats rat-a-tats from the 'far' east. All the way down the hill maybe. İ see no flashes of light from any of these noises, not even the ones that rattle my window glass. Through all the noise, the moon remains. Patient, waiting, silent. There. And the night is blessed

I hear the peepers tonight, and the little green frogs that hide in the grass, and the groggy frogs from the flat topped roofs across the street. In the trees between the main street houses and the Union St houses I hear many chattering insects. It sounds as if the treetops may be being used as pillows by an invisible giant. While he may not be seen, he can certainly be heard. He is snoring, and the sound is reverberated through the treetops. I don't know if it's different species of cicadas, or different sexes, but one group is the murmuring breath in, and then I hear the buzzing exhale until it finally peters out. The quiet mumble again, and then the loud breathy buzz. It may be that there are Other insects - grasshoppers, katydids, mantises - that I no longer recognize easily. Bats are zipping and dipping around, as fast as a blink. Black shadow's against an orange sky. Occasionally two will dance together for a moment before vanishing. Yes, nightfall is a ...

It's been a grayish rainish day today and now that night is creeping in, the sunlight has taken on a misty mystic haze of almost-but-not-quite-a-rainbow light. The air glows like golden dust. The sun is behind the trees now. The trees are haloed in the diffused light. Not quite colors quiver as leaves tremble. Along the alley, a long lazy ray of white light makes its way down the pavement, perfectly placed evenly with the edges. At those edges, where the light meets the grass, the color blossoms into golden fizz, dancing above the ground. I reach for my phone, my only camera, and try to capture this ethereal moment that was already fading. I cannot, of course. The magic is beyond both my skill and the phone cameras abilities. I hope my words have helped you to see it. A slice of time such as this is meant to be shared,and i am sharing it with you.

It's an eerie night out here tonight on my porch. The frogs are there, and The crickets, and the locusts, but there's something different. The night sky glowers pink-orange. . Not really strange, because there are pink street lights beyond The trees, but it's not The usual color, even when clouds are hanging low. There are strange Shadows flickering throughout the yard. In the flower beds right in front of me. Along the front of the building on the left side of the yard. On The cars in The parking lot to my right. The Shadow's wander The alley and appear from behind and alongside the houses. They peek. They scamper. They scurry from here to there. Lights and reflections wink and blink. Things move. Things rock, wiggle, twitch. The wind blows gently but not unusually. It seems a night like many others. And yet. The night choir sings on and on. The pink sky outlines the trees clearly. And Shadows creep across the street and dart through the yard. It may be The...

The push begins from deep within The bands begin to tighten Pushing in and shoving out Throbbing with each breath It grows with sound and sight and light And heartbeats make it quicken The headache from hell Is really doing well Like the parasite it is It grows and devours All my waking hours And makes me quite a drag. Useless gutless log of pain Wondering when it all will end Wondering what relief is And where and why is it not mine? Day three this week and no end in sight Migraine my pain my life

Here is a little slice of my life for yall. My indulgence for myself this month was 2 books on the PNW, the setting of most of my (full length) stories. A book about the flora and fauna and the geology of the area. The other was an adult coloring book of the same. Do you know they don't have fireflies as we know them throughout that region? I'm so glad I researched that before I included them in a pastoral scene! I really was looking to see when they appear there, being that region is north of me, and happily saved myself from an inaccuracy. (So happy!) Anyway, it made me think since so many of my stories are in that setting, I needed a good reference book at hand. (Google leads me down too many rabbit holes.) I thought the coloring book would help me become more familiar with the wildlife especially if I use the pictures in the other book as guidelines. Easier for descriptions and environments and other details. So, I ordered the books. Now, you may know I have a granddaughter...

wow the drive home was almost as strange as the drive in. There was so much water on the road, everything was mirrored, almost perfectly. You could read the letters on the road signs reflected in the roads.It was eerie, driving exactly between up-right world and upside-down world. That Stephen King fog ate away the barriers between worlds.

I hear two frogs speaking to one another, one with a deep somber bass, the other a flippity alto. I think they are flirting. I hear Leaves whispering and quiet jingling that tells me of a breeze; a breath. I hear buzzing or humming and I cannot tell if it is the vapor lights thrumming, or a preview of the expected cicadas. I hear voices from other porches and sidewalks. Sounds are low tonight, and very near. Rain is coming to a place near me.

The man was sweating lightly, feeling trembly. He remembered. He remembered.        He had been walking from the shop to the farm, where his son was to bring him his lunch. His wife always wanted him to have something fresh, and since he liked her cooking, that was fine. He never knew what combination of his children would show up, and he usually made bets with himself on who and how many it would be. Since school was back in session, it was usually just one or two of the older boys. He had stopped to check out the balsams – something wasn’t looking right about the three year olds. He didn’t see anything – no insects or growths, and he made a note to have Jamie or Jon to check the soil. They may have been placed too closely, now that they had grown and spread out. They didn’t look crowded, but you couldn’t a;ways tell by looks. Ne bent a needle, and put it to his nose, then grimaced at the sharpness the scent sent through him. Oh well. He’d best get to the office at ...

He opened his eyes and they looked out at the nighttime darkness of a cozy room, but he didn’t even see that. The image before him was that of a bridge. The most beautiful, unrealistic bridge he’d ever seen. A fairy bridge. Made of lights, colors, and threads. And he had seen it before. He had run from it before. That night… He steadied himself in his mind. No more running. Besides, what was frightening about a bridge? Even an unworldly one? Even one created by fairies and woven by spiders with spider-thread? Ones that caught the silver-and-gold light and turned it to dancing rainbows of dancing color? He looked the bridge over carefully, in his mind. He had seen pictures of bridges built that way, he knew with certainty. Huge steel behemoths, towering over waters, the bridging held up by what looked to be fine dainty fibers but were actually metallic cables somehow spun together to bear great weight, but with flexibility. He thought maybe he had actually seen one, without the colors a...