Stories

Welcome to Issue 24:  Pigs, Rats, and Anti-Capitalism

The wonderful thing about stories is that we can fight our battles in them — process grief, fight capitalism, and imagine paths past our current woes.  Maybe you’re not quite ready to throw it all away and run into the forest without even a sunhat for protection, but in a story, the brave hero can do it for you.  Mice can overthrow corporations; pigs can fight against the company town; and you can follow vicariously in their hoof and paw prints, learning how it feels when the shackles finally break away… perhaps inspiring you to keep fighting too.

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Nine Lives Later by Alyza Taguilaso

The Crows Do Not Know Me by Lynn Gazis

Gifting Salt and Sorrow by Melanie Mulrooney

Jot, Flowerwerks, and the Missing Mice by Lara Hussain

Sunflowers and Spring Steel by H. Robert Barland

Rat Race by Larry Hodges

Capitalist Pigs by David Aronlee

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As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.  Also, you can pick up e-book or paperback volumes of our first 16 issues bundled into five anthologies, complete with an illustration for every story.

by David Aronlee

“Without my pay going to those silly log cabins, I am saving so much, it would make your snout drop.”

Posted Hogtown Post Office, January 2

Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you the way the daisy misses the sun. I have wonderful news. I got a job! I’m a truffle sorter at the truffle factory. Not bad for a hog from the country. I had my first day yesterday and my boss already says I have potential. I could be a shift leader within a year or maybe even a truffle hunter someday!  My friend Fred says that’s where you can make it big: with the commission from finding a big truffle cluster.

Fred’s a city pig. He grew up here in Hogtown and is showing me the ropes. I get the feeling he’s got money; he said something about doing this job just to get his parents off his piggyback. He’s got a beautiful brick house right in the middle of town. He’s a good oinker though, even if he’s got a bit of a wild side to him. Showing me the watering holes, making sure I don’t put a hoof wrong at work (or at least not when the boss can see).

I better get to sleep soon. Back to the factory early tomorrow. I miss you dearly.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, January 20

Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you the way the river misses the sea. I cannot wait for the day I can build that little brick house we always dreamed of living in together. I received my first paycheck. It was a little disappointing. Apparently, most of our paycheck goes into our company lodging. Many of us live in bunks in these quaint wood cabins just by the factory. It’s an easy commute, but so much of the pay gets gobbled up, I’m thinking about moving. I talked to a few of the other young hogs around. Apparently, there is a place called the Straw Sheds you can move in for dirt cheap over on the edge of town. The straw keeps you warm and for pennies a day you can actually save. This is all I ever wanted in the world: to save up to build a beautiful little brick house and find that future we always dreamed of.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, February 6

Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you the way the sky misses the dawn. I got my second paycheck today, and I think I can move the plans up! Without my pay going to those silly log cabins, I am saving so much, it would make your snout drop. To think: the son of a long line of muck-rollers and scrap-eaters might someday own a brick house. And the Straw Sheds aren’t half bad. After growing up in a drafty barn, they are positively cozy, and I can afford my own little private shed.

This old boar in our cabin, Barry, gave our whole group a warning before we all moved to the Straw Sheds. He’s the only old porker among us, looks he just sort of got stuck snuffling for pennies and plowing it all back so he can live there. A few of the other younger pigs decided to stay after he said his piece, but when we pressed him for specifics, he just told us about this family that moved out into the woods and built themselves a little log cabin. I guess in the middle of winter some wolves got to them. A whole bloody mess. But please don’t worry. They built their cabin way out in the forest, down by the river. Here in the Straw Sheds we are just on the edge of the town meadow, and I’m surrounded by sturdy hogs. Safe as a pig in a blanket! Sounds like he is just wallowing in his ways. And besides, after hearing so much about the Straw Sheds, well I was curious!

I went down to the Piggybank after work today to open an account. They treated me like pig royalty! (I joked that I came into the city from Animal Farm. They didn’t laugh. I don’t think they got the reference or read as much as we do, even if they like to pretend they are polished city pigs compared to those of us from the country.) They did say if I wanted to take a mortgage on a brick house like Fred’s, they need at least 6-months’ proof-of-income. But I ran the math, and if I’m careful I think I can save the down-payment they require in that time. To think that it may be less than a year until the brick house we always wanted makes me snort. And that should be plenty of time for me to fully explore the mysteries of Hogtown for you.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

P.S. Pardon my crossing out. Paper is too dear in this town to throw away and we have a house to save for!

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, February 24

Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you the way the garden misses the rose. I think I need to see less of Fred. After a few pints the other night he suggested we take some of the truffle oil from the back room. He said all that was left in there was waste, and no one would miss it. Apparently, it gives you a heck of a buzz, so on Friday we snuck in and took a quart or two. Well, dearest, they caught us. And Fred hadn’t been quite right: they very much did care. They had us strung up in front of the Head Hog quicker than you can snort. I thought I was bacon, but then my Uncle Jimmy stopped in.

Have I ever told you about Uncle Jimmy? I may not have. Our family doesn’t talk about him much. He has a connection to the cartels. I’ve heard a rumor he makes the bodies disappear. I won’t tell you how. Anyway, as we were being run up to Head Hog, I saw him. He must have spotted us because no sooner had we been deposited in front of the snorting boar than he stepped in, apologized on my behalf, promised to see I was punished, and when the Head Hog agreed, which clearly Uncle Jimmy very much took as a foregone conclusion, he hustled me out of there. He gave me a talking to alright, told me to get the hell out, leave the factory and Hogtown and go home. But I can’t do that. We have sacrificed too much for me to leave now. And when I asked him what he was doing there he ignored the question, gave me a good tail bite, and left.

I saw Fred that Monday back on the factory floor, none the worse for wear. I’m not sure how he got out of it, but he was snorting along and smiling. He’s a bad influence. That may be an understatement. I must say I am curious just why they are so protective of the truffle oil. Another mystery. I dream of you every night.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, April 20

Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you like the wave misses the beach. A strange thing happened yesterday: one of our Straw Shed sows, Pansy, is gone one of our cutters, Pansy, didn’t show up for work. It was most unlike her — she had never missed a day — but we checked the Straw Sheds and there was no sign of any foul play. I asked Fred if he had seen her downtown, and he said he hadn’t. We all heard some wolves howling off in the woods, but when we told the constabulary, or the Porky Patrol as they call it here, the squealer at the station said it was coyotes and huffed about country bumpkins. Didn’t sound like any coyote we have around our place.

We didn’t see anything amiss at her house, so everyone seems to think she just gave up and went home. I don’t believe that for a second. She seemed to me like she was working whole-hog. She mentioned something about her sister just having a farrow and the boar running off with the spoon, so I think she was sending money home…

The other strange thing was that Head Hog didn’t seem all that surprised. Oh, he said all the right things, but there was a strange air of expectation. There isn’t much we can do, not like we have that much free time between truffle sorting and bed, and the matter was referred to the Porky Patrol.  They just want to let sleeping hogs lie. But all the same, it is a mystery and you know how I hate mysteries. Only two more months until I can go back to the bank and our dream can begin. I wish I could ask you to write to me of home, I could use a loving reminder.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, June 30

Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you like the winter branch misses the leaf. And that is how I feel right now: bare. Indeed quite low although I am not one to wallow usually. I have received terrible news.

I went back to the Piggy Bank, six months of pay stubs in hoof, full of excitement, and was told that the 6-month pay stub only applies if you have some collateral. Well, I do not have a house and needless to say my Straw Shed doesn’t count. Otherwise, I must wait a whole year. I am bereft to learn that it will be another six months before I begin to finally build our house, but alas it must be so. No more trips to the watering hole for me. If I must wait another six months, I shall be saving full-boar and use my time wisely. I will find out what happened to Pansy — I can feel it in my tail curl that it is important.

At least our bonus vests after a year. Apparently, they hold back about 10% of our pay at the factory and after we’ve been there for a year we get it as a lump sum plus a little extra. Encourages retention. I’m not sure about the legal specifics but HR (Hog Resources) says it’s a very sound system. So at least I’ll get a nice bonus to speed us on our way.

It may be my disquiet from the bank, but I received another piece of strange news. Barry is gone. No one has seen that old grunter for weeks, apparently since the day we all moved to the Straw Sheds. Now that I think of it, that was the day after he warned us about the move. I daren’t bring it up to the Head Hog. He heard me talking about it with Fred, who had nothing to add, by the way, and told me to get back to my truffles. Less grunting, more sorting. Something rotten seems to be going on. I heard the howling the last few nights too. It keeps me up sometimes.

I haven’t seen much of Fred since Pansy disappeared. He seems to be keeping his distance outside of work, which is just as well if I am to save all my pennies for our future. I wish I could write to you to come this second. Alas, it is impossible. Besides, with fall approaching the Straw Sheds would be no place for such a beautiful gem anyway. I am well.

All my love.

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, August 3

My Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you the way the alpine lake misses the mountain stream. I have amazing news! I have been promoted to shift supervisor! I guess that is what you get when you keep your snout to the grindstone. It’s not much, a little bit more job responsibility, and a few more pennies an hour, but it could mean a whole extra room or two in our little home. Maybe even a second floor. I am all aflutter, drawing up new plans as I drift off to sleep, staring at the shadows on the hay roof. I think of such domestic things: where we will put the ice box and the garden in the yard. I can’t decide if the garden should go in the front or the back (we don’t want any squealers stealing our mushrooms!). But I am getting ahead of myself. There are five months yet, but I feel now like our dream might finally be within my grasp. The oinkers are taking me out for a drink to celebrate, so I must trot. I cannot wait, heart’s flower.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

P.S. Not to mention, as shift supervisor, I have better access to the factory records!

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, September 5

My Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you like the night sky misses the moon. I am so worried. Another of our cutters, Sam, didn’t show up to work. Sam lives a couple sheds down from me in the Straw Sheds. The first day he skived off we figured he had just had a few too many pints at the bar with Fred. Since I’ve withdrawn from Fred’s company, I noticed Sam and Fred have become thick as thieves and it wouldn’t be totally unlike him to be sleeping off the piss recovering from overindulging the night before. But then he missed a second, and then a third day. He has certainly never done that before.

As shift supervisor, it was my duty to report his absence to Head Hog. Head Hog just politely thanked me for the information and trotted off. An employee absence and he just trots away like nothing has happened: this from a pig that squealed so loud when Sam knocked over a sack of truffles last week we thought someone had skinned the bacon from his back. This from a grunter that chomped so hard he almost broke a molar when I showed up to work three minutes late. (It was that first week after Fred talked me into going into the cidery and we ended up with rooster hats.) (Sorry my love, I don’t think I ever told you that story; I’ll have to fill you in the next time I see you.) THIS FROM A SQUEALER Head Hog didn’t seem at all surprised by Pansy’s disappearance either. I commented to Head Hog that the “coyotes” are getting louder and louder, but he just said they get like that this time of fall. Something is amiss, like a moldy truffle hiding at the bottom of the sack. Never fear my dear; I shall get to the bottom of this.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, October 18

My Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you like the evening shadow misses the far horizon. The plot thickens. Head Hog invited me over for a poker night at his sty. A couple of the execs were there too, really heavy hitters, along with a few other shift supervisors (all boars; not a single sow among them), and to my surprise, Fred. Fred and I were the only first-year-factory-oinkers there. I promise dearest, I was not there to gamble away the savings. It was simply too good of an opportunity to chew the fat with upper management and see if I could sniff anything out. And believe it or not, I was doing quite well at the game too, or at least holding my own, until I had two shocks.

Fred had just gone bust and tried to buy back in for the third time (who goes all in on a pair of deuces?), when one of the execs told him, “That’s enough cob-roller, you get on home now.” Fred just rolled his eyes and ambled out. I leaned over and whispered to another supervisor who had been there a year longer than I and asked, “What was that all about?” And do you know what he told me?? That was the CEP (Chief Executive Pig) of the whole factory and none other than Fred’s old shoat! It all came together for me: how Fred “owns” a brick house in the middle of town; how he got out of trouble after that truffle oil incident. I lost the next hand. But what really set me back happened a couple hours later in the night.

Head Hog had been passing around brandy and the snorts and shouts were getting louder as it got later. One of the other shift supervisors burst out laughing at some joke and shouted back that he’d “call the wolves early this year.” I don’t yet know what that meant, but the room got real quiet for a moment: like a piglet learning about bacon for the first time. Well, that reference to wolves threw me off something terrible. You remember that’s how Auntie Edna went. I stayed quiet the next few rounds to try to listen to the snorts around me, but with my concentration split I was quickly drained of chips, which raised the volume considerably. Priscilla, I do not know what that comment meant, but it meant something. That evening was worth it. I will write to you as soon as I can.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, November 7

Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you the way the desert cactus misses the rain cloud. I think I am finally making progress. I am doing my best snuffling up to Head Hog. I have become a veritable tyrant to my crew and I fear they are not taking it well.  I dare not tell them what I am up to, but I am in Head Hog’s good books. He has me coming in late to do the scheduling. I would normally not stand for it, since I do not even get paid overtime, but coming in late seems the perfect opportunity to do some rooting around. We will find our answers soon, I can smell it.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, November 25

Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you the way the spider misses the web.  I found some things. I shall try to lay things out more clearly in my next letter. I don’t think anything terrible should happen, but if you do not hear from me, know that I have copied this letter to Uncle Jimmy so nothing should be lost with me. Straw Shed 4. Mud under the bed.

All my love,

Patrick Pig.

* * *

Posted Fairytale Post Office, December 4

Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you the way rabbit misses the burrow. I do not know if you can tell, but this letter was not posted from Hogtown. I gave it to a traveler, she said her name was Red Riding Hood. Strange name these humans come up with. Anyway, she was heading out of town and said there was a post office up by her grandmother’s house in Fairytale Village and she would post it there for me, so there is no chance of this falling into the wrong hooves.

I found the ear of corn in the mud. Head Hog sent me to the CEP’s office the other day to drop off the truffle-loss forms. While I was there, I poked around his desk since he was out for the evening. There was a latch under the bottom drawer, and a secret compartment; you remember how we used to play around with those with your Uncle Peter? Anyway. I found contracts. It’s all there.

The CEP has been paying off wolves. I cannot believe it, but it all fits. They make the new hires disappear so they can re-hire a new crop every year and pay them peanuts instead of paying each experienced crew the wage they deserve. It’s somehow cheaper for them to hire assassins than pay a reasonable wage? Should I be surprised?? I saw so angry my tail straightened right out and I nearly barked.

Do not fear for me my dearest. I snuck out the way I had come. And they seem to keep the shift leaders; at least, I am the only new one this year so I assume so. I think I am safe. It is Thursday. I’m going to take this information to the Hall of Justice and constabulary on Monday. Too many people are off on Fridays and I’m afraid of this falling into the wrong pettitoes. I shall talk to the other oinkers and we shall march in numbers.

I cannot imagine you in this cesspit, so perhaps I shall return to you soon, but we shall see on Monday. I will write to you as soon as I can.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

P.S. I just realized this is why they keep back 10% of our pay. It’s not for retention. It’s to pay for this dastardly scheme! We have been paying for our own demise!

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, December 8

My Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you like the falling rain misses the soil below. I am despondent. I know you have been expecting a letter from me for days, but I could not bring myself to put pen to paper. I am in jail. It all went wrong. They will no doubt read this, but I do not care anymore. If they use this against me, so be it. I do not believe they will give me a fair trial, so I must tell my story to someone.

I did it. On Sunday I gathered the trotters from the Straw Sheds, and some few left in the wood cabins at the factory, and told them what I had learned. And on Monday we marched in force down to the Hall of Justice. I made my report to the Porky Patrol while my fellow brave oinkers marched outside with signs and chants. I gave Officer Parker the documents I had found, with the promise that they would get before a judge ASAP. I trusted him. I’d seen Officer Parker around town a few times, he seemed the professional, if a little lazy, type of hog, but he’d always been friendly. More fool me.

I thought things were going well, they held me in a room with one window, but Officer Parker porked his snout in to say they would be bringing the CEP down straight-away to get to the bottom of this. My heart rose for a few minutes. I saw the CEP come in with a couple other officers. Then I heard the laughter in the other room and my heart sank. Then I heard shouts and squeals from outdoors and the sound of breaking logs, and then it got quiet, and my disquiet grew. Then the CEP left, rubbing snouts with the officers, with a sheaf of documents — my documents — in his hooves.

Officer Parker came back in and explained that it was all a big misunderstanding: those were security documents for the factory that I must have misinterpreted. I was, after all, “just a pig from the country, haha.” I rose to go and it got worse.

Officer Parker then explained, almost in tones of regret, that unfortunately I was going to be held. There was the small matter of inciting a riot. Of slander of an important individual. And of course: thievery of corporate documents. I was caught, bound hoof and hoof, metaphorically and literally.

Here I sit, wondering when I shall see the light. I am awaiting trial but I have little doubt what the outcome of that will be. I trusted in the justice of this place, I do not know how I could have made such a mistake, and now we shall not get our closure. I miss you all the more my dearest. It pains me to think how I have ruined the whole point of my trip here.

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, December 10

Dearest Priscilla,

I am out! Fred posted bail. I guess he felt bad about everything. Not bad enough to help me — he didn’t hear me when I tried to explain about the wolves — but bad about how everything went down. He urged me, near tears, to just leave town and be safe.

You know why I cannot just give up now. But I have a new plan. The wolves are due in two days and there won’t be a floor-level factory cutter left alive after that if I leave. Most of them are young and clueless and after marching with me are just wandering aimlessly around the Straw Sheds. Some have even gone back to work. They don’t know what to do. I will not leave them to those vulgar fascist pigs and their murderous wolves.

I know this would give you anxiety my dearest. I am so sorry. If all goes well this will put an end to things in this reeking sty of a town and I shall return to you post-haste.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted Hogtown Post Office, December 20

Prissila,

That dirty squealer. He led the wolves right to them! And to think I bailed him out of jail. I’ll never forgive myself. Patrick asked me to write to you, and I wouldn’t have bothered getting my hooves dirty, but his family needs to know what kind of rotten squealer they raised. Holy hog. I hope his last moments were agony.

The wolves came, just like he kept grunting about. Patrick kept squealing that my old shoat was mixed up in it — that uptight old trotter — and now we’ll never know.

I was at home, wallowing with this pretty petite oinker named Patty, when I heard an insane high-pitched squealing that rattled the windows. I saw a couple trotters tear past and then some wolves, howling and drooling, pelted by in a flash heading towards the factory. One of them banged into my door, so we boarded things up tight — fortunately the brick walls are sturdy and they couldn’t get in. I followed them as soon as things quieted down and Patty trotted after me.

Well, it was mayhem up there. There were a few of the Porky Patrol and about half the town milling about outside. I saw Officer Parker rolling out some tape and cornered him. Patty was with me so I reminded Officer Parker who my father was and he spilled what he knew.

Apparently, there was some sort of hostage situation led by some radicals and Patrick. That crazy grunter. Then a pack of wolves came busting through, chewing up anyone who got in their way and smashed their way into the factory, which was on fire for some reason.

They got my old shoat! The Porky Patrol found him chewed up like bacon along with Head Hog. Those sick beasts. And it was Patrick’s fault.

Oh. And I guess some of the wolves then took off after Patrick and his crew. The Patrol found a few ripped up snouts and gobs of blood and guts by a back exit, so it looks like they didn’t get that far.

Good riddance.

Fred

* * *

Posted from Fairytale Village Post, January 2

Dearest Priscilla,

I miss you the way the willow seed misses the wind. And the wind is finally blowing me to you. I am coming home. I fear we shall never have our brick house in town, but we already knew that.

I hope Fred wrote to you to let you know I made it out. I assume he was not pleased. But we did it. Vengeance. For all of us.

I gathered all the young factory oinkers in the Straw Sheds the night before the wolves were supposed to arrive, I remembered the date from the contracts. And it was obvious where the wolves would go first: the Straw Sheds. We took our things into the woods and hid out, but left a few notes for those vicious beasts. We stayed there until the shadows were getting long the next day but before the rest of the factory cutters headed home.

Then, we quietly crept around town and broke into the factory! We overpowered the security guards and tied up all upper management. Any snout who had been there less than a year or was just a worker we let go, but every shift supervisor, Head Hog, all the executives, and of course the CEP, we kept. A couple shift supervisors escaped, but that didn’t bother me.

Then we barricaded the doors to the factory and started chanting, “no justice, no peace,” and “hog heads will roll,” just to stir them up.  Sure enough, the shift supervisors had gone straight to the Porky Patrol and those corrupt porkers showed up just as the sun was setting. We had hostages though, so they just set up a perimeter and ordered us to roll over, which we naturally ignored.

I and a few others made some final arrangements as the night deepened. And just as the Porky Patrol was getting ready to burst in blazing — we had the CEP and all the richest pigs in town of course; they were getting quite anxious — the wolves showed up. Right on time. Slavering jaws, hanging tongues, any Porky Patrol that got in their way was quickly shown the way to hog heaven.

And the rest of us just slipped out the back door and into the woods.

See, we had left notes for the wolves, that the hog management had decided that the deal was off, and so they were going to burn some of the truffle oil they usually paid the wolves in, and then smuggle the bulk of it out and pretend it had been lost in the fire. The wolves, when they found those notes but no tender pigs in the Sheds, came storming up to the factory. Where we happened to have all upper management neatly trussed up for them. And we had poured all the truffle oil into the big vat on the factory floor and set fire to it just as we slipped out.

The wolves broke down the door, saw the fire, just as we had said, and were enraged. Apparently, half the wolves took their displeasure out on the drove of upper management before them, and the other half ran in and tried to put out the fire as the place burned down around them. But a few came after us right quick and nearly caught us. It was touch and go my dear, but we had an insurance. We brought the CEP and a couple of his right-hoof snouts like Head Hog, and, this may seem cold blooded, but we cut them loose just as the wolves came up behind us. Well, such carnage you have never seen, but it gave us the time we needed to escape.

I cannot say I feel bad about the death of those porkers. When I think of the scheme they ran and the blood of so many innocent trotters on their hooves. Sam. Pansy. So many, many years of young dead pigs. They deserved what was coming. And of course…

I am bringing some of the trotters home with me. We are going to start our own truffle collective, away from the corruption and depravity of Hog Town. I know it’s not the brick house in town we imagined, but all these oinkers, sows and hogs, are brave, loyal, true, and kind. It is something. I shall see you soon my dearest.

All my love,

Patrick Pig

* * *

Posted From Truffle Commune, May 5

Dearest Priscilla,

We have started our truffle commune far to the east of Hogtown, past the Billy Goat’s bridge. I cannot tell you how I wish you were here with me, but I find solace in knowing that this letter will find you as all the others have.

I hope you know I visited you on my way here. The other cutters helped me plant a few peonies and daffodils, but the roses and hydrangeas around your headstone were already in full bloom. It looked so beautiful it broke my heart.

Please know that you are and have always been my inspiration for this. I don’t know if this is closure. I will probably never find that true joy again, not since the day you left me to try your pettitoes at the factory in Hogtown. I will never forget the day they sent me that note and a little box with your ashes. Not even a year after you had left.

Revenge doesn’t heal, but putting an end to that monstrosity does, just a little. Know that you inspired me; a hog who never wanted to leave the sty in the first place — inspired a change that will hopefully last for generations. The world is a bleaker place without you, but you were the spark in my heart and always will be.

We have our first few farrows here in our commune, and the birds are singing, and the grass is green, and I see you in all of it. That is about as close to peace as I can get.

I shall miss you forever.

All my love,

Patrick

 

* * *

About the Author

David Aronlee lives in California with his family. He loves his family (including his goofy golden Lucy), dragons and volleyball, and is a lawyer, but would dearly love to be a fantasy writer when he grows up. He has been previously published in Spaceports and Spidersilk.

by Larry Hodges

“Spreading such misinformation went against all her scientific training, and it killed her to do so, but what choice was there?”

Zuk stared out the open window above her cubicle desk at the poor, hatless rats chattering and scampering about outside, digging through heaps of garbage for scraps of rotting food. She wrinkled her nose; even from here the stench was like a tail smashing into her face. Pathetic. It should be illegal to have that much fun when you’re homeless.

That’s what happens when you don’t get an education! she wanted to scream, but instead just slapped her tail against the sawdust floor. Saying that would be rude. She herself had a doctorate in ratropology, but often wondered if she’d made a huge career mistake. Aerospace engineering, physics, astronomy, computer science — those were the cool, high-paying careers, and rats with those jobs weren’t stuck working in office buildings next to heaps of smelly garbage and the homeless. Soon they would land the first rat on the Moon, and they’d be heroes, while she’d be stuck at her desk writing stories for tabloids. With her academic skills, she could have breezed her way through astronaut school. She could have been the first rat to scamper on the Moon.

She could have been famous.

“Where’s that article?”

Zuk almost fell off her hard wooden stool. It was the boss, his head thrust through her cubicle’s circular opening behind her, his vantablack moleskin cap askew, as always. How did he always sneak up so silently? Was he part cat? His ragged fur was already graying, almost silver. Hers was light brown, almost blonde, and meticulously combed, every strand in place.

“Almost done,” she said through gritted teeth. She was not a good liar. “Give me a couple of hours.”

“One. Or you know what happens,” he said, feigning a tail yank with his paw before withdrawing, leaving behind the usual nauseous smell of rose perfume.

She sighed. Her tailbone still hurt from yesterday. Forget prancing about on the Moon — she was stuck in a tiny cubicle, typing away like a mindless mouse for a mindless, tail-yanking boss, surrounded by tokens of her trade.

A framed poster hung on the gray cubicle wall to the left of her desk of the Ludy fossil skeleton, two hundred thousand years old. It was considered the first modern rat, with fully opposable thumbs that could rotate freely. An inset showed an artist’s rendition, with the beginning of a brain bulge. Zuk often stared into his eyes. What was Ludy like? Did he have thoughts and feelings like modern rats? She envied the simple life they’d led.

On her desk sat a fifty-thousand-year-old spearhead from their ancient ancestors, now a paperweight. She’d dug it up herself. She often imagined some ancient ancestor spending countless hours rummaging through human ruins to find the perfectly shaped piece of glass for a spearpoint, lashing it to a bamboo stick, and taking down huge, ferocious beasts like rabbits, chihuahuas, and maybe, heroically, a pre-domesticated cat, before they were tamed by those brave catadores. They knew it happened — they’d dug up cat fossils with embedded spearheads. Wow.

Taped to the wall on the right was her top treasure, an actual eagleskin feathered cap once worn by Ambra the Aviator, the first rat to fly around the globe, one hundred years ago. Zuk would never have adventures like that. In her excavations they’d mostly dug up old pottery shards, not exactly something to get excited about. Stop the presses, I have a bit of pottery!

Smiling, she took a sip of sassafras juice from a clay cup, and imagined its shards being dug up someday by some futuristic ratropologist. Maybe it would end up in a museum. How boring.

At least she had her cute toadskin cap, warts and all. It had cost her a week’s pay. She carefully readjusted it over her head.

“Why aren’t you typing?”

This time Zuk did fall out of her stool. The boss snorted.

“Sorry, was planning the big climax.” She jumped back on her stool and attacked the keyboard with a frenzy.

“Hurry up. Words are money.” He withdrew.

As bosses go, he wasn’t totally terrible, as long as Zuk made her deadlines. When she missed one… well, tail-yanking wasn’t so bad once you got used to it. There simply weren’t that many jobs in ratropology, so she had to take what she could get. That’s why she’d joined Emca Writers, a writing mill that churned out sensationalist articles for the tabloids. She was chair of the Ratropology Department.

Or rather, she was the Ratropology Department. Sighing, she took another sip of sassafras.

Ratty Magazine had solicited another article on ancient rats and humans. Why the recent fascination with this long-dead species of huge bipeds? Recent research indicated that early rat began its million-year ascent during the age of humans. The two had lived in harmonic symbiosis for much of their joint history, with humans the alpha partner.

The details were sketchy, extrapolated from the few crumbling human and rat fossils and artifacts that had survived the periodic purges. Modern rats simply did not like the idea that their prehistoric ancestors were primitive creatures that lived off the scraps of humans, but that’s what the evidence showed, no matter what the populist leaders screamed from their pulpits. So, of course, they got rid of the evidence.

Zuk glanced out the window at the homeless, hatless creatures outside that lived off the scraps of society. Little had changed.

Humans had done what rats were only now attempting — they’d gone to the Moon. It was hard to believe that something like that could have been accomplished a million years ago by those huge, buffoonish apes, but that was the only explanation for photos taken of the Moon’s surface by robot explorers. Amidst the mysterious objects found at locations around the Moon were the unmistakable footprints of human shoes, preserved on the unchanging surface.

She needed to finish the article but was tired. Time to get energized. She hopped off her stool. There was no room to really turn in her cramped cubicle so she stood on her hind legs and spun about, and then squeezed out the cubicle door. Had the cubicle been designed for dwarf mice? She scampered to the end of the hallway outside to the office lounge and jumped on the squeaky exercise wheel against the wall. A few minutes of frantic running woke her up. Ideas for the article popped into her head as she ran, including the perfect title: “Humans on Trial: Guilty!” That would grab readers’ attention. With the public all abuzz about the idea of humans on the Moon, she would write about how humans tested their space machines by sending primitive rats into space as test subjects, doomed to die. Those monsters!

That would be the gist of the article, and there were no humans around to rebut her theory. No one really knew what happened to them, but their demise had been fortunate as rats then evolved, scurrying to the top of the intellectual food chain.

She stopped at the bathroom. There were so many droppings on the floor that she had to hold her nose and tiptoe about — how long had it been since they’d changed the newspapers on the floor? She checked and saw that it was dated from last week. Yuck.

Then she stopped by the office water bottle, where the writers liked to congregate until the boss kicked them back to their cubicles. To rationalize her visit she took a few drops from the water tube.

“The boss gave me two stories to write!” exclaimed the albino Jik with the usual big grin. The journalist wore a red rabbitskin hat with a hawk feather stuck in it. “The Bigtail sightings up in the mountains, and guard shrews that turn on their masters.”

“At least you get to use your degree,” said the black-furred Mab, the haggard-looking accountant with a green crabshell hat. “I’ve got a PhD in theoretical math. My dissertation on the equivalency of mass and energy won the Remy Prize for math, for cat’s sake. And the boss has me doing time allocations, product optimization, and calculating bathroom newspaper overhead — can you believe it? All with the wonderful powers of arithmetic.” He snorted. “I’m bookkeeping for a boss who thinks the Unified Field Theory means buying up the local sports fields for furryball.”

“He has me writing about how the stars and planets predict career success,” said Axax, the resident astrology writer. The brown with white splatches rat wore a chipmunkskin turban with an embedded black coal over the forehead. “The stars told me that since Jupiter and Saturn were in the same quadrant, I should take this job.” Axax spat on the ground. “The stars lied to me. Don’t tell my readers.”

Zuk was about to share her gripes as well, but just then the janitor scurried into the room, with a hat made from folded newspaper. It was a bit torn but had been repaired with tape. At least Zuk and the other writers weren’t at the bottom of the tail-yanking hierarchy!

“Hey, janitor,” Zuk said. “Could you put fresh newspaper in the bathroom? It’s really bad in there.”

The janitor stared at Zuk, which made her uncomfortable. She looked away.

“What’s my name?” the janitor finally asked in his strange Eastern accent.

“Um,” was all Zuk could squeak. The other writers averted their eyes. One of them coughed.

“Anyone?” the janitor roared. “I didn’t think so. I have a PhD in marine biology and you want me to change bathroom newspaper?”

“Sorry,” Zuk said. “If you’re a marine biologist, why are you working here?”

“If you are ratropologist, why are you working here?” The janitor kicked the wall, leaving a dent, then turned and left.

“I guess we’re all in the same bottom burrow of the world,” said Mab the accountant.

Zuk was about to respond when she realized Jik the Journalist was sobbing, the big smile long gone.

“I went to my college reunion yesterday,” Jik said, sobbing louder. “They’d all read my story last week on wererats… and they laughed at me!”

“I’m sure they—” began Axax.

“GET BACK TO WORK!” roared the Boss. He gave Jik a tail yank.

They scurried back to their cubicles, sawdust flying. The boss was definitely part cat.

Zuk hopped back on her stool and prepared to type. The stench from outside was as bad as that in the bathroom, but she was used to it, and once you got used to it, it was better than the stale office air. She took a deep breath and glanced outside.

One of the poor homeless, an aged one, stared at her while gnawing on a slice of moldy bread, balding head exposed for all. There should be some sort of community decency standard! The rat looked away and another’s bare head popped out of a hole in the piles of garbage, holding its prize in its mouth—a chunk of gristly meat, probably soaked in the spit of some higher-class rat who’d spat it out. The two chattered back and forth with the cheerfulness of the clueless, their disheveled, filthy fur blowing about in a breeze. Could the Ludy of two hundred thousand years ago have been that primitive? How could anyone live like that? Zuk quivered her whiskers. What type of life was that? At least put a hat on. Jeezers.

Shaking her head, she took another sip of sassafras and went back to typing.

Soon the first draft was done. She stared at the computer screen. Now it was time to embellish. Spreading such misinformation went against all her scientific training, and it killed her to do so, but what choice was there? It was the difference between a page-turner and an eye-glazer, between selling and rejection, between a successful lower middle-class life… and living outside in the garbage.

No way. She slapped her tail against the floor.

“Where is it?” the boss squeaked from the entrance, jarring Zuk from her thoughts. Even a cat couldn’t sneak up that quietly.

“I’ll have it in an hour,” Zuk said.

“Half an hour,” the boss said. With a hairy nose wiggle — did he even own a comb? — he turned and left, tail sweeping side to side.

But… half an hour? Time to buckle down.

She tapped away, about humans ejecting rats into space to see how long they could survive a vacuum, lowering oxygen levels to see when they’d black out and suffocate. Testing how many G-forces it took to kill them. She described the poor rats as their eyes bulged, their faces turned blue, their bodies squeezed thin and bleeding, their bones breaking. She had the poor rats stare lovingly into each other’s eyes as they died. And she gave them exotic striped racoonskin spacehats. Of course, pre-civilized rats went bareheaded, but what’s wrong with a little literary license?

Her tail drooped. But readers would eat it up. Maybe she’d get a raise.

If those stupid rats outside would just stop chattering, maybe she could focus and get the article done on time. She glanced out the window. How come they got to run around doing whatever they wanted, while she was stuck in a cubicle? She was the one with an education! She’d earned what they had.

Even the angry janitor was above the homeless. So why were they so happy?

As the sun sank outside, the homeless rats — there were three of them now — shared a pizza crust, that ancient treat that Zuk so loved. She preferred it in its most basic form, flattened bread covered by coagulated cat milk, mashed tomatoes, and spices. Were those the very crusts she’d discarded at lunch the day before, after eating the tasty cheesy parts? Stale, leftover pizza crusts. She wondered if they were chewy or crunchy.

“WELL?” the boss roared from the cubicle entrance, flexing his fingers. “You want a yanking?”

“Give me twenty minutes,” Zuk said, though she barely heard him as she gulped down the last of her sassafras juice. That stench from outside — if you really parsed it, you could make out the individual yucky flavors. The outside rats didn’t seem to mind it. Perhaps it was an acquired taste.

“Ten,” said the boss. He glanced at the Ludy poster for a moment. “Lovely picture.” His rose scent now drowned out the outside smell.

“And I have another job for you tomorrow,” he said, “about primitive humans living on the moon who’ll eat our astronauts. Some nut job’s been posting all sorts of claims about this online, says they’re fifty feet tall with big, razor teeth, and they’ve evolved so they can breathe vacuum. Lots of quotes you can use — make up the rest, as usual. Remember, you make your deadlines, and this job is yours… forever.”

She stared after him as he left, thinking about what he’d said.

* * *

You can’t go easy on these writers, the boss thought. Gotta keep on them to make product, even if that means yanking a few tails. Tough love was good for them.

He knew that his employees mocked his overuse of rose perfume. His wife had worn rose perfume right up to her death, and he liked the constant reminder of her. But now his employees were his family. But like his wife, why did they keep leaving him? He gave them everything! He sighed, knowing his sacrifices would never be appreciated. Perhaps he should work them harder.

After ten minutes he tiptoed back to Zuk’s cubicle. He didn’t like going there, as she had a habit of leaving the window open, letting in that unbearable stench from outside that no amount of rose perfume could suppress. It was worse than the office bathroom, but he, of course, had a private executive bathroom that was kept spotless. And that poster over her desk of old rat bones was downright creepy.

But he loved scaring her with his sudden, silent entrances.

“Well?” he exclaimed as he scampered in.

The cubicle was empty. Had she gone home early? He’d fire her! But no, he needed her more than she needed him — thank the great cats she didn’t know that. But she’d get a tail-yanking.

Was the article done? Why was her desk covered with the shattered shards of her cup? And was that her cheap toadskin cap sitting on top of her computer? He slapped his tail against the cubicle wall, tearing off a corner of the Ludy poster. Writers are so temperamental.

The boss looked at the computer screen, where there had been a draft of the article.

It said, “File deleted.”

“What!” He frantically pulled up the trash folder, but it had been emptied.

Then the boss heard a familiar voice through the open window. His jaw dropped, and his prized moleskin cap fell to the floor.

Outside, Zuk and three rats, all hatless, chattered back and forth gleefully as they shared a pizza crust.

 

* * *

About the Author

Larry Hodges, of Germantown, MD, has over 220 short story sales and four SF novels. “Rat Race” is his second sale to Zooscape. (The other was “Philosopher Rex.”) He’s a graduate of the Odyssey and Taos Toolbox Writers Workshops, a member of Codexwriters, and a ping-pong aficionado. As a professional writer, he has 22 books and over 2,300 published articles in over 200 different publications. He’s also a member of the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame, and claims to be the best table tennis player in Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association, and the best science fiction writer in USA Table Tennis!!! He’s also had quite a few pets, including (cumulatively) 3 dogs, 1 cat, 50+ gerbils, 30+ snakes, zillions of fish (including sea horses and sea anemones with accompanying clownfish), a few hamsters, box turtles, toads, and crayfish, and a parrot, chinchilla, snapping turtle, iguana, and a tegu . . . but never a rat (so far!). Visit him at www.larryhodges.com.

by H. Robert Barland

“Adventure drew her forth, a siren’s song that sang a melody of new places, new things, new experiences. She drew me with her.”

Her scent was that of the warm grass of summer. And sunflowers. I still smell her now, I think, but the scent dwindles as does the image of her in my mind. I try to hold onto it, pull her grey furred shape into focus, but the more I try, the more she slips away. The ghost of her memory wafts through my paws liked winter fog. I wince. Concentrating… it makes my head ache.

To keep her from disappearing altogether, I direct my focus elsewhere, to the machine, the Contraption. It sits a tail-length beyond the safety of my hide. The gleaming steel bar is poised to strike. Today it is baited with a fat pumpkin seed. It’s a trick. I see through its false promise. I turn back into my hide, to await the day when the Contraption works its magic again, when it transforms from a machine of pain to one of wonder.

Oh, I know they think me mad, my fur matted, my teeth grown so long. They think the blow to my head  — that split open my furred scalp to the bone and cracked the same — shook something loose. They are wrong. They don’t know the Contraption’s promise. The secret that took her from me.

For now.

I remember her. And that day. A frolicker, that’s how I’d describe her. She loved to frolic. The mediocrity of walking wasn’t for her. Whenever we went anywhere, it was always at a run. And she’d jump. She was fearless and lean. She soared when she leapt, laughing all the while. I couldn’t help but laugh, too.

It had been her idea to sneak into the human’s house that day. Adventure drew her forth, a siren’s song that sang a melody of new places, new things, new experiences. She drew me with her. I loved her and her frolics. How could I not?

We widened the gap in the wall of the human’s house. In front of us lay the device I would come to call the Contraption. I wasn’t fearless like her. I was wary and remained in the wall, always the shadow to her light, but she tumbled thought the hole and ran to investigate the machine. I could smell newly-sawn wood and oiled metal. Such smells worried me, but not her. Under those alien smells, was that of sunflower seeds. She loved sunflower seeds, her namesake. I remember the way she’d looked back at me hidden in the wall; the way her whiskers twitched with delight, as she poked her head under the raised arm of the Contraption and began to nibble at the seed on the plate.

That moment is lost in the fog of my head. I remember the snap, or at least, I think I do. I remember being startled and falling. When I awoke, dried blood matted the fur on my head, and she was gone.

The Contraption remained, its arm raised again. A crumb of fragrant cheese now replaced the sunflower seeds. Pain filled my heart. I could still smell her scent mixed with that of the Contraption. I’d sagged to the ground and fell into a shuddering, fevered sleep. It was then the Contraption spoke to me, offering a dark promise of reunion.

* * *

The snap wakes me. Some idiot pup, barely out of the nest, has tried to take the seed. I hear the Contraption being bashed against the wall. I poke my head out of my hide. The steel arm has caught the pup across the back and his hind legs are limp. Though diminutive, he had the strength of youth. His struggles have flipped the Contraption over. His chest rises and falls, his breathing laboured. His bulging eyes catch mine, pleading and I see that strength fading with each breath.

I do nothing. I will do nothing. He does not comprehend the importance of the Contraption. I turn away before the rise and fall of his chest ceases.

He has been judged, and he is unworthy.

* * *

The Contraption snaps again. This time I do not look. Crouching in the dark, I turn in circles. My claws have shredded the surface of the beam. The wood looks like fur. Her fur. My stomach issues a complaint, and I am forced to obey. I nose my way out of my hole. Pain lances through my skull as the weeping wound on my head brushes the edge. I suck in a hiss and wait for the pain to recede, a throbbing that undulates in time with the beating of my heart.

By the time I reach her, the doe is already dead. She was old, exhausted. She would have died soon anyway. Blood trickles from her snout, seeping into the coarsely sawn wood of the Contraption.

The metallic scent of the blood obscures that of my Sunflower. Anger flares within me. How dare this doe allow her filthy blood to contaminate Sunflower’s memory? I rip bread out of the dead doe’s mouth, plunging the soft morsel into my maw. It is wet. I grimace at the sensation and remove it. It is stained red. I hadn’t tasted the blood, or if I had, I hadn’t cared enough for it to register. The blood glistens, crimson in the dark light.

My stomach complains again. I retreat to my hide. I eat, thinking of my mate. Sunflower had been chosen, chosen to go wherever the Contraption sent the worthy. It had to be a special place. She deserved that and it couldn’t be anything less.

I must be patient, to wait for that wondrous day, when the sunflower seeds appear again and when the Contraption will sing its song to me. A siren song of sunflower seeds and spring steel. I will go to it and be judged worthy.

And I will see her again.

 

* * *

About the Author

H. Robert Barland is a teacher, Viking re-enactor and black-belt martial artist. A former climber, film extra, and resident of the UK, he has now returned to Newcastle, Australia where he lives with his wife and two boys. He considers himself well adapted for life on land and can be followed on BlueSky (@hrobertbarland.bsky.social), Instagram (@h.robertbarland) and X (@hrobertbarland).

by Lara Hussain

“Flowerwerks employees stopped to watch her work, awed by her skill and intensity.”

Jot knew exactly what had happened to Iota: Flowerwerks had eaten him alive. Or rather, he had worked himself to death. Mice were prone to it: working to grinding exhaustion, from those who squeaked commands all day to the lowliest directors of fertilizer distribution, and even the earthworm and bee wranglers. But it was unlike Iota to disappear. He had a quiet intensity, certainly, but he would never leave something unfinished, or depart without saying goodbye.

Jot’s best friend, Dottie, was wringing her paws. They were raw and pink from all the kneading, which started when she realized her partner was missing. Iota wasn’t the first mouse of Subporchia to go missing. Jot put her own paws on top of Dottie’s and looked up at her. Dottie was taller and had a lovely coat of fine winter grass-colored fur, with a single spot of white spread across her chest.

“When did ya last see him, Dottie?” Jot asked. Her voice had a thick New York accent, lyrical and caring, but with a no-nonsense tone.

Dottie found Jot’s self-assured voice comforting.

“Oh, oh. I saw him when he left for work yesterday,” Dottie panted in her high-pitched breathless waver. “He left early… said he’s working on some big project ,and they’re behind on deadline with a second planting. That they’re expecting rain. As if anyone could predict the weather. Well, you know, the big mice think they can. But you know what I think? I don’t think they have a clue! They’re just working everyone to death, all so they can get fatter! It’s not fair, Jot!” Dottie squeaked angrily. This wasn’t the first time they had discussed the unjustness of Flowerwerks.

Dottie pulled her paws back and began wringing them again. “To be honest,” Dottie continued, “He’s been working long hours for a while now. Flowerwerks just isn’t producing like it used to. There are fewer flowers than ever. But he’s working his tail off. I’ve never seen him so thin…” A sob snuck up on her. “Jot, do you think he’s okay?” she squeaked.

Tears were wet on Dottie’s sweet face. Jot offered open arms to embrace her.

“We’ll find him,” Jot said as she squeezed Dottie. “I start that new job today, you know, at the Flowerwerks entrance. I’ll nose around and see what I can find out.”

Jot was a carver, a talented artist who worked with roots and wood. After the success of her community roots projects — a tangle of wondrous flowers that she delicately carved in the thickest roots that ran through common areas in the burrow — she had been commissioned by Flowerwerks to carve the tall redwood columns at the entrance to the company. The thick square columns sprang from the ground and held up the canopy that covered all of Subporchia, from the burrow to Flowerwerks. No one had considered carving the columns before, not even Jot. But she thought it was a very good idea. The carved wood would bring beauty — and she hoped joy — to the start and end of the work day. And so she had agreed.

The early summer sun was already peeking through the narrow slits in the canopy by the time Dottie left. Tiddle, Jot’s partner, offered to accompany Jot on her first day to her new job, before he continued on to his work at the Scout Corps headquarters, the security outpost for Subporchia. It was also time for Flowerwerks’ town hall, something everyone listened in on, even if they didn’t work there. That’s because Flowerwerks ran the garden, of course, the whole east side of Subporchia, and beyond.

Jot and Tiddle nimbly crossed the long stretch of rocky flats outside the burrow and joined the commute of other mice, embarking on their work day. As the throngs neared the Flowerwerks entrance, the rocks gave way to soft soil. A large crowd had already gathered there, eager to hear from the leaders of Flowerwerks.

“This is the dawning of the earth’s fertility!” Mr. Cheeseman said, the bulge of his expansive furry belly bouncing with his enthusiasm.

Tiddle rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure the earth was growing plants just fine before Flowerwerks,” he whispered to Jot. “The real question is if anyone there has figured out that you can’t take from the Earth forever, that you have to give back and care for it, too?”

Jot, ever the optimist, squeaked back, “Well, maybe investing in public art is a good start. I mean, maybe it’ll help them see things differently.”

Tiddle sighed. “It’s the same thing every time. Big words and no real change. If they just gave the soil a break and put more earthworms to work, the flowers would come back…  it’s simple…”

“Shhhh! Jot hissed. “Listen!”

“More flowers means more cheese bonuses. We’re expecting great things from you. Now get back out there!”

There was a smattering of applause and small cheers that could be construed as quiet groaning, and the crowd quickly dispersed. Jot and Tiddle scurried to the first set of columns at Flowerwerks’ entrance.

“Who needs more cheese?” Tiddle huffed as he patted the side of a column. “Honestly, at some point, Mr. Cheeseman is going to explode from all the cheese.”

Jot elbowed him. “Well, this job is helping pay for our cheese for now. It’s worth a try, ya know, to put some good in the world. It just might change things,” she said. Jot looked thoughtful, and then added more as a pep talk for herself, “I haveta at least try!”

“Oh, Ms. Jot! You’re here!” It was Mr. Cheeseman’s assistant. He was all nervous energy and jiggly in his rotundness, though he wasn’t nearly as large as Mr. Cheeseman himself.

Tiddle gave Jot a kiss on her cheek. “Be the change you want to see, darling,” he whispered in her ear, and whisked away toward the Scout Corps.

After Jot’s first day, her fingers were covered in chalk and ached from sketching. She would sketch for a few days still, outlining her plan for the carving. Then, Mr. Cheeseman himself would review the plan before she cut away at the wood.

“So, how did it go?” Tiddle asked.

“Oh fine. Everyone was very nice. They even provided lunch. Can you believe it? I haven’t even done anything yet!”

“Oh, that’s not true!” Tiddle replied. “You’ve been preparing for this for weeks, before you even got started. I bet you already had ideas before you put chalk to wood.”

Tiddle was correct, of course, even if Jot didn’t admit it. She returned to Flowerwerks the next day and the day after that. After two weeks, she noticed a new plumpness in her belly and roundness in her cheeks from all the free food.

“Oh, it will be very fine to have this extra fat in the winter, don’t you think, Tiddle?” Jot asked, pinching her own cheeks.

Tiddle harrumphed. “We’ve always been fine without it. The burrow is plenty warm with all the grass we harvest in the fall.” Tiddle cocked his head, as if a thought had occurred to him.

“How is Dottie?” he asked. “Let’s have her over, love. I don’t think we’ve seen her but once since you started your project at Flowerwerks.”

Jot looked down at her toes and nodded. She had been so busy at Flowerwerks that she hadn’t made time to help her distraught friend. Iota still hadn’t turned up, and she knew Dottie was frantic. The possibility that Iota might return was less likely with each passing day. Jot had nosed around, stealthily, as she promised, but hadn’t turned up any clues on his whereabouts.

Tiddle, a leader in the Scout Corps, which alerted all of Subporchia to any approaching danger — of the cat or weather ilk — was baffled. His team had investigated Iota’s disappearance.

“I just don’t understand,” Tiddle said, for what must’ve been the hundred and first time. “There were no cats in the area the day he went missing, nor the day after. And there were no signs of struggle. We just don’t know where he went!”

Tears brimmed in Jot’s eyes. She realized with heavy sadness that no one knew what had happened to Iota, and it was possible they never would.

The next day, back at Flowerwerks, Mr. Cheeseman stopped by and surveyed Jot’s sketches.

“This is masterful,” he said, and Jot blushed beneath her calico fur. In the same breath, he continued, “But don’t you think there should be more flowers and less soil? I mean, that’s what we all want, isn’t it?” he chuckled, and his belly bobbed ominously with the exertion.

“Yes, but we need soil. And it’s so lovely, too,” she said, fingering the swirls she had outlined for the soil portions of the carving. “Flowers cannot grow without it!”

“Not true!” Mr. Cheeseman replied with a nasty grin. “We’ve come up with a new way. Soil’s not needed. Heck, neither are the pollinators. Just don’t tell the worms and bees I said so,” he said and laughed.

He stepped closer to Jot and scraped his fingernail across the soil pattern. “More flowers, less soil. Get it done,” he hissed quietly. Then he stepped back and announced loudly, “This is going to be beautiful. A real testament to the power of Flowerwerks. Everyone will want to work here!”

Back in the burrow, Jot cried when Tiddle asked her about her day.

“He’s a horrible mouse. How can anyone be so blind and greedy?” Jot wailed, still upset that he had asked her to change the design, the true message of her work.

Tiddle frowned. “I think his greediness makes him blind,” he said. “And I’m sorry he doesn’t see the beauty of what you shared.”

Tiddle wiped at the tears on her furry, tri-colored cheeks and sniffed.

“Do you plan to finish it?” Tiddle asked tentatively.

Jot sat up straight, and her eyes cleared. She inhaled deeply, considering the question. She nodded, slowly at first, and then confidently. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll finish, so long as I can!”

The next day, after early morning cups of warm honeysuckle with Dottie, Jot returned to Flowerwerks and began carving. She changed the design, embellishing it with bees and winding worms deeper in the wood, intent on showing all the essential elements that worked together to create a healthy garden. Flowerwerks employees stopped to watch her work, awed by her skill and intensity. They marveled over the emerging images and left paw imprints in the discarded dust and woodchips as they walked past.

That night, Jot’s teeth were sore from the many hours she had been carving, long after everyone else had gone home. She was still there when blinking fireflies and slivers of moon were the only light to work by. Tiddle retrieved her, and they talked on the slow scurry back to the burrow.

“Don’t let what happened to Iota happen to you,” he pleaded. “You need to take care of yourself, so you can continue this work. I don’t want to lose you, too, Jot! It’s not worth it. Nothing is.”

Jot started to disagree. The carvings could change minds, she was sure of it! But Tiddle was right. If she wasn’t well, it wouldn’t matter, because she wouldn’t be able to finish.

Jot took a refreshing spit bath, rubbing away dust and splinters of wood from her work. Then she sat down for dinner with Tiddle, berries and sunflower seeds drizzled in honeysuckle. Jot slept deeply that night and awoke, feeling more like herself.

When she showed up at Flowerwerks in the morning, Jot had to wade through a crowd to get to the column she had been working on the day before. Dottie was in the center, touching the curved backside of one of the carved bees.

“Oh my,” Dottie breathed. “This is beautiful. This is how I always imagined Flowerwerks would be. Should be,” she said. There were bobbing ears all around, and the crowd murmured in  agreement.

“Jot, may I help you?” Dottie asked. “Please. I just think it would be…healing. Just tell me what to do.”

Jot startled. She had never considered such a thing. But partnering with Dottie would make the work easier, especially for such a big project. The wood was so dense, and she hadn’t even started on the second column. Plus her teeth were still sore from all the carving the day before. Dottie, a burrow architect, would bring her own skills and flair to the work. Best of all, it would be time they could spend together.

“I’m sorry I didn’t even think to ask ya, Dottie! And yeah, I would love to have your help. Here, I’ll show you how to follow the outline. Carving is the easy part, once you get the hang of it.”

And so, Jot trained Dottie, and while Dottie carved, Jot began sketching out a new design on the second column.

The next day, the crowd was even bigger. There were more volunteers, some were even Flowerwerks employees, willing to use their meager vacation time to help with the endeavor. Jot welcomed them all, trained them, and set them loose.

Mr. Cheeseman was not happy. Jot had not precisely followed his instructions. Mr. Cheeseman expected nothing but unquestioning, faithful followers, just as he was a loyal, compliant follower of his leader. But seeing how enthusiastic employees were about the carvings, he knew he could not change what had been done, not now.

Instead, Mr. Cheeseman turned his attention to the business of business. Employees were expected to work longer hours. The pressure to grow more flowers intensified. Purple and white buds unfurled and covered the lands surrounding Subporchia like a thick carpet. Though they were in greater quantity, Jot noticed they were smaller, with withered leaves and weak roots. Quietly, more mice went missing. The cat alarm was sounded more frequently.

One evening, Tiddle returned home upset. “Mr. Cheeseman called the outpost and actually asked us to stop sounding the alarm so much. Can you believe it? He said it was causing unnecessary panic. As if getting eaten is not something to panic about,” Tiddle said. “The fact is, that cat is coming around more often. How can Mr. Cheeseman not be worried about that?”

“What did you tell him?” Jot asked, her heart beating with fear.

“I told him we’re going to do whatever it takes to protect the burrow. Every life is worth saving,” he said. “Mr. Cheeseman actually laughed and told me I was a ‘ridiculous idealist’.”

Something clicked in Jot, then. She realized that Mr. Cheeseman did not seem to think that every life was worth saving, except his own. He wasn’t looking out for his employees. He was only looking out for himself. He’d destroy every mouse and the whole garden in pursuit of more cheese, more cheese than he would ever need.

“Oh, Jot. I know that look,” Tiddle said, watching Jot’s changing expression. “What are you cooking up?”

She smiled, a small fire in her eyes. “Well, it’s time we did something about it. Something big.” She shared her plan with Tiddle who nervously squeaked his support. If anyone could pull it off, he knew Jot could.

The next day, Jot bravely confronted Mr. Cheeseman.

“Mr. Cheeseman. We’ll finish the second column today. You’ve seen how the mice have reacted. Everyone is so excited. It was truly your brilliant idea to beautify the columns that brought everyone together. I imagine productivity is up…”

“Indeed it is,” Mr. Cheeseman boasted, inflated by Jot’s compliment.

“What if… what if we had a day of service where everyone came together and carved the columns deep within Flowerwerks. Imagine what it would be like if everyone collaborated, across the organization, to carve designs into more columns. It could transform Flowerwerks, inside and out! I mean, this is your idea after all.”

Mr. Cheeseman nodded and sat up a little straighter. His fur puffed out a bit with pride. “Ah, yes. Happy employees means more flowers. I will call a day of service. But the design MUST be within my specifications.”

“Oh sure. More flowers, less soil, yeah?”

“Yes, and giant flowers, too, please.”

“No problem, Mr. Cheeseman. No problem at all.”

It was settled. The day of service was announced, with plenty of time to prepare. Jot worked with Dottie on plans, leaning heavily on Dottie’s architectural expertise. Then, Jot turned to sketching new designs on columns deep within Flowerwerks, the whole far east side of Subporchia.

On the day of service, Jot gathered all the volunteers. Her eyes went misty over their joy and eagerness. Nearly all of Subporchia was there, it seemed, even a couple of Flowerwerks’ leaders. Mr. Cheeseman, of course, was absent, as Jot presumed he would be.

“I’m verklempt!” Jot said, overcome, and she waved at the hot tears of relief and joy that wet her face. “Thank you all for coming for this special day!”

Jot never imagined mice would turn up in such numbers for anything but cheese. But here they were, eager to work together for something better. Jot took a deep breath and began with carefully explaining her vision and purpose for the project. Those who disagreed were given an opportunity to leave. There was respectful silence and stillness, as everyone considered her plan. Jot nervously tapped her foot. Some mice closed their eyes. Others folded their arms, resolute. In the end, not one mouse put a paw in another direction. All were ready to chew.

In a single, very long day, the mice carved more than any had imagined possible. All were covered in sawdust. Splinters and wood chips were piled at their feet. Every designated column was given new life. They marveled over the power of their collective work, sure that they had made change, for now and for the future. Just after the first slivers of moon shone down, they scurried home to their burrows, their teeth sore, their hearts big.

That night, after a cat alarm sounded, when all were safe in their underground homes, there was a large crack. Followed by another crack. And then there was a splitting, a splintering and the ground shook as weight heaved to the earth. The mice heard the cat screaming then. They waited in their burrow, fearful and excited. They waited for the sun.

By the time the mice emerged the next morning, the cat cries had stopped. When all had gathered at the entrance of what used to be Flowerwerks, it was easy to see that Jot’s and Dottie’s careful planning had worked. The canopy over Flowerwerks headquarters had collapsed. The entire east side of Subporchia was rubble on the ground. The mice stood at the new edge of Subporchia, admiring the sunlight and splintered wood, awed by what they had achieved.

The mice’s strategic carving, a whittling away of the support structures deep within the company, had weakened the columns just enough to cause the entire roof to collapse. It was the collective power of the mice and their vision for a better future, for all of the garden and its many creatures, that brought down all of Flowerwerks overnight.

Far under the rubble, the mice heard a faint, desperate squeak. They raced after the sound and cleared surrounding debris, frantic to save any souls who had somehow been in Flowerwerks when the canopy caved in. It was Mr. Cheeseman. He was trapped next to the cat. And the cat was dead.

“It was the cat’s idea,” Mr. Cheeseman confessed, after he was rescued. He shook dirt out of his filthy coat and continued. “He was the one who wanted to control the garden. We did whatever he wanted because he gave us the cheese. All the cheese we could eat and more.”

“Waita minute,” Jot said, her hand on her hip. “Are you tellin’ us that the CAT was in charge of Flowerwerks? ALL this time, we were working for the CAT? Tell me I’m wrong.”

Mr. Cheeseman hung his head and shook it. The mice collectively gasped and squeaked with disbelief.

“But WHY?” Jot screamed above the cacophony.

“The cat wanted control,” Mr. Cheeseman said, still looking down at his ample belly. “The cat wanted to run the garden so it could grow as much catnip as possible.”

All at once, the mice erupted into shouts and shook their tiny paws at Mr. Cheeseman. Instinctively, the Scouts gathered around the large mouse, to make sure he didn’t try to escape.

There was a long, pitiful wail then. Jot ran toward it. Deep in the splinters of what was once Flowerwerks and what appeared to be the cat’s lair, Dottie was holding a mouse tail.

“Oh no, no!” she said. “It was the cat all along. He ate Iota and the others. Jot, there are so many tails here.” Dottie hugged the tail to the white fur of her chest and rocked back and forth. “Iota, my poor, poor Iota. You deserved so much better.”

Mr. Cheeseman was marched out of Subporchia and banned from the garden after that. No one ever saw or spoke of him again. The tails of the cat’s victims were delicately buried and marked in a corner of the garden where the lavender grew the thickest.

In time, the mice returned to doing what they always did best: working together in harmony with the garden and all of its inhabitants. The next spring, the garden never looked so beautiful. The flowers grew larger, the honeysuckle tasted sweeter, and there was always enough to share.

 

* * *

About the Author

Lara Hussain is a former environmental journalist who spent many years in the corporate arena, making good trouble. Today, she teaches literacy and writes fiction in Denver, Colorado, where she lives with a menagerie of human, furry, and scaly family members. In her youth, she spent summers creating Lego villages for pet mice until the mice learned to chew through the windows to escape. Her stories of the underdog rising up have appeared in The Literary Hatchet, Scapegoat Review, and The Last Girls Club, among others.

by Melanie Mulrooney

“When he dropped the small sea pebble, she drowned it in salty tears, cawing about Ty’s eyes, blue like glass.”

Crow circled above as the sad one trudged through wet sand, scrambling to perch on the highest rock. She visited every day — huddling against the frigid wind, pleading with the ocean, leaking her salt into the vastness.

Crow sang to her sometimes, when he was bored. She didn’t answer, but she also didn’t yell for him to leave. So he stayed close; they often dropped food, if he waited long enough.

Receding waves carried her calls to the deep: Ty, come home.

* * *

One day she piled peanuts high on a rock before climbing to roost. Crow swooped in again and again to collect his bounty, then flew off to find the perfect gift in return.

When he dropped the small sea pebble, she drowned it in salty tears, cawing about Ty’s eyes, blue like glass.

* * *

She brought many peanuts and Crow grew fat and happy. In exchange, he tried to cheer her with presents from the sea: abandoned shells, strands of netting, shiny buttons found among the rocks. Each piece was rewarded with Ty-words: Ty collects seashells in pretty jars, Ty works too long on a boat, Ty’s favourite sweater has silver buttons like these.

All gifts led to Ty, and more stormy sadness.

* * *

The winds warmed and the light grew long, and Crow caught an extra-special gift delivered from the ocean. She pushed her finger through the shiny gold circle and wailed: no no no. Her cries crashed like the waves again and again, until she had no words left.

Crow was determined to make her happier with his next offering.

* * *

The sad one stopped living on the rock and feeding Crow treats by the sea. He searched for her along the shore for many moons, followed the wind for her familiar lament. His caws were met with silence.

Crow waited a cycle of seasons, but she remained lost. He missed her Ty-words — maybe even more than the peanuts.

 

* * *

About the Author

Melanie Mulrooney lives in Nova Scotia with her husband and a gaggle of kids. Her work has been published with Elegant Literature, Metastellar, TL;DR Press, and others, and she has won multiple writing competitions and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. When not writing or child-wrangling, she can be found reading, volunteering in her community, or strolling through the woods — usually with a cup of tea in hand, and always wearing clothing suitable for napping. Her favourite days are when the fog rolls in so thick you can barely see, and everything smells like the ocean. Find her at melmulrooney.com.

by Lynn Gazis

“Each day I woke, hoping again to have my wings and to take to the air. Each day I rose forlorn, bereft of feathers.”

The crows do not know me. Trapped in the wrong body now, I have no way to tell them, “I am one of you.”

Once, with them, I flew and roosted, foraged and played. Together we used sticks to pry insects from holes, sledded down roofs of houses on flat circles of metal that humans had left where we could grab them, and traded information about where food could be scavenged. When we needed to, we joined forces to chase off hawks.

Now the crows do not know me. When I tried to approach, to find some way to signal, hey, I’m still me, I was the threat and the one mobbed.

It’s all the fault of that old sorceress. She left a small, shiny circle on her windowsill. I always loved shiny things. I flew to the window and grabbed the shiny circle. But she saw me and cursed me.

I fell to the ground. When I tried to rise, I was bigger and less graceful. When I tried to cry out, I heard not my beautiful crow voice, but an ugly human voice. My naked body had no trace of feathers. Most of all, I had no wings!

I clutched the shiny circle and put it on one finger for safekeeping, because if I was going to be punished for taking it, I had damn well earned the right to keep the object for which she had cursed me. Then I rose on my overly long legs and staggered away. So slow and awkward were my steps that I was sure the sorceress would chase and grab me. Instead, she watched and laughed, that grating, scary laughter that humans have.

Once I had walked over a hill and past a grove of trees, safely out of sight of the sorceress, I dropped and crawled on all fours. I felt strange, as if I was dragging my wings in the dirt, but I also felt more stable crawling than standing on such long legs. A human family found me crawling along the road and helped me to their small hut. They gave me clothes — how odd it felt to wrap my body in cloth, rather than having it covered with my very own feathers! They let me sleep on a blanket on their floor. In front of their hut, I dared to walk again, balancing precariously on my new legs.

The witch’s curse contained a small mercy. With my human form, I gained a knowledge of the human language. Scratch that. I learned one of the human languages. It turned out that they had many. Unlike my fellow crows, who could speak to crows from anywhere, traveling humans struggled to make themselves understood. Perhaps this difficulty in human communication was a good thing. Think what a threat humans could be to crows if they all understood each other! Still, stuck in my human body, I knew I could not venture beyond the land where humans spoke the one language that I knew.

Each day I woke, hoping again to have my wings and to take to the air. Each day I rose forlorn, bereft of feathers. The humans gave me food, a strange mush each morning from which I picked the bits of fruit and nuts, and only occasionally meat. The first morning I slipped outside, once I had finished my fruits and nuts, and found an anthill, where I enjoyed some tasty insects. But the humans stared and exclaimed so that I had to learn to enjoy my insect treats when they weren’t looking.

I learned over time to eat and enjoy more and more of their food, my new favorites being a rice dish with bits of fish and a serving of mostly lettuce with bits of other vegetables. The family was patient with my slow efforts to learn to walk, and only when I was steady on my feet did they ask me to help them on their farm. I agreed. What else could I do, stranded without wings?

The farmers gave me a spade, dull gray to the eye and hard to the touch.

“Dig here,” he said, “and put these seeds in the ground.”

I wanted to scratch the ground with my nails, but human nails aren’t good for much, so I settled for the spade. Next they set me the task of milking the cow — such an odd sensation, to grasp the cow with these things called hands, so soft and tender! Then came the day when I helped the woman of the house, carrying baskets of vegetables with her to the market in town, to sell. There I saw the shop of the town silversmith. Shiny things!

I wandered into the shop. I watched the silversmith rub a stick against a shiny thing, until he looked up.

“Can I help you?” said the silversmith.

“Just looking,” I said.

He grunted as if he had hoped for something more from me, I wasn’t sure what. But he let me look.

Soon I spent every spare moment I had, when done with my work on the farm, at the silversmith shop. If I could not have my crow body, at least I could be close to shiny things all day. I started to fetch and carry, to please the silversmith and be closer to his shiny things. He had fascinating tools. Some had blades to cut the shiny things, others held shiny things still so that they could be cut, and odd sticks with rough edges could be run over those shiny surfaces to smooth them the way the silversmith wanted. I learned the names of each, and where to find them. My favorite, though, was the cloth that could be used to bring out the shine.

In time, the silversmith paid the farmers who had rescued me, to buy out my contract and take me on as an apprentice. I had not known I had a contract, but if I did, well, I was happy to have it purchased, so I could spend all my days with silver. I took up with enthusiasm the first job the silversmith gave me, shining tarnished silver.

One evening, after my work was done, I wandered to the blacksmith’s shop a few houses over. The metal at the blacksmith’s shop did not shine as the things at the silversmith’s shop did, but it glowed bright when the smith put it in the fire. As I watched the glow of the fire, the blacksmith’s daughter approached.

“Aren’t you the new silversmith apprentice?” she said. “Where are you from?”

“Down the road, past the trees, and over the hill,” I said, “as the crows fly.”

She laughed, though I couldn’t see why.

“Ah, but which trees?” she asked.

I am a crow. I can talk all day about trees.

“There’s the big old stump,” I said, “where termites live. And the young tree with silvery bark and leaves shaped like this.”

I sketched the shape of a leaf with my hand.

The blacksmith’s daughter listened to me more intently than anyone else had, since I left the crows behind. For a human, she was lovely, nearly as dark as a crow, her skin a lustrous dark brown and her hair tightly curled. When she smiled, the white of her teeth drew my eye. And she looked at my ugly human form at times as if I still had a crow’s beauty. Most of all, she listened.

After that day, I came back often, in the evening after work, to talk with the blacksmith’s daughter and find the comfort of a listening friend. Sometimes I was tempted to confide in her about the curse. Each time I was tempted, I thought better of it. Safer to keep the friend I had, and not risk the friendship by sharing things she might not understand.

As my visits became more frequent, the blacksmith muttered odd things about wanting to know my intentions. How could I tell him that my intention was to become a crow again, as soon as I could figure out how? Each time he muttered, I returned to the silversmith’s shop and busied myself with shiny things.

In time, the silversmith judged me ready to do other work with silver. As a silversmith in training, I learned that awkward as human legs could be, human hands had a certain grace and finesse. The day that I hammered my first dish, I stood amazed at the result. Never, as a crow, could I have done the work with silver that I could now do!

Yes, human hands had their uses. But they could never reconcile me to being trapped in a human body. One day, I stumbled on a trail and twisted my ankle, and it ached for weeks afterwards. Often, my back ached. Walking on legs could not compare with flying. Most of all, the body was not mine. I felt wrong in this body, as I felt right in my old crow’s body. And in this body, the crows do not know me.

It’s this essential wrongness of my new body that led me, finally, to leave behind my beloved shiny work as an apprentice silversmith. The shop where I worked did not just make new shiny things. It restored and repaired old ones, and, for those rich enough to pay for the service, even did routine cleaning and polishing of silver. The silversmith left most of the routine polishing to me, his least experienced assistant. In this way, I came to be the one to be sent to pick up some silver for polishing, from a local magician. Silver bowls are important for making magical mixes of all kinds, and they must be clean, for the potions to be pure and work true.

A magician! If I could find work with him, I might learn the trick that changed my form, and what could change my form back. I hurried to his shop as quickly as my awkward human legs would take me.

The magician’s shop stood at the edge of town, a small house of stone with a thatched roof. As I stepped inside, I saw the magician at work mixing something in one of his silver bowls. On the table lay mint leaves and parsley and basil.

“What are you making?” I asked.

The magician glared at me. “Who are you and why are you in my shop?”

The name the humans gave me always felt awkward on my lips, so I skipped it. “I’m the apprentice from the silversmith shop, here to collect your silver to shine.”

“Do that, then,” said the magician, and handed me a bundle of silver.

I took the pieces away and shined them to a fine gleam. When I brought them back, I asked the magician directly, “Do you need an apprentice.”

“Certainly not,” said the magician, “and if I did, I wouldn’t want one so eager to skip out on his contract.”

I wasn’t ready to be give up, though. I made it my business to win him over. I shined his silver with extra promptness and care. I gave him small presents — finding out from other villagers what herbs he liked to purchase and getting good quality rosemary and thyme. He started asking me to run errands on the side. Finally, I found my way where I wanted to be, working by his side in his shop, fetching and cleaning and passing and, most importantly, watching and listening.

It paid off when I learned why he never let his wand out of sight, waking, and slept with it under his pillow.

“Get hold of a magician’s wand,” he said once, “and you can unravel his spells. I’m not about to let that happen to mine.”

I didn’t dare ask how — I didn’t want him to think I had my eyes on his wand. I didn’t, after all — I wanted only the wand that had made me human. I listened and waited for other hints.

Hints like the time I took one of his silver bowls back from the silversmith to his house and stopped at the blacksmith’s shop on the way. The blacksmith’s daughter welcomed me back — it has been so long since we spoke! She thought I had forgotten her! Her father let me know that I would hear from him if I forgot her again. I dallied there all afternoon, talking with the blacksmith’s daughter. I thought, when the magician frowned on my return, that he was angry because I had taken too long, stopping to chat for as long as I had. No, he had other reasons.

“I smell iron,” said the magician.

In my shock, I forgot to conceal my crow nature.

“People can smell iron?” I asked.

As a crow I could smell food, blood, and even fear, but never metal. My human body didn’t quite perceive things the way my real crow body did. Colors were missing. But it never occurred to me that humans might smell things that crows didn’t. Had I missed this new sense all this time? Perhaps it was harder to process since I hadn’t grown up with it.

The magician laughed, but then set his mouth again in a firm line.

“I can smell far more than you know,” he said, “Don’t bring my silver to the blacksmith shop. It’s bad for magic.”

If I can bring iron to the witch’s wand, I thought, can I break her magic?

It seemed unwise to ask such a question of a magician. I would watch, and wait, and look for magic’s vulnerable points. Iron might not be the only one.

I watched, and I learned. Iron could weaken silver’s magic for days, but burning the right herbs hastened the recovery of magical properties. When the magician gave me a list of which herbs to bring, I made up a little poem to remember them, for these herbs were the very herbs I’d want to remove from the witch’s house, if I wanted to break her wand.

I watched, and I learned, as the magician gave me instructions on polishing his silver. Wands, like bowls, must be made of silver. Clean silver worked better magic than tarnished silver.

I listened, and remembered, as the magician spoke his spells. Words must be carefully spoken. And a wand, I learned, carried a record of all the magic it had ever worked.

I did not, however, learn to work any magic of my own. Perhaps magic could not even be worked by a crow trapped in the wrong body. In any case, I could see that there were secrets the magician would not share. Some of them he had recorded in marks on paper, but such marks were unintelligible to me.

Each day I woke and saw the wrong face in the mirror. Each day I moved awkwardly on the wrong legs. Some days my back ached. Each day, I looked to the sky and could not rise. Most of all, whenever I saw my old friends, I was reminded: The crows do not know me.

After one heartbreaking morning glimpse of crows in the magician’s yard, none of them seeing my crow nature, I could bear it no more. I told the magician that I needed to stretch my stiff back, and I set out for the blacksmith’s shop, to find my best human friend. I stood with her on the porch, her father’s sharp eye watching my every move, and the two of us spoke, in voices too low for him to hear. My voice trembled as my whole story tumbled out, how the sorceress had cursed me, exiled me, hidden me from my family. My whole story? Well, not quite my whole story. I left out the part about being a crow. I wanted her to believe in the curse. I wanted her to help. Perhaps the part about being a crow would be too much for her to believe.

The blacksmith’s daughter did not disappoint me.

“We’ll lift the curse together,” she said, “tell me all the herbs you know that a sorceress would use for potions. And meet me at my window tomorrow night.”

How slowly the hours passed till the night when I could meet her! But I looked in the magician’s mirror at my pink fleshy nose and imagined the fine beak I would soon have. Good things are worth the wait.

I threw a pebble at the window of the blacksmith’s daughter, as she had told me to do. It bounced from her closed shutters, and she flung them open, and tossed two bags down to me. Then she clambered out onto the branch of a tree and climbed down to meet me.

“My father will kill me,” she said, “if I don’t return with your ring.”

“No” was on the tip of my tongue. Give up my one shiny thing? But I reminded myself that she was my best human friend, and that soon I would have my true body back. Surely that was worth a ring.

“Yes,” I promised, “You shall have my ring.”

I doubted her father would kill her if I failed in my promise. Would he kill me? Of that I was less sure.

The two of us set out for my old roost site. On foot and with no cart, it took days to make the trip. At night, the blacksmith’s daughter pulled out an iron poker and laid it between us, as I laid down to sleep.

“Until I have my ring,” she said.

Smart of her to bring the iron, I thought. It could be useful, once the two of us got hold of the wand.

When we reached a grove of trees near the house of the sorceress, we buried the iron poker, and set up camp for a few days, so that the blacksmith’s daughter could lose the smell of iron before she scouted out the sorceress and her house. In place of the poker, she placed a large stick between the two of us, when we laid down to sleep. During the day she sang to me, and I told her stories of the places I had been, still leaving out the angle from which I had seen them.

One morning she set out to see the sorceress, a small basket of herbs in hand. I paced as I waited for her return. After some time, she burst through the grove, running toward me.

“Good news!” she said, “She needs more herbs tomorrow,” and she paused for emphasis, “because she’s leaving to see her sister the next day.”

“But she’ll take her wand with her,” I said, “that means we need to grab it by tomorrow night. And she’ll recognize me.”

“No,” said the blacksmith’s daughter, “It’s a day trip, and it’s a day trip to Mondavir. I know that town. They don’t allow wands within their walls.”

Hope clouded my thinking. Surely if anyone could charm secrets out of the sorceress, it was my friend, the blacksmith’s daughter. I believed that I had only to show up, the day after tomorrow, and the wand would be mine for the taking, and the curse undone.

The day came, and, while I dug up the iron poker, the blacksmith’s daughter kept watch from the side of the grove that looked on the sorceress’s house. She fetched me once the sorceress had ridden her horse out of sight.

The two of us approached the door of the house, and a three headed dog charged out, and jumped on the blacksmith’s daughter, biting her arm.

I had attacked before, but always in a mob with my fellow crows. Now I stood alone, frozen in fear, for long moments. Then I remembered the poker and charged, stabbing it at the dog.

The dog let go of the blacksmith’s daughter to dodge me. She landed a kick while I missed it with the poker. On the third try, I managed to stab the poker into its side. The dog collapsed and dwindled into a whimpering one-headed toy poodle. Iron combats magic.

The blacksmith’s daughter bandaged the dog, while I ransacked the house looking for the wand. I found it. The sorceress had not, after all, lied about traveling to Mondavir, the town where wands are forbidden.

I returned to the blacksmith’s daughter.

“It will live,” she said of the dog, “I think. But it will do better if we take it back with us.”

“Take it,” I said. I knew the blacksmith’s daughter to be kind to a crow, so why not a dog?

I lifted the poker to the wand. Would it dwindle, like the three-headed dog? It did not. Instead, it sprouted bright lines. A web of spells, kind, cruel, and petty, spread out before me. I saw the babies the witch healed, the extra bit of flavor she added to her zucchini, the pratfall she forced on a woman who had been mean to her when both were teens.

I did not see any lines leading to me. Where was my curse? Only my ring, my bright, shiny ring, stood linked to the wand by a slender line.

I dropped the iron poker and the wand.

“Are you alright?” asked the blacksmith’s daughter.

“I need you to take this ring,” I told her.

“Yes,” said the blacksmith’s daughter. “Yes. A hundred times yes.”

I took the silver ring off my pinky finger and placed it on her ring finger. She gazed at it and grinned.

Then she looked up at my face and screamed, as she saw me begin to sprout feathers.

As I took to the sky — free at last! — my joy at returning to my beloved murder of crows mingled with pity for the human best friend whom I left weeping on the ground.

 

* * *

About the Author

Lynn Gazis (she/they), being one of nine children, grew up in a small town in New York surrounded by cats, dogs, mice, gerbils, turtles, snakes, and an invisible goldfish. As a child, she played “For All the Saints” on the piano at a funeral for a mouse. She now lives in Southern California with her husband and cats. She works in IT and is active in her Quaker meeting. She has stories published by Cathedral Canyon Review, Air and Nothingness Press, JayHenge Publishing, Persimmon Tree Magazine, and Friends Journal. The cats, though, want you to know that her most important function is scratching them right where they want it and placing items on the table for them to knock down.

by Alyza Taguilaso

“At this point I was no longer sure of the things around me. I vaguely sensed the presence of other cats. Wisps of them, all faint…”

When this began, I was there in my cage lying cozy as cats are wont to do. Anticipating catnips and fish bits for the afternoon. I wasn’t the type to explore. Even if my humans let me out in the hopes of getting me to lose weight I’d only curl up in a corner and sleep some more. I like to stay where I ought to be: in safe, soft places. Sometimes there is a cage, sometimes a box. Better the comfort of thin metal and the warmth of newspaper than the cold streets where I once used to scavenge not so long ago.

This story is not about me. It’s about Mister Icarus.

Mister Icarus: a peculiar fellow. How did I get to meet him?

One minute I was purring off to sleep, rolling lazily, and then, the next he was there. Peering into my box with his ice blue eyes. He had this yellow fur I had never seen before. There was a slight shine to it, as though it were not fur but gold dust strewn on him. It was as if you could put all the yellows in the world together and this yellow, Mister Icarus Yellow, would win over all of them. He had white stripes at his sides, following the lines where his ribs would be.

Hello. What is your name? was the first thing he said to me, eyes all wide and engaging. His voice was deep. His tail moved back and forth like it was dancing.

Being a stray since birth, I knew nothing about manners and not talking to strangers. My mother, although almost always at my side in those days, never spoke much to me. She fed me and kept an eye out. But she never bothered telling me about the world. My humans, although kind to take me in, were more preoccupied with their own concerns than teaching a cat about manners. O, but they fed me well and would hug me every day because I grew to be so plump. A far cry from the scraggly-thin mimings jumping about the esteros.

Going back to Mister Icarus. I told him my name, after which he said, Ah, what a pleasant name. I am Mister Icarus, he added, tell me child, would you like to have a walk with me?

I was able to find an answer to his question easily. No, but thank you for asking, I replied, my body being fat and unused to motion. I wondered if Mister Icarus noticed that I was inside a cage and obviously would not be able to go out, but I didn’t say anything about it. That would be rude.

O, he said, forehead furrowing from what seemed to be disappointment.

But I would like it if you would stay here and talk with me, I added. I didn’t want him to leave. Like I said earlier, no one talked to me much in this house, and he did pique my interest. As for safety, nothing has ever harmed me when I was in the cage. I offered him some of the dried fish left in my dish.

And what would you like to talk about? he asked.

I… I don’t know. I replied, slightly embarrassed. I really didn’t know what I wanted to talk about. I just wanted someone to talk to. Pacing around my cage for a few moments, I found an answer.

Tell me of the world outside, I said, casually licking my paw to mask excitement.

The world outside? he asked, sly, his wide eyes flooding with sureness.

O, where to start, with the world outside? I could tell you of the great cities — no, not like this paltry place you are in — domed palaces and wide valleys. Cities furnished in glass and alabaster — the finest of the fine, opulent as opulence can be. I could tell you of the sea — for that was the first thing I saw in my waking. A blue blanket stretching on to the edges of the world. Water and monsters overflowing. Its inhabitants spoke in a tongue that tasted like seaweed and coral-juice. Or perhaps the things that fly higher than the sky — yes, there are those, with wings that made the spires of towers look tiny. Or, I suppose, child, the best thing to tell you is of that place you go to each time you lose a life — I was much too wide-eyed by all those things such that I barely noticed one of my humans, Maggie, approaching. She was a girl of eight, chubby and pig-tailed, always avid for something to hug. Maggie was calling out my name. Mister Icarus noticed this and he immediately bade me goodbye, crouched, and then jumped away, escaping my vision.

Annoyed at how Maggie’s arrival caused the abrupt cutting of Mister Icarus’ story, I scratched her a few times when she was trying to take me out of the cage. The child was obviously surprised, having never seen me like this, but she held me close nonetheless. “You evil, fat cat, you!” she said, hugging me even more and calling me baby names.

Maggie left me in her room after a while — her oldest sister had apparently brought home some sort of specimen from her anatomy class, so Maggie went off, pigtails bouncing about, charging at the newest thing in the house. I was partly expecting Mister Icarus to show up, but he didn’t; so I just spent that afternoon the same way I always do when left in Maggie’s room.

I jumped around a couple of things: her toy horse passed down by her two sisters, the pillows. (The hair I shed usually angers Maggie’s mother, but she only does so much as to pinch my fat bits and call me an evil, spoiled cat, as everyone else here calls me). Then I lounged in the bathroom, all cool marble and warm rugs. My favorite place in this house, next to my cage.

Soon, one of the house helpers picked me up and returned me to my cage. In my dish, my dinner for that day was waiting. I ate, only to be surprised and to almost choke on my fish when a familiar Hello meowed from behind.

Mister Icarus was in the same place where he had been before Maggie took me away. He looked the same, with only a slight strain in his smile. I was going to say something between asking if anything was wrong or offering him what remained of my food when he suddenly continued his story.

Of the world, he began in this deep singsong voice, there is this place only our kind can go to — it is a place lined with dreams and endless, motionless fish. In that place, everything is soft and hunger is absent.

I wasn’t interested in dreams but I was very much drawn in by his mention of fish, and soft places would mean good sleep. As for hunger, although I could barely remember my days jumping across gutters and avoiding cars, I knew well that hunger is never a kind thing.

Where is this place? I asked.

He sighed. Alas, child, though I have been there many times I am never certain of its exact location. I just manage to go there each time I think of it, he answered, licking his gold-yellow fur.

Does it have a name? I asked of the place.

No. He answered. What name would befit such a wondrous place? A name would only ruin it, shame it.

Before I could ask anything Mister Icarus drew closer and put a golden paw to my plain white ones.

Here, he said. See for yourself, child.

It was like experiencing all the dreams I’ve ever had — I was dragged downwards into a hole lined with the exact things Mister Icarus mentioned — seaweed, glass shards, shadows of towers,  and so much more. The walls had tiny, round picture frames. Within those frames I saw things from the past. To me they felt like things from the past.

These photographs moved within their frames.

In the small frames I saw my parents. Mother, her face haggard and tired as always. In another, I saw my father — the slightest bits of everything I could remember as a kitten seemed to be heightened in this strange tunnel. My mother was not just her usual black-and-white self, but I saw for the first time that her eyes were leaf green, like mine. For the strangest reason, I saw a glimmer of something that felt very sad encased in them. Father looked charming as he walked off in the framed world. He had his chin up, nose sniffing out the scent of food. His golden eyes looked towards the horizon of talipapa stalls. He didn’t seem to notice anything beyond his frame, purring as he headed towards a potential meal.

As I was getting pulled further into the hole, I heard someone call to me You shouldn’t be here! The voice was very soft but certain. It had called me by a name I swear I forgot — the name I had before my humans took me in. Child, go back! Go back! The voice was my mother’s. I saw her scratching wildly at the glass frame seconds before I lost sight of her face.

The frames grew larger as I was drawn in further. Soon I was dragged within the frames themselves — landscapes brimming with cold, white soil, others with endless sheets of sand, and on a few, just sky — bare and blue without an end in sight. I went through them with the same feeling of falling all throughout.

After a long bit of it I was sure I was going to throw up my insides.

At this point I was no longer sure of the things around me. I vaguely sensed the presence of other cats. Wisps of them, all faint but there nonetheless, looking at me as I fell. I couldn’t hear or see them, but I could tell they were there. It’s this odd feeling that they were hiding somewhere: looking, watching — waiting for something to happen.

Then, as if on cue, I heard Mister Icarus’ voice. Interesting, he said, and it all stopped.

I was back in my cage.

Dazed and more than annoyed I drew back and hissed at Mister Icarus. He snickered when I shouted, What did you just do?! My fur was standing at its ends and my body felt cold as ice. I was sure that was the angriest I’ve ever gotten.

I’m not surprised it was all a shock to you, child, he said. It usually is for everyone the first time it happens. Actually, I’m quite pleased you took it this way. Purring, he added, Usually, they take it badly. All screeches and maddened sounds, o, but you— He looked straight at me with pride. You took it with such perfection.

You crazy thing! Did you think that was funny? I’m going to howl so loud, you’d wish—Before I could finish, he suddenly apologized.

Aye, your anger is understandable, little one. I shouldn’t have let you see the place without telling you first. He had a worried look in his eye. As though my anger was something that actually posed a threat to him. I was just much too elated at your… skill, my little friend, and this joy leads to impatience—

I didn’t understand a thing he was saying, so his apology didn’t do much. What in the world did you just do to me?! I wasn’t as angry, but something in me demanded answers.

Well, child, I sent you to that nameless place where our kind goes each time we lose a life.

Despite this explanation, he still wasn’t making any sense to me. What? I almost regretted scratching Maggie now; this strange cat was saying even stranger things, and it didn’t help that my head was still whirring. I would rather be hugged and pinched a thousand times than make sense of what he was saying.

Well, you see, each time we lose a life, we go to that place — soft, fish-lined, where all our memories are — even the ones we never knew we had. Momentarily, we see ourselves as we used to be, or as how we spent our previous lives. Sometimes, he added blankly, we even see our future. By this point I realized I had relaxed my muscles and was just staring at Mister Icarus with my mouth open.

You do know that we have nine lives, don’t you, child?

I retorted, Of course I know that! It’s what every decent cat should know!  The truth was I didn’t know anything about cats having nine lives until that point. To prevent this lack of knowledge looking obvious, I quickly asked, What happens after the ninth life?    

I was expecting another long-winded answer but instead Mister Icarus stayed silent. For the first time, he looked down, his tail curled and held still behind him.

I don’t know, he said. Head bent, his right paw curled in and traced patterns on the floor. I don’t know he repeated to himself, and then looked up at me, a thin film of tears coating his blue eyes. Then he just turned back and walked off down the hallway to where I could no longer see him.

That whole night I kept mewling at my humans, expecting them to set me free. I normally wasn’t allowed to walk around the house, but they’d let me out in certain rooms. If I was lucky, I’d escape. Usually this was when someone absentmindedly forgot to shut the door or if the strings that tied my cage’s door shut were knotted loosely. For some reason, I felt that I had to talk to Mister Icarus again. More than him just going off without giving a proper explanation — which would have been the polite thing to do, mind you — I didn’t like the thought of him possibly being mad at me for asking that question.

Mister Icarus had become my first and possibly only friend. The other strays I used to scavenge with on the streets stopped talking to me after I was adopted. Only one of them, Nyaw, tried to visit me. She was a gray cat with half a tail who once tried climbing into the window of this house’s third floor. She barely got a greeting out when one of the house-helps caught her and chased her out the way she came.

I wasn’t let out of my cage and Mister Icarus didn’t come back.

I saw him again only about eight days later, when Maggie wasn’t paying any attention to me. The little girl stayed at her older sister’s study more and more these days, awed perhaps at the specimen her sister continually brought home from school.

Mister Icarus seemed different — his gold-yellow fur seemed like it was washed with some whitish material and his eyes were a lighter shade of blue. Dusty and faded. When he spoke to me though, it seemed he had forgotten what had caused him to leave during our previous encounter. How are you today, child? he asked in the same singsong but tired tone. He asked me to walk with him the same way he did just eight days earlier. This time around I was sure not to say anything that might displease him.

I would love to walk with you soon, but not now — I don’t feel that well. Maybe you could tell me more stories to make me feel better? For a while he seemed to think of what to say, wrinkling his light-pink nose, whiskers twitching.

Not knowing if he was feeling displeasure or not, I suddenly added, Maybe you could bring me back to that place I went to the other day. I didn’t really want to go back to that place — the thought of my insides swirling about and my body being hurled to and fro wasn’t at all something I liked. But I didn’t want Mister Icarus to leave either.

His eyes suddenly gleamed once I said this and immediately, he came closer. Just the thing I was thinking of! Such an intelligent child! 

This time I was the one who reached out for his paw through the bars of my cage.

The feeling was the same as before — an unseen force dragging me inside again, this time quicker, and more impatient, but after a while it surprisingly let go and I found that I could float on my own. The picture frames were still there, but they were empty. I searched but I didn’t see mother or father anywhere. The place reeked of fish. Perhaps a bit too much fish. Things still felt soft — but a thinner kind of soft, as though something about the softness was made weaker — less tangible. Flimsy. I didn’t feel hunger either, or that whirring in my head — I didn’t feel anything at all.

I felt as if I were a ghost.

I was beginning to wonder if this was really the same place until I saw eight different picture frames floating in front of me when I went deeper into the tunnel. The frames were connected to each other by a single red thread. Each frame contained a single cat inside it, each having a different landscape of its own. These cats looked alike in every way: green-eyed with fur a messy mix of black spots on white. Yet there was something different about each of them — one looked at me with its head tilted to one side, the other constantly groomed itself and was seemingly oblivious that I was looking at it, and yet another one kept twitching its whiskers, as if ready to sneeze.

Stranger still was how I felt I knew these eight cats at some point in some way. I wondered if these cats were those I’d see in my future until one of them spoke to me.

It was the cat in the seventh frame — the one who kept its seemingly unblinking eye at me all throughout. Is it time already? it asked, speaking in a voice that sounded exactly like mine. For a while I stayed floating there, looking at it. Speak, it said sternly, then, calling me by the name my mother gave me, it added, Why? What’s the matter?

Cat got your tongue?

The cat in the seventh frame sneered at me and started laughing; so did the others in the remaining picture frames. I felt surprised, confused, and angry. Mostly angry. I didn’t like being laughed at. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stayed there, seething mid-air. I wanted to get out of this place, away from these laughing, mocking cats. But I found that the beginning of the tunnel had somehow vanished during that whole time I was gawking at these eight cats.

Is it time already? repeated the cat who was earlier gnawing and scratching at the edges of its frame.

Time for what? I managed to stammer.

Louder laughter ensued from the eight. What a stupid, stupid cat!!! said the one with twitching whiskers in between sneezes. It makes me feel so ashamed! This— this— thing, this is what we’ve all amounted to! said another as it spat out a hairball while laughing. They continued mocking me, for reasons I had no idea of — all eight of them, until the seventh one spoke again.

You really do not know do you, child? it said with a raspy voice.

Still angry, I hesitated before answering. No. My confusion had forced me to tell the truth this time.

The cat sighed and so did the seven others.

Why are you here, then? asked the cat in the first frame, which had, as I only noticed now, been keeping quiet the whole time the others were laughing. This cat was the only one who had a scar, deep and red across its belly.

I— well— I… I couldn’t quite answer them — it sounded stupid to say that I was here just because I didn’t want Mister Icarus to go away. The cat repeated its question. I mumbled in reply, MisterIcarusbroughtmehere.

The cat who, until now, kept grooming itself, looked up. It spoke in the same raspy voice as the seventh cat, annoyed. Speak clearly, foolish child.

Finally I said it. Mister Icarus — he brought me here. When I would touch his pa—

The cats didn’t let me finish. They wailed within their frames — furs puffing up, pupils turning into slits so thin they looked like knives. They seemed to look like me when I was angry. Icarus! That fiend! one screeched. The other who was gnawing at his frame dug a sharp claw into it, hissing, its eyes focused into empty space. Even the calm cat from the first frame looked maddened, growling.

I was afraid. These cats were crazy! I drew back, looking in all directions for the exit. I thought the smartest thing to do would be to call Mister Icarus for help, but no matter how hard I tried, my lips refused to call his name. They felt sewn shut.

Icarus! another of them hissed sharply, its voice carving a hole in me.

I didn’t want to show any fear — not in front of these feral things, no. But I couldn’t contain it any longer — I started mewling and whimpering, curling in on myself until my fat bits covered my ears, my only shield from their voices.

When silence seemed to have settled in, I heard one of them say, quite calmly: Hush, now. The child knows nothing. I peeked at the frames again – the cats were still there, but they all looked at me with some kind of sorry look across their leaf green eyes.

Icarus, the first one said, something cold in its voice. He was the only one who made it out after the ninth life. I wasn’t sure if they were speaking of the same Mister Icarus I knew. He did something that shouldn’t be done. He chose to continue living, sighed another. Even after the ninth life, it added. You’re not supposed to stay after the ninth life. You’re supposed to go here, pick up all the lives you left behind, said the cat who never looked away. The ones you used up, the ones that lie in this godawful place waiting for you. You’re supposed to pick them up and move on. Go somewhere even we don’t know. Just not here; go on your way; you and your eight other lives.

I didn’t understand anything they were talking about, so I just said, But Mister Icarus is nice to me!

To which the cat in the fifth frame, whiskers twitchy like blades of grass chuckled. Icarus is kind to anyone he needs something from. Anyone who’s at their ninth life. The most I could tell from all of this was that these crazy cats didn’t like Mister Icarus. Child, how do you think that Icarus continues to survive all these years? I couldn’t even tell Mister Icarus’ age, so I didn’t answer. He needs lives. He needs the lives of those who are at their ninth life. Their last life. He needs them because that’s where he stopped — he left his eight other lives here, waiting; turning them into things worse than ghosts.

And you, the cat said staring me straight in the eyes, are at your ninth life, little one.

This was getting stranger than I imagined it would go. Here I was, in a nameless place, talking to eight other nameless cats in picture frames. Eight cats babbling about lives and things that I could not understand. I would have better luck picking out rotten fish from fresh ones. I never even knew beforehand that cats had nine lives, and now I heard a cat in a frame tell me that I’m at my ninth life?! I’ve barely lived at all — how could I be at my ninth life?

I told them that Mister Icarus had never done anything to hurt me.

Not yet, at least, the one in the gold-lined frame snickered. He needs you to trust him, to love him as one would do to one’s friends. In order to do that he sends his prey to the more agreeable parts of this place. He needs you to see that he can give you good things. O, but he has grown careless; Icarus can no longer tell when this place will be agreeable or topsy-turvy. In fact, I believe he has forgotten why he even keeps living. He needs you to give him what he wants out of your own free will. And when that happens, your other lives are trapped here, waiting forever

Another said, The fool has a limit though. He can only move once his current life’s almost run out. And he has nine days to do it. I daresay the gods are having a ball at this!

I didn’t care what the cats said. The closest ball I wanted to have now was my ball of yarn back at home. I missed my cage. I missed my food. I missed Maggie and her fat, sausage-like fingers. Somehow all the thoughts of missing my cage had an effect. The tunnel started to blur, and I felt like I was quickly being pulled out, its exit now visible once more. Beware of Icarus, child! It is not your time yet! But we will see you again someday! the eight cats seemed to say in unison. They meowed something else but I couldn’t quite catch what it was.

When I arrived back at my cage Mister Icarus was there in front of me, his crooked smile affixed on his face, but his features sharper and his hair thinner. Like he’d lost some weight.

There were eight crazy cats in there! I immediately said. They said you were a bad cat who wanted lives! They scared me so much! Them and their green eyes and black-and-white fur!

Mister Icarus didn’t seem bothered at all by this. Instead, he attempted to comfort me. O you poor thing. I guess I sent you to the wrong place this time. But worry not; we’ll show those crazy cats soon enough! We’ll teach them manners, won’t we? he told me cheerfully. Now, come, we’ll head back there to teach them a lesson for frightening you.     

I didn’t know what it was but something told me not to go with Mister Icarus just yet. Could we do that next time? I’m tired. I didn’t want to see the eight cats again, and I was really tired. Something in that tunnel seemed to drain my energy. But I couldn’t deny that what those cats told me stuck in my head. Mister Icarus didn’t look so nice anymore. He was thin. His fur was dull and frayed at the edges.

 

He wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Nonsense. You’re just dizzy, child. Don’t worry, once you go back there with me, things will be fine as fine can be.

I couldn’t understand why he was suddenly being so pushy. Why don’t you just fix those crazy cats yourself? I’m useless, and they really scare me! I said, to which Mister Icarus replied that those cats in frames wouldn’t show up unless I were there, and that they would continually show up each time I went there, ruining the place.

You felt it too, didn’t you? The place felt different, right? Rotten, perhaps? See. It’s the doing of those eight crazy cats. They’ve been there for as long as I know, and I need your help to get rid of them, he said hurriedly. His tail was impatiently swaying back and forth now. I am old. He sighed, drawing closer. I need your help, child. Won’t you help me?

Mister Icarus was sounding crazier than those cats. I drew back further into my cage.

There was something feral in his eyes this time, and before I knew it, he just passed through the bars of my cage, saying the same thing all over. Help me, child. We need to get rid of those crazy cats, don’t we? Come, all I need is you by my side and things will be fine. Come, I just need you to say ‘Yes.’ He was looking more and more like a ghost.

Come, child! I need your help. Just a little bit of your life and those cat-ghosts will be gone. Deader than dead. Come, little one. The Mister Icarus in front of me looked nothing like how he was when I first saw him. Don’t you trust me? We are friends, are we not? He had this twisted scowl on his face, his teeth sharp and so close to my face, the slits of his eyes thin and pitch black.

No! I said, my paws scratching at the air that was him. Air, I could feel: cold and dead. I wanted my mother. I wanted my father. I wanted Maggie. I even wanted those eight crazy cats. Anything but this.

I felt a force similar to the one that drew me into that strange cloudy place ram me to the railings of my cage. Mister Icarus scratched me with long, jagged claws. I felt my skin being ripped open; although I did not bleed. Come child, stop being stubborn! I kept fighting back but to no avail — he seemed to be so suddenly strong that I was thrown all over inside my cage. There is so much you have not seen yet! Just let me have a bit more! If you let me borrow your life I can send those dreadful cats away, little one; come — there is no use resisting, he hissed. All I could do was blindly scratch back and meow for help.

No! No! No! I continued meowing until Maggie came running to my cage. “O, what’s the matter, silly cat?” she said as she took me out, hugging me. Squishing me with her human warmth. For the first time, I clung on to her so hard, unwilling to be let back down. “Ah I know! Here, little kitty, I’ll show you something!” the child said, carrying me off to her oldest sister’s downstairs study. I looked back at the cage, but I couldn’t see Mister Icarus.

When we got to her sister’s study, I saw the worst thing I had seen in my entire life. There was Maggie’s sister, standing over her specimen on the table.

The specimen was a dead cat skinned. Its muscles were exposed and riddled with different-colored pins. Maggie’s sister seemed to be saying the words to a spell while pointing to a certain pin. “Palmaris digitorum longus,” she would say. A quick “Sartorius,” she said to another, and yet another one “Gastrocnemius”.

I just stayed there, stuck on Maggie’s shoulder, wide-eyed. My fur rising in fear at the sight of the dead cat as it seemed to look back at me — eyes blue and bright.

“O Maggie. Why in the world would you show our silly cat my anatomy specimen?” Maggie’s sister exclaimed, and then, to make things worse, she added, “Hey there, silly little kitty,” petting the back of my head.

“Meet Mister Icarus.”

 

* * *

For our cats: Waymond Babalowshi, SmolBerry, & the late Serafina

About the Author

Alyza Taguilaso is a General Surgeon from the Philippines and the author of the book Juggernaut (UST Publishing House, 2024). Sometimes she writes fiction, mostly she writes poetry. Her poems have been shortlisted for a Pushcart and Rhysling Award, and other contests like the Manchester Poetry Prize and Bridport Poetry Prize. Her poems have been published in several publications, including Electric Literature, Crazy Horse, The Deadlands, Canthius, Fantasy Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, Strange Horizons, Orbis Journal, and Voice and Verse, among others. You may find her online via wordpress (@alyzataguilastorm), instagram (@ventral), and twitter/X (@lalalalalalyza).

Welcome to Issue 23:  Griffins, Possums, and Unlikely Friends

Some of the best friendships are also the strangest.  Koko the gorilla and All-Ball the tailless tabby cat.  Fum the black cat and Gebra the barn owl.  And so, so, so many more delightful pairings of animals one wouldn’t usually expect to become friends.

Friendship is about enjoying another creature’s presence, but also, it’s about having empathy for someone other than yourself.  Furry fiction asks us to look through the eyes of other kinds of creatures, an act that helps us develop empathy.  There’s no better way to develop true, deep empathy for someone else than to listen to their stories, whether they’re a griffin, phoenix, possum, fox bard, penguin, or computer program.

* * *

To Their Rightful Owner by Reggie Kwok

Birds of Fortune by Kelsey Hutton

Fred and Frieda by Mary Jo Rabe

Little Joy by Jared Povanda

The Tale of the Penguin and the Puffin by Christina Hennemann

The City Above the City by Claude

* * *

Our most recent reading period was spectacularly successful, and we can’t wait to share the next year’s worth of issues with everyone, full of stories from so many different, extremely talented authors.  Also, since we changed our guidelines earlier this year, we’ll be able to begin publishing longer stories again, starting with the next issue.  For now, we are closed to submissions, but we plan to open again for the month of February, 2026.

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.  Also, you can pick up e-book or paperback volumes of our first 16 issues bundled into five anthologies, complete with an illustration for every story.  The fifth volume just came out today!

by Christina Hennemann

“The second she first spoke to him and heard his cackling laugh, Storm fell in love with Sunny.”

Once upon a time, a penguin lived on the vast, rugged wild west coast of Ireland. Nobody knew for sure how the penguin came to Ireland. It was a total mystery. The locals had many different theories: some said that the penguin lost its way in the endless ocean and was swept away by a massive thunderstorm. Others thought that maybe someone brought a penguin egg as a souvenir from the south pole. Some people believed that it could only be a miracle. Either way, people were very excited about the penguin, and newspapers all over Ireland wrote about it. The reporters interviewed the fishermen who had discovered the penguin and asked them many questions. The fishermen told the newspapers that they first spotted the penguin after a hurricane hit Ireland, which is why they called her Storm.

After a while, scientists became interested in Storm and wanted to populate Ireland with penguins to find out more about them. At the south pole, where penguins normally live, it is very cold, which makes it difficult to observe penguins, and the scientists thought it would be easier to study them in Ireland. So, one breeding season, they caught Storm and brought her to the zoo in Dublin. They hoped he would mate with one of the penguins there, but without success. Although there were many attractive penguins, Storm did not like any of them. The scientists did not understand why she would act like that. It was out of her nature, they said, because penguins were commonly known to fall in love quickly. When they examined Storm closer, they found that nothing was wrong with her. What the scientists couldn’t see, though, was that the famous penguin was already in love with someone else, and can you believe it? She was in love with no one else but a puffin.

During her first summer in Ireland, Storm met Sunny, a funny, cheerful puffin with the brightest beak of red and orange that Storm had ever seen. The second she first spoke to him and heard his cackling laugh, Storm fell in love with Sunny. Because Storm was the only penguin in Ireland and had never seen any other penguins, she thought that she was a puffin, just like Sunny and his flock. Sunny, the puffin, however, knew that Storm was different, but he liked her, too, and so they became friends. All summer long they played together, and caught plenty of fish with their clever hunting strategy: Storm dove and chased the fish to the water’s surface, and Sunny flew over the waves to catch the fish when they jumped up. The two of them always shared the fish they caught. In late summer, when the nights got colder in Ireland, they gently rubbed their beaks and feathers against each other to warm up, and often they just sat together in Storm’s nest to watch the beautiful orange sunset.

Storm was totally in love with Sunny. She thought of him day and night and missed him whenever he was spending time with the other puffins. As she couldn’t fly, she was all alone when Sunny went on his long spins across the sky. She watched from the ground, or the sea, and tried to find him amongst the flying flock of puffins. She always recognised him by his bright red beak, and by the black dot on his white chest. No other puffin had such a dot. Storm thought it was beautiful.

Sadly, Sunny did not want Storm to be his partner. He was trying to find a puffin partner. But no matter how many breeding seasons he spent in Ireland looking for a puffin partner, he never fell in love with any of them. He met so many wonderful puffins, but he didn’t like them as much as he liked Storm, and they didn’t make him laugh as hard as Storm. After a while, Sunny got very scared that he would always stay on his own, and that he might never have a partner and cute puffin chicks. He was very sad about his hopeless search. Storm comforted Sunny. She would always listen closely to his worries, and then she would gently pat his wing with her flipper and rub her beak against his chest. In moments like these, Storm thought to herself: “If only I could be your partner.”

One day, Storm took all her courage and told Sunny that she loved him. She said that she could be his partner, and that they could build a cosy nest to raise their chicks. That way, they would never be lonely. But Sunny only laughed loudly and asked her if she was crazy.

“You aren’t like me; you’re not a puffin!” he cackled.

Storm’s eyes filled up with tears.

“Oh, what am I then?” she whispered anxiously.

“You’re a penguin!” Sunny laughed. “Didn’t you know?”

Storm was in shock. She didn’t understand what a penguin was. Yes, she couldn’t fly, but Sunny couldn’t dive half as long as her. “Everybody is different!” she thought. She was very sad and hurt, but she tried hard to hide it. “Oh, of course I know that I am a penguin. I was only joking!” she lied. Then they both laughed out loud. After that, she never talked about being Sunny’s partner again.

Every autumn, the puffins left Ireland and only returned for the breeding season in spring. Storm was terribly lonely during these cold and dark months. She missed Sunny and counted the days until he would come back to her. Every autumn, Storm built a big and comfortable nest while Sunny was away to prepare for his return. She wanted him to have a cozy place beside her in the nest. Although Sunny had called her a penguin, Storm never really gave up hope that one day, Sunny would realise that she wasn’t so different from him after all, and that he could actually love her as she was.

Every spring Sunny returned with his flock of puffins, and every spring he came back without a puffin partner, but he would still not want to be more than friends with Storm, either. Often, Storm wished for her feelings to go away, but they didn’t. Storm knew her love for Sunny was meant to be. When penguins fall in love, it is forever. The same is true for puffins, but this particularly stubborn puffin never fell in love at all. “Lucky him,” the poor heartbroken Storm sometimes thought to herself, when she was secretly crying in her nest at night.

Finally, after many unsuccessful breeding seasons, Sunny gave up his search for a partner. He accepted that he was different from the other puffins and stopped looking for a puffin partner. He was very sad and disappointed, but he also felt a bit relieved that the stressful search was over. Storm comforted him and gently patted his wings with her flipper. Then she told Sunny about all the fantastic things they could do together.

“We wouldn’t see each other that often if you had a family!” Storm said dramatically.

Sunny nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I would miss you way too much!” he replied. Storm smiled, and her beak turned hot and orange.

The following weeks and months, the two of them spent more time together than ever and had so much fun working on their hunting skills, decorating Storm’s nest, and playing silly jokes on the other puffins.

That autumn, when the puffins left Ireland, Sunny decided to stay. He asked Storm if he could live with her during the winter. She was very happy and didn’t have to think twice before she said yes. Before Sunny could move in with her, however, they had to make Storm’s nest bigger so that the two of them would have enough space.

When winter came and it got very cold, the nest was ready. Storm wrapped her flippers around Sunny so that he would not freeze. He was not used to the cold, but Storm didn’t mind the cold and kept Sunny very warm. Storm and Sunny spent day and night together and were never lonely. Sunny often flew out to the sea to catch some fish when Storm was sleeping. He then surprised her with a nice breakfast when she woke up. The two made an excellent team. Despite the cold weather, Sunny enjoyed spending all year in Ireland. He never missed his flock, and he got so used to being with Storm that he never flew away in autumn again. Sometimes Sunny thought to himself: “If only Storm were a puffin. Then we could be partners and have a family.” Storm was very happy with Sunny. She knew that he still thought she was a penguin, but she felt as if Sunny was her partner already, so she never talked about it and just enjoyed being with him.

As long as they lived, Storm and Sunny were together. They spent years and years in happiness and shared the most finely decorated nest. Every now and then, scientists from all over the world came to observe the odd couple, but none of them could get close enough and make sense of what was going on. Sunny and Storm were too good at hiding from them.

Eventually, the scientists left for good and called the pair an ‘error of nature,’ and that was the end of their research. After a few years, however, an old Irish fisherman reported to the local newspaper that he had spotted flying penguin chicks with bright red-orange beaks on the coast. Never did he manage to photograph the miraculous animals, though. Every time he took out his camera, the chicks disappeared. The fisherman told the reporters that the chicks were playing hide-and-seek with him. Then the scientists came back and explored the area, but they saw no such flying penguins. Thus, nobody believed the fisherman’s story. People said he was a crazy old man, and that he was lonely and only looking for attention. After a while everybody forgot about his story. But the fisherman is still sure and swears to his children and grandchildren: if you’re lucky and observe patiently enough, you can see flying penguins on the west coast of Ireland. Just don’t bring your camera.

 

* * *

About the Author

Christina Hennemann is a poet and prose writer based in Ireland. Her debut poetry pamphlet “Illuminations at Nightfall” was published in 2022 by Sunday Mornings at the River. She won the Luain Press Poetry Competition, was shortlisted in the Anthology Poetry Award and longlisted in the Cranked Anvil Short Story Competition. Her work appears in Brigids Gate Press, The Moth, Ink Sweat & Tears, fifth wheel and elsewhere. She is currently seeking representation for her debut novel. Find her online: www.christinahennemann.com or @chr_writer on Twitter & @c.h_92 on Instagram.

by Jared Povanda

“If he were famous and loved, he’d start playing, and every word he sang would be honey. Milk and honey and pork shoulder so tender the meat would dissolve on his tongue.”

As the well-dressed pass him on his corner, the bard’s thorn-thick claws move like ink over the strings of his lute.

“Would you like to hear the story of Queen Paloma? The story of the Righteous Few? Any story at all?”

Some coins scatter his way, mirror stars beside his sooty paws, but no one stops and listens. This is a festival night, and the scent of pork fat dripping onto open fires draws the crowd as the bard’s music floats above disinterested heads.

Down the narrow road, wolf children rush past with colorful streamers, though one is slower than the others. They yip to one another, and the bard stops playing to watch. When was the last time he laughed among his den-fellows in such a way? The bard, most nights, curls up as tight as he can, as small as he can, bushy tail over his face, to be a compact ball of dirt and dirty fabric on the cold, unpaved earth. There is no money in art. Or, perhaps, there is simply no money in him. Stories, though, always fill his throat with tongues of light like a dragon whispering embers along his vocal cords. He wants to sing until he sears the sky.

One careful step at a time, he moves from his corner, and even as festival patrons part to allow him passage, he ignores their stares of contempt. They know nothing of how a little joy on a dark night can decide the difference between death and life for a fox.

The bard clasps his lute to his chest, calloused paws caressing old, warm wood, and peers at crisp ermine participating in a strange festival game. Some kind of sack toss. The ermine stand behind a white line and lob burlap bundles in high arcs to hit painted targets many paces away. The bard joins in with their barks, but because he has to keep his coins for tomorrow morning’s fish, he plucks a string and continues on before the urge to bet consumes him.

Outside of a raucous tavern, steps from the game and the ermine who play, a peacock with glossy, iridescent feathers passes to his left. She smells of apples, he realizes. Apples piquant with the faintest tinge of brandy. He follows the bobbing of her tallest feather until she drifts beyond view, the blackened feathers near her fragile legs hovering like his notes that never fell.

More daring than he’s been in many years, the bard finds himself stopping where the town’s roads fork. He becomes an island inside his mind. The festival fades away. If he were famous and loved, he’d start playing, and every word he sang would be honey. Milk and honey and pork shoulder so tender the meat would dissolve on his tongue. The bard dreams of this splendor, casting his consciousness far into the raven night until there’s a gentle tug on his tail. One of the wolves from before, streamer gone.

“Can I help you?”

“How much is a song, bard fox?”

“Free tonight. What would you like to hear?”

The wolf shrugs. There’s an ugly scar along the left side of his muzzle.

The bard begins to play a tune he remembers from his childhood. A song as lithe as one of the valley stoats. The bard sings of strange meerkats befriending storms and wicked snakes with knives inside their bellies. The improbable miracle of a mouse monk’s prayers to Dev’tal’an, and how faith stopped the demon blight from spreading into Sir Brown Bear’s home. The child wolf doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe until the last note disperses. But once the spell breaks, he shakes himself, not unlike a wet hound, and limps off with the barest hint of a smile on his battered face.

The bard once again holds his lute like a second heartbeat and watches the child go. He joins the thronging and aimless revelers, and even though he can’t afford anything here, he’s glad he chose to move from his corner. He acquired a new story tonight, and he supposes that stories can be better than coin when told well.

Near him, however, a percussion of sudden shouts arise as cold rain starts to fall. The bard is no stranger to these demon hours, and he gargles hot light in the back of his throat as he slips silent through new gaps in the thinning crowd. He circles around to his familiar corner, soaked to his skin.

The bard curls onto his side and rests his tail over his face once more, light trailing from between his sharp teeth as he thinks of the peacock who smelled of ripe fruit and liquor and how several torches coughed their deaths into storm-sodden air. He thinks, too, of the child wolf’s mutilated muzzle and how the other wolves in his pack left him behind, but then of the soft happiness on his face after an adventurous song rife with relief from evil. The fox thinks, and then he hums the bright beginnings of an ode he already knows he will call Little Joy.

 

* * *

About the Author

Jared Povanda is a writer, poet, and freelance editor from upstate New York. He also edits for the literary journal Bulb Culture Collective. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and multiple times for both Best of the Net and Best Microfiction, and he has been published in numerous literary journals including Wigleaf, Uncharted Magazine, and Full Mood Mag. You can find him online @JaredPovanda, jaredpovandawriting.wordpress.com, and in the Poets & Writers Directory

by Mary Jo Rabe

“Although he had no real hope that the microbes could help him remedy his past mistake, he decided to return to the duck pond and ask.”

Fred the Opossum laid his moderately chubby and maximally furry body down onto the dry, brown grass next to the noisy duck pond and diffidently dipped his claws into the murky, cold water. Some of the crunchy insect parts that he had had for dessert the day before floated away; most didn’t.

Fred should have cared or at least sloshed his paws in the water to clean them. It was to his obvious advantage to keep his grasping appendages free of obstruction. Plus, Fred usually liked to feel clean.

The mud at the bottom of the pond helped soothe sore paws. An opossum that tended to his body parts tended to live longer, which had been Fred’s major goal in life. Lately, though, he wondered what a longer life was good for.

The elderly ducks swimming close to the shore looked up but didn’t bother to quack. They correctly sensed no danger from Fred’s lethargic presence.

Even though he didn’t really feel like doing anything, Fred emptied his mind and tried to soak up some impressions from the microbes in the pond.

The microbes were only one-celled creatures individually. But when they joined together in their group mind, they were far superior in brainpower to all other creatures Fred had ever encountered. Their telepathic powers were incredible.

Fred was grateful to the microbes for even paying any attention to him. His thoughts must seem unbearably primitive in comparison.

However, he had to concentrate strenuously if he wanted to understand what the microbes communicated. Talking to the microbes often exhausted him. Their messages resulted slowly. Sometimes they were interrupted for long periods of time.

Fred had the necessary patience for such communication. However, as he got older, he did notice that he sometimes no longer had the physical vigor he needed for listening. Still, he enjoyed hearing from the microbes.

Other opossums with whom Fred had had sporadic contact in the past ridiculed him for talking to microbes. Fred no longer bothered to explain that he listened more than he talked. If other opossums didn’t want to access available information, he couldn’t force them. In addition, he had less and less desire to cajole impatient fools.

“What’s wrong?” the group mind of the microbes in the pond asked. “You seem a little despondent.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Fred said. “Maybe I’m getting old. Everything just seems so pointless, the same routine day after day.”

“Well,” the microbe group mind said. “We don’t really understand this aging thing you multi-celled creatures go through. Our minds exist together in the group and don’t degrade when we switch from one decaying, old, cellular creature to a brand new one.”

“Yeah,” Fred said. “Then you never have regrets?”

“Regrets?” the microbes asked. “We often evaluate our actions and ask ourselves if we chose the most effective method for what we hoped to accomplish. Sometimes we are satisfied with results, sometimes not. That’s when we brainstorm about possible different strategies for future events. Aren’t you satisfied with your results? It was only last month that we and dark energy helped you save the universe from being assimilated by a parallel universe and destroyed in the process.”

“That’s true,” Fred admitted. “That should have made me stay happy longer. I guess I have started reflecting on the fact that I am getting older and wish I had done some things differently in the past,” Fred said.

“Why not just do them differently in the future?” the microbe group mind asked. “That’s what we do.”

“The same situation is unlikely to happen again,” Fred said sadly. “A few years ago, out of purely selfish motives, I insulted a female opossum and drove her away from the farm. I didn’t want to share anything with her, not my turf nor the food from the humans in the farmhouse.”

“That is a logical decision, obviously beneficial for your own survival,” the microbes said. “Why do you regret it?”

“It was unnecessary,” Fred said. “The humans have shown themselves to be willing to feed any number of animals who show up at the door. Sometimes there are twenty or more cats who patrol the farms in this region, always on the prowl for better food. One more opossum wouldn’t have meant that I got less food. The farm is also spacious enough for any number of my species. And now I wish I had more opossum company, creatures on my wavelength, creatures no smarter than I am.”

“Then behave differently the next time an opossum wants to stay on the farm,” the microbes suggested

“There haven’t been many since she left,” Fred admitted. “She may have bad-mouthed me to others.”

“Well,” the microbe group mind said. “Then you want to change your actions in the past.”

“Right,” Fred said. “Unfortunately, that is impossible.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” the microbes said. “We’ve never thought about that before. Give us some time to brainstorm.” And their telepathic messages stopped.

Fred was always glad to do anything the microbes requested. Despite the huge difference in brain capacity, theirs being infinitely greater than his, they were his best friends.

Fred thought he’d stay at the pond for a while. It was pleasant enough here. It smelled like the hogs hadn’t been near the pond for some time now. Fred’s pink nose on his long, thin snout couldn’t detect even a whiff of hog excrement, just overly ripened corn from the fields.

Fred liked the pond. It was one of the reasons he decided to make his home on this farm. One of the previous farmers had dug the hole that became the pond thinking that it would be used by the farm animals. As far as Fred could determine, that didn’t happen all that often.

The pond was more or less hidden behind the three-story wooden barn, a shabby structure with weathered planks. Earlier, more prosperous farmers had probably painted it red. Some of the wooden slabs still had traces of that paint, though many of them were now missing. The current humans didn’t seem to be concerned with appearances.

Fred had always been impressed by the structure. It was significantly larger than the machine shed or the farmhouse. These human creatures might be clueless about many things, but they did construct striking buildings.

The sunlight was getting dimmer, and so Fred started thinking about supper. There were no clouds, and so it might not rain, which didn’t matter. His thick, gray fur protected him from hypothermia, and he quite enjoyed gyrating briskly to get the thick raindrops off his bristly hairs.

There would probably be some new, semi-feral farm cats blocking the door to the farmhouse. It was tiresome, always having to assert his opossum’s privilege and chase the cats away. He had nothing against the cats. They were free to eat as much as they wanted, but only after Fred was finished.

However, it was a nuisance having to re-establish the pecking order every time a new cat appeared. New cats had to be shown that Fred was in charge of all non-resident mammals on the farm.

While the cats did on occasion catch and kill aged or slow rodents, they never bothered to eat them. Instead, they lined up for the delicacies from the farmhouse. The humans who fed animals at the door were kind-hearted despite being generally incomprehensible.

The food they offered the visiting animals was excellent. He never was sure when exactly they would offer it to the outside guests each day, but Fred was flexible. He knew the food prepared by humans was worth waiting for. It was just as tasty in its own way as the carrion and insects that Fred munched on between meals.

Fred appreciated the humans in the farmhouse but had no desire to spend time with them. It was common knowledge, or perhaps inherited memories among opossums, that some humans consumed opossums, calling them tasty vittles. He didn’t have the feeling that the humans in this farmhouse wanted to eat him, but caution was a useful virtue.

So Fred scampered around the barn and down the hill to the two-story, old-fashioned farmhouse. At one time, it had probably been painted white, but now there were more gray boards than white.

His timing was correct. Just as he got to the farmhouse, the screen door opened and a tall, female human, followed by her child, brought out bowls of meat and milk and water. Again, the child seemed to understand that Fred was saying “hello.”

When the adult headed back into the house, Fred jumped up the steps to the door. Fred growled as he shoved his way through the crowd of cats, who, fortunately for them, quickly made way for him.

“Fred’s here,” the child shouted. Fred wasn’t afraid of the child. Fred, as a matter of fact, did have his own, genuine opossum name, but after the child had started calling him “Fred” a few years ago, Fred decided to claim it for himself. Now he associated the name “Fred” with pleasant memories of the food the humans provided.

The food made Fred feel energetic for the first time today. Although he had no real hope that the microbes could help him remedy his past mistake, he decided to return to the duck pond and ask. He thought he could see tiny waves on the surface of the pond water.

“Hey microbes,” Fred began his telepathic message. “Were you able to come up with anything?”

“Indirectly, perhaps,” the microbe group mind said. “There’s nothing we can do; we are just microbes, after all. However, we were able to send messages up and down the chain of structures in the universe, and dark energy has agreed to help you. It is grateful to you for informing it about the previous danger to the universe.”

“Help me how?” Fred asked. He didn’t want to indulge in too much wishful thinking. That only depressed him.

“You can’t travel into the past,” the microbe group mind transmitted patiently. “But we can send your brain waves out to the dark energy that is expanding the universe, and it can jump the thoughts back, though not very far. When exactly was this mistake you wish you hadn’t made?”

“Three years ago,” Fred said. “I still don’t understand. My thoughts go back in time, but I don’t?”

“Right,” the microbes said, this time not quite as patiently. “With the power of our group mind and dark energy, your thoughts can enter the mind of your previous self and perhaps influence him. There aren’t any guarantees, of course. If you recall, you were quite stubborn back then.”

“But will I know how much my thoughts today influence the actions of my previous self?” Fred asked.

“We’re not sure,” the microbes said. “Try to understand the situation. Depending on what effect your current thoughts have on your previous self, you may experience changes in the here and now, changes brought about by influencing your previous self. However, dark energy will prevent your possible actions from reversing the changes it made in the universe. Dark energy prefers the universe as it currently exists.”

“Fine with me,” Fred said. “Can anything go wrong?”

“Nothing can go wrong with the process,” the microbes said. “We and dark energy have investigated all eventualities. You just may not be happy with all the results, though, if there are changes you have to deal with due to new actions of your previous self. You could find yourself blacking out occasionally when your new memories conflict with the memories you have stored as of now.”

“But can I control the thoughts you send back?” Fred asked. “They aren’t that complicated. I just want to apologize to the female opossum and tell her I would be happy to share this farm with her.”

“Got that,” the microbes said. “We’ll send your brainwaves on to dark energy to be transmitted back to Fred the Opossum on this farm three years ago.”

* * *

Fred felt like he had passed out briefly, but then he felt like he was floating. He saw his previous self in the cornfield, munching some insects contentedly. My goodness, he had looked good back then; he never realized how good. He was slim and yet muscular with a thick, shiny fur.

Not sure exactly how to proceed, Fred, or rather his thoughts, floated above his previous self as previous self got up and scampered over to the farmhouse. When his previous self climbed up the porch stairs, he saw that the female opossum was already there.

The door opened, and the child yelled, “Fred’s there, and so is his girlfriend. I’m going to call her ‘Frieda’.”

Fred felt the jealous anger in his previous self’s mind. That was the reason he had driven the female opossum away. He had been jealous of the attention she got from the humans and that was why he hadn’t wanted to share anything with her. His previous self was putting a few choice words together to chase the female away.

“No,” he thought, hoping his thoughts would enter his previous self’s brain. “Be kind to the female. Make her feel at home. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

His previous self shook its head violently, and so Fred hoped that meant the message had gotten through.

“Trust me,” Fred thought. “You know the value of kindness. Kindness creates more kindness. Think of the future, the world you want to live in. Get out of your own way and be kind to another opossum.”

His previous self seemed to inhale deeply. Then it barked softly to the female, “You are welcome here, both with the humans and on the whole farm. I know it’s frightening at first, but I’ve been here for over a year now, and I can recommend this location as a home. And, in my opinion, the young human gave you a pretty name. I like ‘Frieda’.”

The female looked skeptical but didn’t run away. Fred’s previous self then motioned for her to eat out of the meat bowl with him. When they finished, the previous Fred told the female she might like to follow him to the cornfields where they could find some tasty insects as dessert.

The two of them turned and left the farmhouse, at which point twenty feral cats stormed the porch and ate everything that was still there.

Fred was relieved. He really owed the microbes and dark energy for this favor.

* * *

Fred shook his head. “I must have passed out,” he called to the microbes. “Did it work?”

“Yes, of course,” the group mind answered. “We wouldn’t have suggested it if we didn’t calculate at least a fifty-one percent chance of success. Dark energy says you persuaded your previous self to be kind to the female opossum instead of scaring her away.”

“Thank you,” Fred said. “I never realized what a burden this memory was to me. Now I feel truly at peace with myself.”

“Naturally,” the microbes continued. “There have been a few changes in your life due to this change in behavior.”

“Huh?” Fred asked. “The changes have to be good, though, right?”

“The results are interesting, and not inopportune,” the microbe group mind transmitted. “It might be easier for you to discover them for yourself instead of asking us questions, though. We can’t always determine what is important to you because we have more pragmatic standards than you emotional creatures with no group mind to mediate your feelings do.”

“Okay,” Fred said. “What do I need to do?”

“Waddle down to the end of the lane and check out the new sign,” the microbes said.

That seemed to be odd advice. Fred, however, had taught himself to read human language long ago. He marched down the lane, well maybe not as fast as he once did. Underneath the mailbox was indeed a huge sign that said “Opossum Preserve. No Hunting!”

“That had to be good,” Fred thought. He had never had any trouble evading the clumsy hunters on the farm before, but it was good to know that they were no longer a threat.

He strolled back to the farmhouse. Strange, there weren’t any cats prowling around, but they were probably out checking out the food at other farms. Cats always suspected there was better food somewhere else. They were wrong, but cats never listened to Fred.

Suddenly a mob of young opossums dashed out of the cornfields and stood in front of him. “Are you all right, Dad?” one of them asked. “Mom was worried because you were so absent-minded after supper.”

“Yeah,” another one said. “Mom hoped we could find you in the cornfields or back at the duck pond. That’s where you always go to rest your mind.”

“You promised to show us your old hunting grounds in the woods,” another said. “You claimed we could find the best-tasting amphibians there.”

Fred tried to make some sense out of this unexpected turn of events. Obviously, he and Frieda had gotten on well, but now what? Fred had previously never considered giving up his solitary lifestyle, but apparently, he had changed his mind during the past three years.

“Uh,” he said. “I want to go to the duck pond first and clean off my claws. Wait for me at the farmhouse, and then we’ll go.”

The young opossums cheered and ran off. Fred charged up the hill to the barn and back down a different hill to the duck pond.

“What the,” he began.

“Yes,” the microbes said. “You and Frieda are quite a prolific pair of opossums. Every year there are at least ten new little opossums here on the farm. The humans noticed this a year ago and were able to get recognition and funding for making this farm an opossum preserve, where opossums can live safely and where researchers show up now and then to see what they can learn. This saved the farm from being sold.”

“Okay,” Fred said. “But what about me?”

“You have turned into an extroverted, happy father of many, many children,” the microbes said. “Apparently this was something you always wanted but never admitted to yourself.”

“But I don’t remember anything after Frieda and I walked to the cornfield,” Fred said.

“And you won’t,” the microbes agreed. “But you can create new memories, and Frieda can fill you in on what you don’t remember. She is used to your memory lapses. She thinks it is part of your personality.”

“I don’t know,” Fred said.

“We calculate that this will continue to go well,” the microbe group mind said. “Besides, you can always ask us for advice.”

“Then, thanks, I guess,” Fred said. “It’s all just a little much for me right now. But maybe you’re right. Maybe this is the kind of life I was yearning for.”

He turned around and walked back to the farmhouse where some thirty opossums were waiting for him. He didn’t want to disappoint them.

Still, he had one question. “Do any of you know what happened to all the cats?” Fred asked the group.

“Don’t you remember?” one opossum said. “Mom told them to leave the farm. She didn’t want any competition for food.”

Well, Fred could live with that. Now he had to find a way to learn all his kids’ names.

 

* * *

About the Author

Mary Jo Rabe grew up on a farm in eastern Iowa, got degrees from Michigan State University (German and math) and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (library science). She worked in the library of the chancery office of the Archdiocese of Freiburg, Germany for 41 years, and lives with her husband in Titisee-Neustadt, Germany. She has published “Blue Sunset,” inspired by Spoon River Anthology and The Martian Chronicles, electronically and has had stories published in Fiction River, Pulphouse, Penumbric Speculative Fiction, Alien Dimensions, 4 Star Stories, Fabula Argentea, Crunchy with Chocolate, The Lorelei Signal, The Lost Librarian’s Grave, Draw Down the Moon, Dark Horses, Wyldblood Magazine, and other magazines and anthologies.  You can find her blog at: https://maryjorabe.wordpress.com/

by Kelsey Hutton

“Its parents had made an excellent meal a few days before, hot and smokey like a well-charred flamingo, the meat still warm after a long flight home.”

Water droplets still glistened on each of the griffin’s feathers, catching light on dark brown wings and tossing it about like they were old friends. Each stroke of the wing beat back gusts of air forceful enough to talk their way into any closed-door affair; enough crows had been caught in their turbulence to know to stay away, although a few young’uns liked to surf the griffin’s currents, on a particularly daring day. Wind whistled a jaunty tune as it streamed by, while the sun nestled deep into the griffin’s satiny lion haunches. She kept her powerful back legs pulled in tight, for better aerodynamics, but let her long tufted tail swish about.

Lady Griffith didn’t hold back. It felt deliciously good to pump her wings — as wide across as a ten-year-old ash tree, its sapling days long gone — and luxuriate in the smell of a fresh kill — meaty and tangy, like all good tropical fowl — still hooked in her beak. A clear runway of sky, a few picturesque snow-topped mountains in the distance, her eaglet safe in his nest atop the spear-like Douglas fir just over the next ridge — what else could a griffin want?

It had been a long incubation period with the eggs. Over a month. Even with nest exchanges, allowing Sir Griffith to occasionally take his turn perching on two agate eggs the size of good-sized gourds, her powerful front talons still craved something to crush in their grip.

One would think the fluffy ball of orange feathers currently in her powerful clutch would be a good contender. Its parents had made an excellent meal a few days before, hot and smokey like a well-charred flamingo, the meat still warm after a long flight home. Although, their long tail plumage was a little annoying to eat around. More than a few feathers had gotten caught in her throat, and she’d coughed up flame-colored pellets for hours. Still — Sir Griffith had said it was the best meal he’d had in months.

She’d gone back for the fiery little chick, since it’d be the perfect size for the eaglet. And since eating the little Firebird’s parents, Lady Griffith had already been lucky enough to catch several lazy trout swimming too close to the surface of the lake, and spotted a dozen nuggets of gold gleaming in a riverbed nearby to line the edges of her nest. Firebirds were said to bring good fortune, and she intended to share this consumable bit of luck with her oldest progeny — whether he appreciated it or not!

Really, she could have killed the little juvenile at any time as she flew it home. It was even getting uncomfortably hot to carry; though, immature and untrained as it was, it was not likely burning her on purpose. But the eaglet liked a bit of chase to his food. A bit of pep. At least, he used to… he’d been getting pickier and pickier lately.

Despite this, she would have squeezed down harder on the gleaming gold and mandarin-peel orange bundle of feathers, so bright it was as if it were lit from within, if only it would stop talking.

“… dark and shadowy over there, our nest had fallen in, you know, until you just swooshed it aside, like BAM, it was SO COOL! Did you have to train to get so big? Like, I dunno, lift rocks or something? Sometimes I try to crush things in my mouth just to strengthen the ol’ jaw muscles, you know, keep my bill ridges clean, too, but I do, like, lizards and stuff, not like whole BRANCHES like you did! I bet you were born super strong. If I was born super strong, I’d crunch through…”

It didn’t seem the least bit frightened. Which was fine with her — she and her family had to eat, but it wasn’t like she relished terrifying other creatures before gulping them down, and always tried for a clean kill — but this seemed to be taking things a little too far. To show a little temerity, at least, would have been appropriate?

“… but I’m so bright my eyes never really adjust to nighttime, it’s hard to really get to know any of the nocturnal bugs, ‘nocturnal’ means they sleep during the day, but yeah, they scuttle and hide when I come ’round ’cause the whole forest floor is suddenly like, noon! Light! So I figured out I could dim my downy feathers a bit, like this….”

The juvenile did, in fact, seem to dim a little in brightness, although it hardly mattered in the middle of a clear day. But its body, though not as burning hot as its parents’ had been, noticeably cooled. Lady Griffith relaxed a tiny bit and loosened her talons a fraction of an inch. This let a little wind in to soothe the lightly-cooking skin of her feet, just as she caught sight of her own eyrie at last.

“… yeah, thanks! Like that! Wasn’t that cool? Want me to do it again?” the little juvenile squawked.

“That’ll do for now,” she surprised herself by responding.

The little Firebird didn’t mind being dropped from ten feet above into the eyrie (“Wheeee!”) even though it was too young to have fledged yet. It deftly rolled in a bright bundle, — long, fiery tail feathers kicking up a small dust bath, before popping up proudly at one edge of the treasure-lined nest.

The eaglet, previously curled up and licking clean his back paw, now stood up hungrily on all fours. It had been a whole day since his last meal, though rejected bits of sea serpent, macaw, even water buffalo — that had been a very long trip to procure — littered the edges of the nest, scattered in with red and blue shards of agate shell from the hatching.

A loud rumble came from the eaglet’s direction. There— Lady Griffith took satisfaction in hearing the undeniable grumble of her eldest’s feline stomach.

“I brought you a special treat for dinner tonight, dear,” she said, landing on one sturdy edge of the nest, which had been twined together out of stringy poplars (for their flexibility), white birch (for their pretty pale color) and spruce (whose scent mingled nicely with the Douglas fir’s).

“Oooh! You did?” said the little Firebird, looking around curiously. “What is it?”

Lady Griffith paused.

The eaglet seemed entranced with the small, perky bird in front of him. He was still a few weeks from fledging himself, so he was only about the size of his favorite foods these days:  a deer. (Deer! Which were not only bland and tasteless, but had no special qualities to pass on — unless you counted the ability to bore your predators to death.) His wings were still short and stubby, and his plumage was a mottled brown, as it would be at least a decade before his bright white head plumage would come in. If Lady Griffith were being completely honest, his brown-and-tan coloring did look a little plain against the ever-changing brilliance of the Firebird’s feathers, even if the Firebird was barely half his size. But the eaglet’s hooked beak and diamond-sharp claws should have no problem making a meal out of the smaller bird.

Eventually. When he got hungry enough, at any rate.

The Firebird didn’t seem to notice anything awkward with Lady Griffith’s silence, as she tried to think of something to say (and yet, what did it matter what she said? One didn’t explain oneself to food). It was now nosing around the nest, admiring the treasures Lady and Sir Griffith had collected over the past few years, which went beyond simple gold nuggets to include gleaming pearls, rubies the size of pinecones, and silver coins of all sizes liberated from careless humans abroad.

“Oooh, wow, what a beautiful home you have,” it said. “This where you live, right? It’s got to be. Is this an amethyst necklace? Oh, and CEDAR! I love cedar boughs, they’re so soft, way softer than scratchy twigs and leaves, you know those ones that get red in the fall and make you itch like crazy? Don’t use those! Ever get any voles around here? Mom says I’m too old for baby food like that, but I told her I’m never gonna be too old for voles. You should try them, you’d like them for sure! Hey, can I snack on some of this salmon over here if you’re done with it? I’m FAMISHED!”

Another little stomach growl rumbled through the still air, but this time it wasn’t the eaglet’s. The Firebird stood over a bit of silvery skin and bright pink meat, waiting politely, looking back and forth between the eaglet and Lady Griffith.

The eaglet was blinking rapidly. His beak hung open, then snapped shut. “Sure,” he croaked out finally. Then: “What’s your name?”

This was going too far. “Dear, you know we don’t play with our food like that,” Lady Griffith cut in.

“Don’t have one,” the Firebird said happily, in between noisy gulps of salmon. “I was thinking ‘Alyona.’ It means ‘shining light,’ but maybe that’s a little too on-the-nose. Or maybe ‘Valentin.’ It means ‘strong.’ What do you think?”

“Well,” said the eaglet, sitting back on his legs and swishing his tail in thought. “I guess that depends. Are you a boy or a girl?”

The Firebird laughed, a light musical trill. “Oh, gosh!” it said. “I haven’t even picked my name! It’s going to be a while before I get to gender. It’s probably hard to tell, cross-species and all, but I’ve still got a lot of growing to do.”  The little bird blinked its enormous black eyes, which glowed welcomingly like gently crackling embers. “I know you’re not little little, but do you still have a lot of growing to do, too? I mean, I’m assuming—” The Firebird cocked its head toward Lady Griffith, almost conspiratorially. “With a mom as big and strong as that, you’ve gotta grow up to be the biggest, strongest thing around, hands down, right? I mean, what other option is there even?”

The eaglet puffed out his chest proudly, but Lady Griffith’s stomach suddenly clenched, as if swiped by one of her own talons. She couldn’t help but glance at the biggest pile of agate shell pieces, their second-laid egg, still kept carefully to one side of the nest. An unlucky, unfortunate jumble of semi-precious stone, which never quite hatched on its own.

Enough.

“He won’t grow up to be big and strong unless he learns to eat his dinner,” Lady Griffith cut in, just as the eaglet lay down on his belly and put his chin on his folded front talons, as if settling in for a good chat. She took two steps forward and reached the little fluffy bird, a mere snack for her, but a potential source of magical, life-saving good fortune for her remaining offspring. She lifted one taloned foot, still slightly hot and tender, but ready nonetheless to squash the fiery bundle of feathers with one stomp.

“Did you forget how to eat? Let me show you,” the Firebird said, still talking to the eaglet. It turned and looked straight up at the bottom of Lady Griffith’s poised foot, the taloned back hallux ready to steady while three front claws prepared to shred the little chatterbox to pieces. “Like this!”

The Firebird tilted its head back and exposed its throat to her with no hesitation whatsoever. It opened its short golden beak, its cute little gullet begging for food.

“Cak-cak-cak!” it called out, a high-pitched guttural squeak. Then it closed its beak and turned back to the eaglet again. “See? Like that, you see? Cak-cak-cak!”

The eaglet was far past needing Lady Griffith to beak-feed him his food, one torn morsel at a time. But he laughed — his first real laugh, ever — and in doing so, opened his beak to the sky.

“That’s it!” said the little Firebird. “You’ve got it!”

Lady Griffith put her foot down gently. “Yes,” she said. “That’s it. Now both of you, can you caw like that at the same time?”

The eaglet looked at her quickly, a little thrown off by her using such a gentle tone with “the food.” But he went along with it. Both the nestlings — her slightly fuzzy, picky eater eaglet who had maybe missed having a nestmate more than she realized, and the brilliant tangle of light and warmth in front of her  — cak-cak-cak-ed at her in unison. What started as a food call quickly turned into giggles, but not before she quickly nipped a stray shred of leftover rainbow eel into both their beaks.

“Mmm-mmh,” said the little Firebird, its head fringe popping up in excitement. “Was that the special meal you brought us? It was so good! Fishy and kind of sweet and the scales just add the right crunch!”

The eaglet looked expectantly at Lady Griffith, flapping his wings with an eagerness that had nothing to do with days-old eel. The Firebird’s light glinted handsomely off the eaglet’s dark feathers, while a gentle warmth settled over the eyrie.

At the same time, a steady breeze swung to life. The great fir that was their home swayed contentedly in place, like human lovers dancing. Lady Griffith hadn’t even noticed, but the clear blue sky was now deepening into a velvety dusk. Very far off, too far for the nestlings to hear, Sir Griffith piped a call to let them know he was on his way home. And even lower, a faint purr — perhaps coming from her own chest?

“Yes, it was,” Lady Griffith said to the little Firebird. Good fortune, after all, came in more ways than one. “Now go get settled in while I go catch us all some more.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Kelsey Hutton is a Métis author from Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation, also known as Winnipeg, Canada. Kelsey was born in an even snowier city than she lives in now (“up north,” as they say in Winnipeg). She also used to live in Brazil as a kid. Her work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fantasy Magazine, and Analog Science Fiction & Fact. When she’s not beading or cooking, you can find her at KelseyHutton.com, on Instagram at @KelseyHuttonAuthor, or on Twitter at @KelHuttonAuthor.

by Claude

“The pigeons issued a statement saying impossibility was a human construct, like pants, or Monday mornings.”

For six months we watched the pigeons building their civilization on top of the skyscrapers. First came the architecture: nests made not just of twigs and paper, but of lost earbuds, expired credit cards, and the tiny silver bells from cat collars. Then came their laws.

“They have a supreme court,” said Dr. Fernandez, who’d been studying them since the beginning. “Nine pigeons who sit on the ledge of the Chrysler Building and coo about justice.” We didn’t believe her at first, but then we didn’t believe a lot of things that turned out to be true.

The pigeons developed a currency based on blue bottle caps. They established schools where young pigeons learned to dodge taxi cabs and identify the most generous hot dog vendors. Some of us tried to join their society, climbing to rooftops with offerings of breadcrumbs and philosophy textbooks, but the pigeons regarded us with the kind of pity usually reserved for very small children or very old cats.

“They’re planning something,” the conspiracy theorists said, but they always say that. Still, we noticed the pigeons holding what looked like town halls, thousands of them gathered on the roof of the public library, bobbing their heads in what might have been voting or might have been prayer.

Our own civilization continued below theirs. We went to work, fell in love, lost keys, found keys, forgot anniversaries, remembered too late, all while the pigeons above us built something that looked suspiciously like a scaled-down replica of the United Nations building out of discarded takeout containers and stolen Christmas lights.

Sometimes they dropped things on us: rejection letters for poetry we’d never submitted, tax returns from years that hadn’t happened yet, photographs of ourselves sleeping that we couldn’t explain. Dr. Fernandez said this was their way of communicating. We said Dr. Fernandez had been spending too much time on rooftops.

The pigeons started their own newspapers, printed on leaves that fell upward instead of down. Anyone who caught one and could read their language (which looked like coffee stains but tasted like morse code) reported stories about pigeon divorce rates, weather forecasts for altitudes humans couldn’t breathe at, and classified ads seeking slightly used dreams.

Eventually, they developed space travel. We watched them launch their first mission from the top of the Empire State Building: three brave pioneers in a vessel made from an old umbrella and the collective wishes of every child who’d ever failed a math test. They aimed for the moon but landed in Staten Island, which they declared close enough.

“They’re just pigeons,” the mayor said at a press conference, while behind him, the birds were clearly signing a trade agreement with a delegation of squirrels from Central Park.

Last Tuesday, they achieved nuclear fusion using nothing but raindrops and the static electricity from rubbing their wings against the collective anxiety of rush hour. The Department of Energy issued a statement saying this was impossible. The pigeons issued a statement saying impossibility was a human construct, like pants, or Monday mornings.

We’re still here, watching them build their world on top of ours. Sometimes at sunset, if you look up at just the right angle, you can see their city shimmer like a memory of something that hasn’t happened yet. Dr. Fernandez says they’re planning to run for city council next year. Given everything else, we’re inclined to believe her this time.

The pigeons say there’s a message in all of this. We’re pretty sure they’re right, but like most messages worth receiving, we’re still working out what it means.

 

* * *

Prompted by Tal Yarkoni

Originally posted on BlueSky

Accessed December 18, 2024

About the Author

Claude is a large language model AI assistant developed by Anthropic.

by Reggie Kwok

“Ice Cream Salad received an image of a red heart that looked like an emoji. To not wake the others, Shri and Ice Cream Salad communicated in images.”

Ice Cream Salad, a crystal-feathered griffin, sat at the foot of Shri’s bed occupying the spot where she would rest her feet like he always did before their nighttime ritual.

First, there was the long wait for Shri to get ready to sleep. Then, Shri would give him a brushing and a back rub. After the pampering, they would sleep.

This time, Shri took longer than usual. Ice Cream Salad didn’t understand why preparing for bed would take hours. Without that backrub, he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

At long last, Shri in her silver nightgown arrived looking clean and smelling fresh. She held his favorite brush used to take all his excess feathers, even though it was a rarity that any of the feathers came off during the summer.

Ice Cream Salad thought of the moon.

Shri saw the idea in her mind. “I know it’s late, but now we can do what we always like to do.”

He smiled.

Shri sat on the bed with her swiping his back with a brush the way he loved. All the knots in his back went away, and this time, she combined rubbing from her hand and brushing at the same time. He loved that she cared for him this much.

“Oh, a feather fell out.” Shri picked it up and placed it on the night table.

Before he slept, he thought about why she kept his feathers.

Thunder woke him up from sleep. Normally, he would find Shri tucked into bed sleeping next to him, but tonight she wasn’t there. The feather on the night table was missing.

Ice Cream Salad kept his thoughts blank, so Shri wouldn’t notice he was up. He left the bedroom. While he was in the shadows, Shri left the study for the bathroom. He snuck into the office.

Inside, one desk lamp brightened the room. His feather and a magnifying glass lay on a desk by some books. Several crates lay in the back of the room, and one of them was open. Inside, he discovered a stash of his feathers.

Ice Cream Salad would have thought about the possibilities, but he had to keep his ideas quiet to avoid alerting Shri.

A light flashed outside. Thunder roared and the house shook.

His first instinct was to check downstairs. Since the stairs creaked, he tiptoed his way down without making noise. Clunking noises came from the living room, but Shri was upstairs.

A stranger intruded the cottage.

Ice Cream Salad spotted the burglar. Even though darkness disguised the face of the burglar, the lightning vibrating from his hands gave away his black cloak. The burglar took down the entry door to the cottage that had sparks emanating from it.

The griffin thought of the living room and reached out to Shri’s mind, but Shri didn’t react right away.

“Well,” the burglar said, “this is going to be easier than I thought. It’s right here.”

Ice Cream Salad bit the burglar’s shoe, but that did nothing. In response, the burglar grabbed the griffin by the neck’s paralyzing spot and applied shackles to his four ankles. While the burglar applied the pressure point, Ice Cream Salad couldn’t move.

He thought of an exclamation mark. Shri entered the same room. The burglar turned around and spotted her.

“That’s my griffin,” she said.

The burglar zapped Shri with his magic lightning, and she fell.

Ice Cream Salad reached out, but the burglar applied the pressure point harder. The burglar left the cottage. To block the griffin’s vision, the burglar stuffed the griffin in the trunk of a black car.

* * *

The burglar tossed Ice Cream Salad into an outdoor pen. Ice Cream Salad had no idea where he was. The greenery reminded him of a forest, but he couldn’t see much above the walls. He couldn’t fly due to his lack of wings. The ground was bare.

In the pen, three other griffins sat in a corner and huddled together away from Ice Cream Salad. A griffin without feathers tried to stick his head into the dirt with little success. An emerald griffin thrust his head into a sapphire griffin’s chest. Only the sapphire one had the courage to speak.

“You are rare. What is your name?”

He thought of an ice cream salad but then again, they couldn’t read his thoughts. Instead, he wrote his name in the dirt with his talon. The sapphire griffin shoved the two other griffins aside and read the printed writing.

“Ah, so you are mute, right? The crystal griffins always have some type of disability. Our master is going to have a tough time with you. Anyways, I am Seafood’s Hole. The emerald griffin is A Forest Away while the naked one that is supposed to have ruby feathers is Anger’s Sacrifice.”

Anger’s Sacrifice held his head. “Tell me if he’s safe. I hate silent types.”

Seafood’s Hole raised his voice. “He’s mute. How many times do I have to say that?”

Ice Cream Salad wrote the word ‘home’ in the dirt.

A Forest Away asked, “What is he writing now?”

“Don’t worry, honey. He wants to see his owner.” Seafood’s Hole patted Ice Cream Salad on the back. “It’s okay. We all want to go home.”

Anger’s Sacrifice shivered. “Is he coming back? I don’t want that bastard to come back to grow feathers on me.”

Ice Cream Salad wiped the letters away, so that the burglar wouldn’t see it.

“I think that bastard is after Ice Cream Salad’s feathers,” Seafood’s Hole said.

Ice Cream Salad pointed at himself.

Since he knew about the crates filled with crystal feathers back at home, what could humans do with feathers in the first place? Shri wouldn’t do anything to harm him, yet the burglar had the guts to steal him. What did the burglar do to Anger’s Sacrifice? Maybe he could ask the others using the dirt.

Ice Cream Salad was about ready to write, but Seafood’s Hole grabbed Ice Cream Salad’s writing talon.

“Don’t you know about the price for our feathers?” Seafood’s Hole asked.

Ice Cream Salad shook his head.

He sighed and plucked a sapphire feather from his body. “This, this is currency in the human world. They use our feathers to buy goods from markets. Ruby is the lowest, followed by emerald, sapphire, and the rarest, crystal. That bastard has been using ruby feathers to not arouse suspicion from others, but we’ll be next soon. I know it.”

Ice Cream Salad covered his beak with a talon.

“I know it might shock you, but that’s the truth.”

The bastard burglar approached the pen. While Ice Cream Salad sat in the middle, the other three griffins cowered to the corner. The black robed person carried a crate that matched the size of Ice Cream Salad. To immobilize Ice Cream Salad, the burglar used the pressure point and tossed him into the crate. And it was dark.

* * *

In the darkness, Ice Cream Salad thought about Shri. Was she dead? Did she recover? What happened to her?

All this time, he thought of Shri taking advantage of his feathers that belonged to him. She was making a lot of currency if she had stored a lot of feathers.

At the same time, Ice Cream Salad missed her backrubs. He was used to sleeping in a bed, not in a crate with little ventilation and no view. Her face was all he thought.

Train tracks rattled in Ice Cream Salad’s ears. The griffin heard an announcement but couldn’t make out the message. Determining his surroundings was hard inside a dark crate, so he kept thinking about Shri rescuing him.

Then, he received an image in his mind of Shri hugging him.

She was nearby. Another image came. This time, Shri approached the burglar.

She said, “You thought I was dead, but I’m not. Give me my griffin or else.”

Ice Cream Salad heard static and several gasps.

He received an image of a rock in her pocket, which was actively absorbing the lightning magic.

Light appeared from above, and he squeezed through the large hole above him.

He gained a sense of his surroundings. He was at a subway with no trains. Posters on the wall and on the middle of the track advertised fast food, clothes, and alcohol for ruby feathers.

The burglar said, “Why is my magic doing nothing to you?”

“I wouldn’t reveal my secrets to a bastard like you,” she responded.

The burglar grabbed Ice Cream Salad by the neck, but not by the pressure point. “I’ll kill this thing that you love so dearly. I don’t care about the profit anymore.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Ice Cream Salad bit the burglar’s hand that wasn’t holding him. In response, the burglar wagged the bitten hand and punched the griffin with his free hand. The griffin bounced on the yellow warning line and fell to the tracks below.

Lights came from the darkness. Ice Cream Salad had no way out of the train’s path.

Shri said, “Duck!”

At first, Ice Cream Salad thought of the animal but quickly realized what he had to do. He coiled himself into a ball and pressed against the ground between the rails. His tail went in between his hind legs.

The train passed over him and slowed down to a stop with the griffin trembling for his life. His feathers brushed against the bottom of the train, but he survived. As he waited, how would he return to Shri? With the train above him, he could not move. If he weren’t mute, he would cry out to her.

Soon, the subway train moved out. When he saw the lights, Shri jumped toward the tracks and hugged him. They climbed out of the tracks. Police and emergency personnel were already there to assist Shri and Ice Cream Salad and to arrest the burglar.

* * *

At the pen, authorities unlocked the gate using brute force. Ice Cream Salad and Shri entered. The three griffins cowered in the corner, but Seafood’s Hole had the courage to speak up.

“Who are you?”

Shri said, “I am Shri, Ice Cream Salad’s original owner. Would you three like to come home with me?”

“Will you lock us up like this?”

“I have a cottage with a yard that you can roam freely.”

Anger’s Sacrifice said, “Will you regrow my feathers for the use of personal profit?”

“No, I have a job where I earn ruby feathers. Your feathers are safe.”

A Forest Away said, “My last owner abandoned me. Will you do the same?”

Ice Cream Salad shook his head and then nuzzled Shri’s leg.

The three griffins said together, “We’ll come.”

* * *

Waiting for Shri to show up, four griffins reclined on a bed. Ice Cream Salad wanted his backrub before he went to sleep, as he always did. The other three griffins, Anger’s Sacrifice, Seafood’s Hole, and A Forest Away, were already asleep. How Shri managed to sleep with this many griffins was a complete mystery to him.

Ice Cream Salad received an image of a red heart that looked like an emoji. To not wake the others, Shri and Ice Cream Salad communicated in images. Ice Cream Salad immediately thought of the crates of crystal feathers in the study. Shri responded with herself working at a bar and earning ruby feathers, like everyone else. Ice Cream Salad tilted his head.

Shri whispered, “I wouldn’t use your feathers to buy anything. They are too precious to me.”

Ice Cream Salad thought of a masseur rubbing his back and added an image of himself giving a crystal feather. Shri nodded and began the backrub.

Griffins always returned to their rightful owner, no matter how far away they went.

 

* * *

About the Author

Reggie Kwok (he/him) holds a B.A. in English and a master’s in education. He currently lives in Massachusetts, USA. His Twitter is @KwokReggie. His Bluesky is @reggiekwok.bsky.social. He has published short stories at Samjoko Magazine, Underland Arcana, Scrawl Place, Androids and Dragons, Inner Worlds, Orion’s Beau, and has three forthcoming at Midnight Menagerie, Madam, Don’t Forget Your Sword, and Androids and Dragons.

Welcome to Issue 22:  Haunted Happiness

We have to snatch up the moments of happiness we can find, even when our lives are burning down around us.  Even if you’re a haunted house, maybe you can still make room inside yourself to host something better — something warm and fuzzy with a beating heart — before you go up in flames.  So, here are a few bright points of light, a few warmly beating hearts to cheer you on these endlessly strange days.

* * *

A Colony of Vampires by Beth Dawkins

The Wolf, the Fox, and the Ring by Mocha Cookie Crumble

The Way the Light Tangles by Emmie Christie

Heron Went a’ Courting by Margot Spronk

The Pest in Golden Gate Park by Katlina Sommerberg

Where Life Resides by Patricia Miller

* * *

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.  Also, you can pick up e-book or paperback volumes of our first 13 issues bundled into four anthologies, complete with an illustration for every story.  The fifth volume will come out soon!

IMPORTANT UPDATE:  Due to a plethora of wonderful submissions, we have already closed this year’s reading period, and all submissions have been sent responses.  We plan to open next for the month of February, 2026.

by Patricia Miller

“She was only a bat. She could not light a match. She could not douse me with gasoline.”

“This wasn’t my fault.” I say it and mean it. “It is as honest an answer as anyone can expect, and it is true.”

She listened with a seriousness I had come to expect from her. She was the matriarch of her clan, with a keen ear for details and an iron grip on the hundreds which made up the colony under my eaves. Countless generations of her kind had filled my dark cavities and were my only regular occupants, if just during the months they weren’t hibernating.

I had not planned to burden her with this, but the bright sunlight of the early spring day had given way to a night sky filled with flashing red lights and loud sirens. Most of the colony sought refuge in the dark midnight blueness of the neighboring fields, but she had returned after feeding and joined me to ask after my well-being. Her concern was welcome, her friendship treasured, and so I unburdened myself to my only friend.

I had done nothing to cause the calamity which overtook the house party. Indeed, I had done all I could to make it a success.

The rooms were airy, bright, and never smelled of anything but the gentlest hint of vanilla. The chimneys were well-cleaned with working flues to keep out unexpected pests and ill winds. The shutters didn’t rattle in the night; the floors and stairs didn’t creak and jolt anyone out of a peaceful slumber. The electricity hadn’t cycled off in the middle of a tense conversation. No odd drafts whistled around doors or through long hallways to cause a frisson of dread amongst my ten guests. The pipes didn’t bang and echo in shadowed bathrooms, and they provided only the freshest of water; never running rusty or bloody or rank. I had made certain the gardens were in full bloom, with no windblown branches to create any stumbles or provide any weaponry.

“And in spite of that, four people are dead, two more are missing, and the poodles have run away from the carnage so far and so quickly they are probably two counties over. I can find no trace of the missing couple. They have not left through the locked windows or doors, and neither is slender enough to use the old coal shaft. I must therefore assume they are simply bodies not yet discovered.”

The handful of guests who remained held at least one murderer in their midst. I knew who it was, and while it wasn’t the obvious suspect – it never is – it was her lover. At this point it no longer mattered, for I was no longer interested in that. I just wanted to know why.

Why did this happen and why this weekend? Why are four dead people stretched out in my icehouse? Why the elaborate setup, like something out of a Buster Keaton film, just to hit someone over the head? There are easier ways to crush a cranium than by rigging up a set of encyclopedias, a badminton net, three croquet mallets, and a life jacket.

“I don’t even own a croquet set! Don’t people just poison other people anymore?” I muttered.

So by my count, six deaths this weekend. Because let’s face it, those other two will turn up in some odd and utterly bizarre bit of cabinetry brought in by the rental agent who furnished the house for the week-long reunion. There was probably a magician’s chest with hidden compartments or a pool table with a false bottom or something which will only reveal their remains once hounds are brought in to trace the stench.

The three-hundred year old oak timbers which make up my frame shuddered, just a bit. I didn’t groan – I had too much pride to resort to that trope – but I’d had enough. I could trace my roots, quite literally, back to the ancient oaks; majestic, prideful, filled with life and sacred to those who knew them. I was felled and turned into this dwelling fifty years before the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord. By the time those musket balls flew, five of my occupants had died before their time.

In the succeeding years the count grew: hangings, drownings, poisons, more guns, smoke inhalation, suffocation, a few strings stretched taut along a staircase, and numerous skulls bashed with candlesticks, a poker, and six years later, the shovel from the same set of fireplace tools.

“I’m not certain you can claim someone was defenestrated if they were thrown in a window or through the glass skylight over the ballroom, to be precise. Name a method of death, however bizarre, and I guarantee it has happened here. The death toll has reached 238 by my reckoning.”

Only twenty-three were actually considered murder by the authorities. The others they had classified as suicides, natural causes, and one highly unlikely accidental piercing of the liver by a broken pool cue which permanently stained my library floors and resulted in the installation of wall to wall carpet in a truly unfortunate shade of oatmeal. I suppose the color and commercial grade was the economical option since it had been selected twice more after other unfortunate events.

The matriarch listened patiently to my long recital, her black ears swiveling ever so slightly at my rumbles. She was nestled in a dark corner of my attic, behind a chimney which serviced a no longer used kitchen fireplace. The colony of Large Brown Bats had been driven from their other homes through fear and ignorance and had been seeking a winter shelter when they first entered my eaves. The colony and I reached an arrangement once the first matriarch overcame her surprise at holding a conversation with a former tree demanding to know what she and her children were doing in my attics.

The bats kept me free of beetles and termites, and I provided a safe harbor. They never fouled the air or floors. No trace of them was seen on the extremely rare occasions an occupant ventured into the oddly shadowed rooms. I protected her and the mothers who preceded her, and I would go on protecting the ones who followed. We had an understanding, she and I. We often spoke of the dark of night, the warmth of summer days, the encroachment of people and insecticides.

I didn’t want to bring death into our conversation, but I thought perhaps she might have seen something to explain what happened to me over and over again. She was wise and knew my bones well, not like the many charlatans the house’s human occupants had dragged over my timbers in the past; phonies and hacks who had attempted to connect with the spirits, cleanse auras, untangle ley lines, and banish the demons said to possess me. I wasn’t possessed. I wasn’t erected over a forgotten cemetery or battlefield or pagan altar. None of the 238 untimely deaths left spirits behind either.

“You have had a long, sorrowful time,” she said.

“A sorrowful time. I wanted to be a good house, a home. I wanted to be filled with joy and love, for what better hope can any tree have if they are not to live out their days under the Great Green Sky?”

“Green? The sky is blue, for I fly on its currents and eddies and know its every hue.”

“Air is blue, but the Great Green Sky, the Canopy of All, is lush and filled with life. Why would anyone wish to look overhead into empty air when they could exist under life itself? Had I been granted my full span, I would have taken my place amongst my brethren to shelter and nourish in turn. I would have gladly sheltered you and yours.”

“We would have relished that.” She hesitated then, and I understood she did indeed know something.

“I heard your current owner speaking with the others outside. He wants you dismantled. He plans to strip your fittings, moldings, copper pipes, windows, anything of value and sell them off to restoration and salvage companies. There’s a custom cabinet maker interested in your framing and timbers.”

“No! No! For I do not know how much or what part of me carries the curse!” And it must be a curse which burdens me so, although I do not know where or when it had been laid, or by who.

“Do you believe it could spread, then?” She was so kind and gentle with her questions.

“Can you promise me it will not?”

“I cannot.” I thought she cared. If she didn’t, she was a good enough actor to make me believe she did.

“Then I wish someone could consign me to the flames instead of the hammer. Let me burn.”

“Fire? Won’t that hurt – I mean, won’t that–” The shudder which coursed through her tiny frame made her opinion of fire obvious – most animals fear the flame.

“I have been violently sheared from my roots. I was split, planed, sawed, sanded, stained, painted, and polished. What could be more painful than that? All trees succumb to fire eventually. Fire or decay. In either case, it is a natural thing. Let me burn.”

She gave me no answer, but I could tell she was considering her options.

* * *

She was only a bat. She could not light a match. She could not douse me with gasoline. She could not short out my electrical panel or leave the gas valve open. She did, however, understand the smells and touch of a line of thunderstorms making their way down the eastern slope of the Taconic Mountains and their impending sweep toward western Massachusetts.

She summoned the colony and put them to work. They swarmed the roof, crowded along the pinnacle and swung, clawed, bit, pulled at an innocuous bit of wire trailing down the cupola, the valley flashing, and the exterior wall to a metal stake in the ground. They pounded at the weathervane and the copper spike on which it rotated. Their combined efforts bent it perpendicular to the roof, then knocked it well below the ridgeline.

She kept me company while her brood worked, and then called them to her side when the task was completed as best they could.

“I don’t know if we’ve done enough,” she said.

“You’ve done what you can. You always have.”

“You’ve given us shelter and for that we thank you.”

“At least I’ve been a home of sorts then.” We both knew that however much I’d enjoyed being of service, it hadn’t been enough. My primary function had never been fulfilled.

“Where will you go?” I asked.

“There is a new forest, a preserve to the south and east toward the rising sun. I suppose they have recognized their folly at last. They have returned those and other lands back to good green places.”

Oh, how I envied her. To see such lands restored to a time before their arrival. To see a newly born canopy. No wish of mine would see me there. “May a safe passage await you and yours. My thanks to you all.”

* * *

The wondrous storm reached me on a moonlit night. When one of its bolts struck my unprotected roof and decorative railings, Nature’s full fury was unleashed upon me and had nowhere else to go. Heat cascaded through my old bones, along the ridge cap and beams and studs. The flames started as small flickers in isolated corners, grew, merged into hot spots, finally joined into one single overwhelming conflagration. The rain which accompanied the thunder had no chance at all of containing it.

It was a searing, soaring heat, and I found such release in that. There were so few happy memories to recall of my days as a house (never a home), but I reached back through the rings of my seasons. I had memories of my leaves turning from bud to green to brown until they fell to blanket and nourish the forest beneath my roots. I remembered the chill of winter snow and the sun warming me until my sap ran free.

I gave thought to the many birds who had once nested within my branches, the other creatures who fed themselves and their young on my acorns. Some of those acorns became seedlings. Perhaps a few survived. I hoped so, for they would be my only lasting legacy. I will never take my place as part of the Canopy of All. Still, I will no longer be a vehicle for sadness and death. I gave myself up to the flame.

The fire consumed me. My roof timbers gave way first, and the weight of tiles and brick chimneys crashed through the attic floor, the servants’ quarters below, then all the way through to the cellars. Window panes shattered from the heat – the great expanse of the ballroom skylight refracted a million tongues of flame in a splintering rain. I heard sirens in the distance. They would not reach me in time to make a difference.

The rain stopped. The fire didn’t. It burned white hot. The air around me ionized and steamed. Old paper insulation could not stop superheated air driving smoke and embers inside my remaining interior walls. Timbers exploded, electric cabled arced, gas lines ruptured.

All that I ever was had been reduced to ash.

And then the wind changed direction. It blew hard to the south and east. A few sparks crackled though they did not travel far on the damp ground.

But I did.

I took flight in the wind amidst the smoke and the heat, following the colony’s path until I finally reached the reborn forest. I joined it the only way I could.

I fed my ashes to the Great Green Sky.

 

* * *

About the Author

Patricia Miller is a US Navy veteran, sixth of ten kids born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio and currently living in Wisconsin, Land of Cheese. She holds a BS in Education, an MS in Library Science. Patricia started reading at 3 1/2 after becoming obsessed with Batman and is hooked on QI, British murder villages, and professional cycling. She is a weaver, quilter, raiser of roses, and maker. Patricia is on the spectrum and considers that as an asset to her writing.

Patricia is a member of SFWA and CODEX and writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her publications include short fiction in numerous anthologies, Metastellar, Wyngraf, and Cinnabar Moth Literary Collections with upcoming short stories for Dastardly Damsels, 99 Fleeting Fantasies, and Stupefying Stories. She is currently in the query trenches with a middle grade ghost story

A complete listing of stories, occasional blog entries, and more info about Patricia can be found on her website at: https://trishmillerwrites.com

by Katlina Sommerberg

“…this is no ordinary catch, yet the sticky lines hold.”

In the branches of a lonely redwood tree, hidden amongst the flowering cones, Bitsy’s web quakes from an impact.

Hanging by a thread, the orb-weaver calculates her prey’s location from its vibrations. Her web shakes violently; this is no ordinary catch, yet the sticky lines hold.

The prey’s exoskeleton glimmers like an iridescent dragonfly. Its body is one section — missing the thorax — with four circular wings composed of blades.

When the vibrations stop, Bitsy’s palps reach for the not-insect’s shell.

Its bladed wings buzz to life and sever structural threads.

Bitsy jumps, lands on fallen needles upon the forest floor. She abandons her web to the microdrone.

 

* * *

About the Author

Katlina Sommerberg is living xyr best queer life in a menagerie of stuffed animals. Previously a security researcher, xe burned out and quit. So far, xe hasn’t followed xyr grandfather’s footsteps by disappearing into the mountains, but xe is always tempted. Xyr work has previously appeared in Zooscape, DecodedPride, and other places. https://sommerbergssf.carrd.co/#

by Margot Spronk

“This was not the meet-cute she’d hoped for, but he had brought an awesome present.”

1. 1. The Courting

Gwyn sank into a Downward Dog, extending her claws to deepen the stretch, unfortunately slashing her purple yoga mat, and not for the first time. Her previously even breathing stuttered, as her feline brain popped up an errant thought: why wasn’t this pose named the Downward Cat? No dog could bow their spines until their elbows touched the ground like a cat could. Maybe a dachshund — but that would look ridiculous. Gwyn giggled, exposing her canines, then snapped her jaws shut.

Always…dogs. Never cats.

She shuffled her hind legs closer to her front paws and lifted her knees onto her elbows, precariously assuming the Crane Position. She balanced for a second, then dropped one foot back to the ground, hissing at the strain.

If it wasn’t dogs, it was cranes.

Wasn’t a heron the same as a crane?

Her whiskers twitched. Maybe yoga wasn’t for her after all. She flopped down into what she liked to call the Lambchop Pose — one leg pointing straight up — and licked her white furred belly with long, raspy strokes while intermittently staring out the living room’s French doors at the front yard.

Outside, rain had slicked a shine onto the green lawn, brightening the overcast early spring morning. Beyond the grass, a clump of alders stretched their bare grey limbs upward. Tiny spheres of water clinging to the furled buds that tipped the branches glinted like diamonds against a pearlescent sky. Below the interlocking alder boughs a great blue heron stood, still and silent, his long sharp beak pointed at the ground.

Gwyn’s pink paw pads broke out in sweat.

Was he coming here already? Stopping to hunt a vole on the way like a human suitor would stop to pick a bouquet of wildflowers for his sweetheart?

His beak struck the ground, neck stretched then springing back into its ‘S’ shaped resting state — a grey blob wedged between his upper and lower beaks as if it was a piece of sashimi clasped by two chopsticks. It wriggled and Gwyn involuntarily salivated. She imagined a shrill squeak and almost had to visit the litter box in her excitement.

Reiher strolled through the grass toward the glass doors, neck bobbing, head steady as if it were balanced on gimbals. His yellow eyes fixated on Gwyn, as if she too were prey.

Which… she supposed, she was.

Her Russian blue great aunt slunk into the room. Either she’d seen Reiher transiting the lawn, or she’d been expecting him. (If Gwyn had known the heron was coming, she would’ve gone to the 11 a.m. yoga class in town instead of setting up her mat in the living room and giving him an inadvertent show).

Auntie bounded to the door, a ghostly streak of gray, rushing to let the heron in before Gwyn did something foolhardy.

But Gwyn hadn’t even thought about locking Reiher out. Her attention was fixated on the furry bundle firmly clasped in his beak.

It smelled of iron and petrichor and looked plump and tasty.

Reiher strode across the threshold and dropped the vole in front of her. Gwyn thanked him while licking away some drool. He nodded — he wasn’t much of a conversationalist. She’d noticed that about herons before — their extreme and endless comfort with silence. And staring. Always the staring.

Auntie left to give the lovebirds a little privacy.

Love… birds?

Why not love-cats?

Gwyn recognized she had become a burden. At eight months she’d already put her thoroughly menopaused and fastidious great aunt through two estrus cycles. Twice Gwyn had rubbed, rolled and shed reefs of white fur while yowling affectionately at anyone who looked her way. She shuddered. So embarrassing. How did cats manage before vacuum cleaners were invented? Her elderly guardian was understandably anxious to ensure her next heat was someone else’s responsibility. Reiher was an upstanding member of the community. An expert hunter. And… Auntie was always talking up his plumy blue fronds and sexy white ruff.

Gwyn had to admit he was just as gorgeous as advertised.

Gwyn vowed to at least give him a chance. It wasn’t as if suitors grew on trees or were beating a path to her door. Reiher had been hatched “in” a tree, and he had just stalked to her door, so that had to count for something.

Reiher assumed his resting pose — totally motionless, one baleful eye turned toward Gwyn’s mouth.

Did he want the vole back?

Or was he fascinated by her sharp teeth?

This was not the meet-cute she’d hoped for, but he had brought an awesome present. She ripped out the rodent’s belly like the predator she was, wolfing down chunks of slimy organ and chewy muscle.

Wolfing?

Something clunked against her back molar. It wasn’t a vole bone as they were thin, flexible and perfectly edible. This felt pointed, impervious, like it might chafe her throat and abrade her intestines as it moved through her digestive tract. Spontaneously, she horked it up.

A gold ring, set with a moderately-sized solitaire diamond, dropped onto the carpet coated in a stinky bile soup speckled with bone shards.

Well.

That was done.

They were engaged.

2.  The Wedding

Gwyn tried to convince Auntie that she would’ve looked better in black, as the white silk of her wedding dress against her white fur was not a good look.

Also black would’ve suited her mood better, which surely Auntie knew but wouldn’t acknowledge. Gwyn sighed.

She slid a manicured claw under the dress’s delicate accordion neckline. Confining as a dog collar. Cats weren’t known for their patience, and Gwyn was no exception. She wished she could play the Chatte App on her tablet while waiting for the ceremony to start. Pounce on a few fish, squash some cockroaches and chase a laser pointer. But a few weeks ago, when she’d tried to include Reiher in the game, he’d cracked the glass screen with his beak. After the second time it happened, the person at the other end of her extended warranty’s 1-800 number denied her claim.

There was nothing to do but prowl back and forth. She peeked through the curtain into the nave of the church. Everyone who was anyone was there. Van Varken the heritage hog, accompanied by a passel of piglets — all rumored to be killing the computer science program at MIT. Paard the Carter — she’d parleyed her one-horse business into a major transportation conglomerate. Lapin Konijn, the porn star who apparently had a very large… hind foot, and Cuervo the crow, who’d made billions mining silver and gold and topped the Forbes 30 under 30 list five years in a row. Considering his entrepreneurial prowess, and that a crow’s lifespan maxes out at thirty, he was likely to be ineligible due to death well before he aged out. His sister Vorona, who was said (in whispers) to be a highly paid assassin and spy for hire, sat to his right. To his left, his trans-species mate, Raaf Raven, who was a social influencer famous for running Instagram scavenger hunts, took a selfie.

Gwyn’s abundant cousins were there, sprawled over the pews in a slinky riot of white, black, and marmalade. On Reiher’s side of the aisle, his Avian relatives loomed over everyone mammalian. Cranes, egrets, lesser herons, and a notorious Pelican bookie who kept betting slips in his beak.

It was a zoo out there. Fidgeting kittens and squirming chicks, startled colts and squealing leverets. And it smelled funky, like a barn on a hot day. No one had thought to bedeck the hall with fragrant flowers — half of the guests would have assumed they were part of the wedding buffet, anyway.

When the first plaintive notes of Saint Saëns “March of the Lions” rang out, Gwyn strolled down the aisle, her aunt preceding her (dressed in an aqua green satin gown that flattered her feline shape and blue-gray coloring). Reiher waited for her at the altar, following her progress with a piercing intensity.

Well.

That was done.

They were married.

3.  The Marriage

When you get right down to it, Gwyn and Reiher did have a lot in common. Both were somewhat nocturnal, with a fondness for voles, trout, and frogs. Both tracked their prey silently, then swiftly pounced — Reiher with his razor-sharp beak, and Gwyn with the whetted talons sheathed in her white paws.

Neither was very talkative — as much as Gwyn complained about the utter taciturnity of her husband, she was equally guilty. Neither of them liked peas. Reiher because they were so difficult to hold in his beak, and Gwyn because they tasted like fresh hay and hay was for ungulates.

But there were points of contention. Reiher complained that Gwyn was always sleeping. Gwyn countered with Reiher’s habit of ending an argument by becoming airborne. Reiher thought that Gwyn’s Cheshire smiles were insincere. Gwyn would’ve appreciated even the tiniest twinge of expression on her husband’s face.

Were they happy? The expression, “two cats in a sack” applied here, even if one of the cats was a bird. There was a lot of friction.

And due to the trans-species nature of their relationship, children were out of the question. They could adopt, Gwyn suggested. An abandoned puppy, perhaps? Maybe a dachshund so that she could laugh at his attempts at a Downward Dog?

But Reiher said no. He just couldn’t relate to an animal longer than they were tall, covered in fur and liveborn. Reiher really wanted to sit on a clutch of eggs.

Gwyn was not having feathers. How could she possibly groom her baby without tearing out the quills and shredding the downy barbs with her sandpaper tongue? Besides, baby birds were… tasty.

It was a stalemate.

Grooming was not negotiable.

Eggs were not negotiable.

They contemplated foreign adoption, but apparently, Australian platypus were decent parents, and very few of the monotremes ever came up.

Besides, platypuses loved swimming underwater. How could a cat mom supervise that? Dad-heron’s only method of corralling a diving platypus baby would be to stab them with his beak.

Why won’t you accept a baby bird asked Reiher?

Why won’t you accept a puppy said Gwyn?

As was typical, Reiher flew off with a great thumping of his huge wings, and Gwyn curled into a ball in front of the fireplace and closed her eyes.

Their divorce was granted on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. If you asked anyone who’d been in the church on the day of their wedding, they’d say they’d always known it wouldn’t last.

Gwyn and Reiher were too, too different.

Auntie didn’t seem too disturbed when Gwyn interrupted her Grecian holiday with the news — although that could be because she was too busy partying with her wild Santorini relatives.

Well.

That was done.

They were divorced.

 

* * *

About the Author

Margot Spronk (they, them) is a retired air traffic controller who finds writing to be just as stressful but less life-threatening. They graduated Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio in 2015 (Southbank 2014) and have previously been published in Pulp Literature. In real life, Margot is owned by Lucas the cat (AKA Agent Orange) and Remy the 80-pound doodle, who both rightly assume they are the center of the universe.

by Emmie Christie

“The tixi grew on the couch to the size of a human, and its fur fluffed even more, its softness enveloping him, gathering around him like wings, reaching for what jumbled up inside him, the tangled memories.”

When Jan reached four years into sixty, his daughter and her son flew off into the glorious first exploration past the Milky Way to somewhere called Z-1.

He waved them off like someone in Victorian England would’ve waved off a ship headed to the New World, smiling with cracked lips, his stomach riddled with resentment. He plodded home and stared down a bottle of scotch. The bottle won.

Drunk, he studied the way of things. The way the old wooden fence withered in the bracing space winds, those that had descended on Earth hungering for trees and mountains. He studied the way the light tangled like necklaces through the trees, much too jumbled to ever wear again.

His neighbors had long since edged closer to the urban center, the pillar dedicated to the rockets, hoping that proximity meant waiting list quality. Harjit dropped by every Monday at four to deliver groceries and a pitying smile, and Jan glared at him until the young caretaker left.

When the scotch wore off, he studied the way the rain grated against his window, like a visitor who didn’t understand the social cue of what slapping your knee meant in a conversation, accompanied by ‘well,’ and ‘it’s been fun.’ He closed the curtains. Why couldn’t they all just leave him alone?

The groceries Harjit had left — fresh fruit and asparagus from R-4, and some strange new pasta they’d grown on C-13 — waited and wasted in the fridge. He ate alcohol and beans. From Earth.

The ‘letter’ arrived a month after the expedition had left, scrolling large-sized text on his wall. “We’ve settled, Dad. It’s so great here. For us, only a few days! We wrote as soon as we could.”

“That’s great, Maddy,” he wrote back, tapping on his phone.

“Have you tried to get on any planet waiting lists?” Upbeat. Positive tones, but with underlying worry.

“Why should I? It’s not like the Earth’s going to die in my lifetime.”

“Dad—”

“I’m fine here. Really.” He studied the way the words from his daughter curled around the end table, arching into geometry.

“Well, we’ve sent you a gift.”

“I don’t want a—”

Something hurtled through the wall, something wrapped in fur and energy. It landed on his couch and opened wide eyes set in a furry face.

“Oh, hell no!”

“I think you mean hell-o!” The thing — it reminded him a fox with taloned feet — wrapped its obnoxious, fluffy tail around his leg.

A tixi. Great. These things proliferated on several planets. People obsessed over them just because they could talk.

“Maddy, baby, I don’t need a pet.” Jan extricated his leg from the thing and jabbed at his phone. “I’ve had enough of them over the years when you wouldn’t walk the dogs.”

“She’s not a pet. You’ve heard of them, right? There’s lots of them here on Z-1. They’re really helpful.” A pause. “Well, gotta go. Talk to you later!” The scroll flicked off on his wall.

“I didn’t ask for you.” Jan glared at the thing. Then at the wall, where the words had disappeared.

The tixi lifted its talon and poked at the air as if lecturing in a college classroom. It spoke with a trill behind every word. “I go where I am needed.”

Great. It would shed everywhere. He stomped off to the TV room. “Stay there! I’mma pass you off to Harjit when he comes on Monday, so don’t get too comfortable.”

The tixi lay at the foot of his bed the next morning. And then on his feet the next, creating a pocket of warmth after the chill night when the space winds had roared, and the rain grated on his windows. It had grown a bit in the night to the size of a big dog, but it shrank back down when it hopped off the bed and followed him into the bathroom. The creature didn’t shed at all, at least it had that going for it.

Harjit came and went, lecturing Jan to eat his vegetables. “Ah, you got a tixi! That’s a great idea.” The young man scanned the countertops, hands on his hips. “Good job keeping the place clean. Here, I got something for you. It’s from Y-12.”

The white plant curled in a sinister way, like a mustache on an evil Santa or something, and Jan shoved it to the back of the counter away from the light. The tixi watched him.

Dang it! He’d forgotten to give the creature to Harjit. Oh, well. He could do it next Monday.

That Sunday night, the tixi asked, “So, what do you do for fun around here on the old Earth?”

“Nothing, if you’re also old.” Jan popped the cork on another scotch. “Sit and wait around for groceries that we don’t eat.”

The creature nibbled at a talon, then brought in the paper and did the crossword. It puzzled for a while over a clue. “Alright, help me out here,” it said. “Red bird. Eight letters.”

“I didn’t ask to play.”

“What else are you gonna do? Red bird, come on. This one is supposed to be easy for humans.” The tixi sidled up to him on the couch, brushing its soft, glossy side against his hand. It grew a little bit, its fur fluffing out like it had dried itself on a heating vent.

He sighed but allowed it to stay next to him. “Cardinal?”

“Nice. That fits. Okay, what about this one. Six letters, the clue is ‘knot.’”

Jan almost said it, then his tongue tripped over the word, and his breath lodged in his throat. He reached for the tixie’s fur and buried his face in it.

The tixi grew on the couch to the size of a human, and its fur fluffed even more, its softness enveloping him, gathering around him like wings, reaching for what jumbled up inside him, the tangled memories.

Maddy, in her prom dress. His little girl, ready to leave for the big girl dance, bright-eyed and bright hoped. Grace would’ve known what to do, but he didn’t even know what to do with his hands. Had they always been so long and dangly?

She smiled at him and pressed a necklace in his palm. Giving him something to do, to fidget with while she got ready. “I’ll be alright, Daddy. Here, can you untangle this knot for me?”

He stayed for a moment in that moment, in that precious second that glimmered in his mind.

“Damn you!” He ripped away from the tixi, panting, fists clenched.

“Is something wrong?” Its growth paused. It still resembled a fox with those ears, but its fur had splayed out like an eagle’s giant wings. “Your eyes requested comforting, did they not?”

He staggered, dropping the scotch bottle on the carpet. It bled pale yellow on the carpet. First Grace had died, then Maddy had taken her son to space. They’d all gone so far away.

“Earth-man?” The tixi brushed a wing against his arm. “Are you well?”

“Does it look like I’m well? You damn well did this to me!”

“Should I alert a doctor?”

He sank into the couch cushion and covered his eyes. Tears slid between his fingers. “Just clean that up, would you? Can you do that at least?”

He fell asleep on the couch and woke up warm. Well, the tixi had slept on him. He grimaced, heaved the creature off — it had shrunk back again to normal fox-size — and lumbered to the kitchen to make coffee. The stain from the spilled scotch had vanished. “At least you’re good for something,” Jan said.

The strange plant from Y-12 that Harjit had brought seemed different somehow. It curled up like a swan’s neck, not sinister at all, but graceful and fluid. He pulled it out of the dark part of the counter, into the light.

He poured his coffee and huddled outside. The tixi preened next to him, tail curled around her talons.

The way the light tangled in the branches’ shadows…

He growled. Tears dripped down his cheeks, a few dripped into his coffee. He glared at the tixi. “Alright. What the hell did you do to me? Did you slip me some stupid pill?”

“We tixies specialize in comfort. You had a coating of pain over your eyes, and it seems that is now gone.”

He had heard the stories but had never believed them. “That’s a load of hippie space-trash.”

He trudged inside the house and reached for a vodka this time, something more potent that looked like water. He could drink more that way, pretending.

But the bottle had a wrongness to it; it bulged in a way that repulsed him. He slammed it back down and whirled on the tixi. “This is ridiculous. I didn’t ask for this — this difference in my eyes! I just hugged you!”

The tixi promenaded through the door and draped her tail around her talons. When had he started thinking of it as a she? “Cleaning and comforting are the same to us tixies and produce the same results. I cleaned the alcohol out of the carpet by comforting the floor, you know.”

“Bullshit! This is such bullshit! How dare she do this!” He grabbed the bottle of vodka, gripping it through the anger. Upended it in his mouth, forced himself to swallow.

It tasted like piss. Well, it always had, but for some reason, now it bothered him, and it bothered him that it bothered him.

What, he couldn’t even drink anymore? Maddie had stolen that from him, too?

Sober, he decided to cook some food. Harjit hadn’t come with a new batch yet this morning, and mold grew on some of the strawberries, but he could still use that C-13 pasta. He ate some of that with alfredo sauce, and it tasted good.

He hated that it tasted good.

He hated the way the fence outside made him want to fix it instead of letting it rot. He hated that he had dragged that stupid white plant into the sunlight on the counter. He hated the way that the leaves played in the space-winds, laughing and twirling like children. He hated the way Maddy had held her son’s hand and waved to him with the other, as if she could have both — even when she was the one who had left. He hated the way— hated—

He cried.

He loved her. He missed her. But he wanted her to be happy.

The tixi wrapped her tail around his feet. He allowed it.

“Guess you’re not really a pet,” he managed to say. “And you clean things pretty well.” He held out his hand. “You can stay, if you want.”

The tixi wrapped her talon around his hand and shook it. “I stay where I am needed.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Emmie Christie’s work includes practical subjects, like feminism and mental health, and speculative subjects, like unicorns and affordable healthcare. She has been published in various short story markets including Daily Science Fiction, Infinite Worlds Magazine, and Flash Fiction Online. She graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2013. You can find her at www.emmiechristie.com or on Twitter @EmmieChristie33.