Feed aggregator

MOOBARKFLUFF! Click here to send us a comment or message about the show!

Welcome to another episode of BFFT! 

We have furry news, furry events, a movie review, a new Taebyn song, MadLibs, some silliness, and so much more. So tune in for another pelzige freuden episode of BFFT. Moobarkfluff everyfur!

This podcast contains adult language and adult topics. It is rated M for Mature. Listener discretion is advised.

Support the show

Thanks to all our listeners and to our staff: Bearly Normal, Rayne Raccoon, Taebyn, Cheetaro, TickTock, and Ziggy the Meme Weasel.

You can send us a message on Telegram at BFFT Chat, or via email at: bearlyfurcasting@gmail.com

Bearly Furcasting S6E4 - Pelzige Freude

Hi, I’m Sierra, a furry in Norway, and I’m experiencing harassment that might be familiar to a lot of people online.

In 2020, I created an original fursona and commissioned art for it. I put years of effort into a character that is special and personal to me. A fursona like mine is one of the things that defines what furries are, so what happened next was not just upsetting to me, I think it goes against what our community is for.

In April 2025, I discovered that a stranger was inexplicably using the fursona I created to impersonate me. Call it… imfursonation? They were stealing the identity I had been building for years, at the cost of my money, passion, friendships, and personal integrity. I did nothing to provoke this creepy wrongdoing and only found out by surprise.

Howdy, turns out I’m being impersonated, here’s a furaffanity journal with more info. Attached is also a screenshot for those who don’t want to go on FA. RIght now signal boosts are greatly appreaciated <3

www.furaffinity.net/journal/1110…

[image or embed]

— Sierra (@sierrathewynx.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 2:32 PM

You might think this is a mistake or trivial offense that will go away, but the thief keeps doing it after I contacted him directly like a mature adult to ask him to stop. He even confessed months ago, but won’t use his conscience, no matter what I do to defend myself or get help.

Let’s go over some remedies people have about identity theft and harassment, on the criminal, civil, and private level.

• For crime, there’s a high bar for proof that doesn’t apply to many forms of harassment, when police often just care about physical threats.
• Even obvious identity theft can be untouchable when thief and victim are in different countries (like in this case).
• This isn’t a legal identity, it’s a fursona, but still one that our community values and expects members not to misuse without permission.
• If a copyrighted property is stolen, large owners or companies may protect it in court from misuse for profit, but that’s beyond most people’s power.
• Most people can’t afford court for peer-to-peer behavior, and it often requires financial or physical damages, not just harassment.
• Companies enforce private policy on their users, but it’s unlikely when harassment happens off-platform.

None of this would help. When no remedies apply, many harassers get away with everything, and their targets give up — but I felt that more could still be done.

After trying direct contact with the thief, I tracked his accounts to identify him in real life. I found his family, school and work. Self-defense towards harassment can include pressure by private contacts to sources close to the thief. Sometimes it ends the issue socially, but lack of response brings us to a last resort: contacting a news site to warn others not to fall for it, and clear my name.

Now you know. I’m Sierra, the real person whose character and art commissions have been stolen. The “Sierra” impersonator even uses my identity for art that I did NOT commission, and some of it is NSFW. Think about how bad that is! What if he does something wrong with minors?

This is how the thief was confronted (the thief is highlighted):

The thief went by Minty before, and did not deny being Minty.

The thief admitted doing it to their harassment target…

…then the thief played victim and kept doing it.

Here’s what came from tracking the thief, with evidence viewed by Dogpatch Press. Past account activity identified the person behind it who uses the nickname Minty, real first name Caleb, in Manitoba, British Columbia, Canada. There are associated payments. It’s strange that his adoptive dad is a Canadian cop, who didn’t answer reporter questions, and neither did his uncle, a real estate agent.

There you have it. The thief harasses random strangers and refuses to stop. He is welcome to contact with an apology, remove all of the impersonation as “Sierra” and cease doing it to anyone. Until then, there will be a news story and warnings between community members to protect the real Sierra.

Beware of fake accounts! To avoid having the impersonator claim to be the victim, contact these accounts to have the real Sierra verify anything:

• Discord: “sierrathewynx” userID: 253224978881839104
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sierrathewynx.bsky.social 
• FurAffinity: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/osolhaug 

Dogpatch Press recommends leaving comments here if you see more impersonation.

The face of Minty, who is NOT the real Sierra.

Older activity tied to the impersonator’s real identity.

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Try these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for news or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. (Content Policy.)

The late Dr. Osamu Tezuka is still well-known around the world as the creator of Kimba the White Lion — and so much anime and manga besides. Now the folks at Ablaze have brought us a rare Tezuka manga for the first time in English. It’s called Tomorrow The Birds. “Originally published between 1971 and 1975, this collection of short stories depicts an Earth in which birds become the planet’s dominate species. It started with several minor but unusual attacks by birds against humans, more a nuisance than anything. However, as birds capable of harnessing fire began to appear, using it to set fire to people’s homes, things began to escalate. Eventually, a highly intelligent leader of the birds emerges to begin negotiations with humankind on behalf of his people… What force jump-started the birds’ wild jump in evolution? And what will be the fate of humans in this new world order?” Find out! (And be nice to Polly, Kimba!)

image c. 2025 Ablaze

Furry art beyond figure drawing

264 pages, softcover, available for US$35 from the Collegeville store

Review by Jack Newhorse (Tom Geller) of a graphic novel by TUVVIN (Clyde Kopernik, who granted permission to use all graphics provided.)

Source: Page 133

I’ve been looking forward to the first graphic novel of Clyde Kopernik (“TUVVIN”) since a 2021 interview on the Furreal podcast. The “talk show all about furry content creators” featured thumbnails of the host and guest, drawn (I assume) by the guests themselves.

TUVVIN’s thumbnail stood out. The figures were expressive — host Matty eager, TUVVIN blasé. But most furry artists can draw expressive characters.

What grabbed me was its technique: misregistered, full of deliberate printing artifacts, the background a swirling miasma suggesting ghostly souls looming in a drug-induced dream. As in Edvard Munch’s image “The Scream”, the background elevates the foreground. Behind cartoon TUVVIN’s bored gaze, a storm rages.

Welcome to Collegeville

A Town Called Collegeville: A Horror-Tragedy was released four years later, supported by a Patreon and a Kickstarter that quickly reached three times its US$5,000 goal. The 264-page softcover is “a horror comic about a series of murders that takes place in a small town in Indiana in the summer of 1973.”

Loosely speaking, Collegeville follows Mary, drummer for an all-female band named Lackadaisy Junction. They perform at “The Zebulon”, run by the middle-aged Rhett. Also performing are John and the Murderjockeys, a band comprising four of the unruly and violent Cook brothers. The fifth brother is “Chopper” Cook, his face enigmatically frozen in a mad sardonicus. Floating above all is Roy, a genderqueer aficionado of the dark arts and LSD.

Source: Page 72, also on webshop

The world is deeply evocative of its time (1973) and place (a small town in the Midwestern US). TUVVIN lives in Northeastern Ohio and knows the landscape, even if too young to know the period firsthand. But the homework was done: Clothing, cars, and street scenes feel real to me as someone who grew up at this time. (I made a short video about Collegeville‘s environment.) TUVVIN loves this world and the book is a love letter to it.

Patreon post

Transcending furry art

As a visual feast, the book is a success. As a story, less so. Events happen in a sequence along unrelated threads, the “series of murders” being one of them. But there’s also the oil crisis, Mary’s failing family business, the Cook brothers’ violence, the bands, the relationship between Mary and Roy, Roy’s acid trips. It’s a lot, and some threads are abandoned, unresolved.

And yet they create a world rich in angst, poverty, and mood. The taste of bologna with mayo on white bread. High-tension lines buzz on colossal pylons, looming over lost children as they wander through railyards, poisoned streams, and other detritus of a culture in descent. Inescapable.

I’m reminded of the TV show Peaky Blinders, whose plot, characters, and settings I found wanting on first watching. And yet, it’s beautiful. I realized: It’s not about storytelling, but sensuality. The characters are models for beautiful costuming, the locations a proscenium arch for the sets, the whole a showcase for stunning cinematography. And then I was hooked.

Source: Page 98

“Furry Art in the Expanded Field”

So Collegeville is ambitious. But is it furry? The characters are anthropomorphic, but they didn’t have to be. Their species are irrelevant except to show family relationships. (Mary’s a chihuahua-corgi, the Cooks are rabbit-cats, Rhett and his niece are papillons.)

So what makes it furry? Some would say art is furry because it’s from within the furry fandom, as an event producer asserted when I asked what “furry music” is. Collegeville also (arguably) has an element of fursona, which researcher Reuben Mount (“Vanguard Husky”) calls “a key aspect of furry identity” (video): In the Furreal splashscreen, TUVVIN self-depicts as the acid-dropping Roy.

At its base, furry art is figure drawing: Characters imagining characters. Many furry artists stop there. (After all, figure drawing is all you need to do badge commissions.) But it’s only one component. Through other components — backgrounds, composition, Roy Lichtenstein-inspired technique — Collegeville contextualizes and deepens these characters.

So the fursona makes it furry; context makes it art. Such contextualization, I’d argue, moves it into what Auryn (Brett Hanover), termed “the Expanded Field” at the first Furry Studies conference in October 2024. As they said, a growing movement of furries are “bringing furry aesthetics and experiences to bear on the critical discourses of the contemporary avant-garde.” They brought this together with a groundbreaking gallery exhibit ROOM PARTY, which ran for six weeks around Anthrocon 2025. (TUVVIN was a participating artist.)

I believe we’re at the cusp of furry artists seeing themselves as part of a larger art world. Artists like TUVVIN are reaching out, and some on the other side are reaching in. But turning furry art into “fine” art takes more than throwing in a few Photoshop effects, just as a “fine” artist can’t make their work furry by adding ears and a tail. It takes work. As a Patreon member for the years leading up to Collegeville‘s publication, I got to see the color tests, the textural experiments, the way this Indiana town became what it was. Even if TUVVIN sometimes overreached, it’s far-reaching work in “the expanded field”. And I can’t wait to see what comes next.

– Jack Newhorse

Patreon post

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Try these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for news or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. (Content Policy.)

Hello, Papabear,

I'm a polytherian and otherkin. How do you deal with species dysphoria? I always feel like my skin is too tight or that I'm supposed to not have legs but a seal tail. I'm really struggling with this.

Sharkie (age 11)

* * *

Dear Sharkie,

Because you wrote to me via a school server in Australia, I can't reply directly to you (school servers block unknown IP addresses), so I will post this on my website and hope you see it there.

While psychologists would call this "species dysphoria" and say that it is a psychological disorder needing treatment, therians and otherkin would say it's just another day at the office. Also, there are some furries who are not therians or otherkin who have experienced the same thing. Anyway, based on your letter, you sound like a selkie, which is a being who can be in either seal or human form. If you're polytherian, then I guess you must have other forms as well? Including a shark, I gather....

There are several kinds of dysphoria, as you probably know. Along with species dysphoria, there is the familiar gender dysphoria that has been in the news a lot of late. But there is also social dysphoria (the feeling you don't belong in various social situations because you feel your identity as a person doesn't match what it should be) and body dysphoria (the dissatisfaction with what your body looks like). My belief--though I don't really see this mentioned in psych papers--is that species and body dysphoria are closely linked. 

Again speaking from a psychological point of view, dysphoria in its various forms may be caused by anxiety, depression, personal trauma, or other negative experiences that make you feel detached in some way from your body and personality. Dissociation is a type of coping mechanism. For example, the feeling that "If I am not actually that human girl who is suffering so much, then I am not truly the person being harmed, which means I can cope with it sort of like watching a TV show in which a character is experiencing a bad situation and I'm just a member of the audience."

The "treatment," following this logic, is to find some professional assistance to help you manage and cope with the trauma you are experiencing. Once that feeling of distress and anxiety is eased because the cause is addressed, then it makes sense that the dysphoria should also ease if not vanish altogether.

Okay, so there's the psychology. Now let's talk some spirituality.

I don't know how much you read my column, but I have expressed before my belief that we in this life are living in a shell that is not actually us but merely a kind of fleshy garment we wear in order to better navigate this reality. What we truly are is not an individual of the Homo sapiens species. That's just for now. I also think that when we "die," it is just the shell that perishes. The being we truly are continues. There is no real death. And it is very possible we have lived other lives and will live other lives in the "future" (if there is such a thing as "time," which is another item open for debate). So, it might be, Sharkie, that you once were a seal or sea lion (and you have some dim memory of that life) or, perhaps, you desire to be one in the next life. 

So, why are you not one now? Some people believe that before we are born on this planet we, for some reason we don't recall, chose to be this particular individual in this particular form. We felt we had something to learn by doing so, or perhaps something to give, something to do, that was best done as a human being rather than as some kind of pinniped or fish. Therefore, Sharkie, you need to live out this life to do what needs to be done in the here and now. (Unless you really are a selkie, in which case you should see if you can locate some selkie and related otherkin online and hang out with them some for a bit of comfort and camaraderie.)

As someone who is just 11 years old, you have much growing and self-exploration to do yet. Don't panic that you are having a bit of a topsy-turvy time of it right now. That's normal as you transition from childhood to adulthood (and beyond). You're okay. Just try to be yourself and remember that you are more than just your body. You are spirit. You are mind. You are a sentient being exploring the universe.

All will be well.

Bear Hugs,
Papabear

TigerTails Radio Season 16 Episode 29 Join the Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/SQ5QuRf Join the Telegram Chat: https://t.me/+yold2C77m0I1MmM0 Visit the website at http://www.tigertailsradio.co.uk. See website for full breakdown of any song credits, which is usually updated shortly after the show. Credits: Opening music: Magic by Hedge Haiden (Double Hedge Studios) Character art: Fitzroy Fox - https://www.furaffinity.net/user/lunara-toons / https://bsky.app/profile/fitzroyfox.bsky.social Background art: Charleston Rat - https://www.furaffinity.net/user/charlestonrat / https://bsky.app/profile/charlestonrat.bsky.social If you like what we do and wish to throw some pennies our way to support us, please consider sending a little tip our way. https://streamlabs.com/tigertailsradio/tip * Please note, tips are made to support TigerTails Radio and are assumed as made with good faith, so are therefore non-refundable. Thank you for your support and understanding.

Previously, I talked about Elestrals when I covered the Elestrals Clash! Kickstarter a while back ago. Now, the highly anticipated digital client for the TCG is finally in early access and available to the wider public. It’s still rough around the edges but it shows a lot of promise and now that I’ve had a bit of time with it, I’m excited to talk about it. 

TigerTails Radio Season 16 Episode 30 Join the Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/SQ5QuRf Join the Telegram Chat: https://t.me/+yold2C77m0I1MmM0 Visit the website at http://www.tigertailsradio.co.uk. See website for full breakdown of any song credits, which is usually updated shortly after the show. Credits: Opening music: Magic by Hedge Haiden (Double Hedge Studios) Character art: Fitzroy Fox - https://www.furaffinity.net/user/lunara-toons / https://bsky.app/profile/fitzroyfox.bsky.social Background art: Charleston Rat - https://www.furaffinity.net/user/charlestonrat / https://bsky.app/profile/charlestonrat.bsky.social If you like what we do and wish to throw some pennies our way to support us, please consider sending a little tip our way. https://streamlabs.com/tigertailsradio/tip * Please note, tips are made to support TigerTails Radio and are assumed as made with good faith, so are therefore non-refundable. Thank you for your support and understanding.

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.

* * *

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

* * *

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.