August 13-19, 2023

August 13, 2023

Noun: Sun, Genre: Space Western, Character: Logician

The tri-suns of the backwater desert planet inched their way toward the wavering horizon. He stood, hands clasped behind his back, and waited. Soon, it would be sunset and the man who had challenged him to a standoff would come stumbling out of the town's bar with all the grace of a rat sliding across grease-slicked floors.

And he would kill him just as easily and righteously.

He couldn't see the logic in it, the pointless pride of these gunslingers without even ships to get then off the planets they were born on. The planets he would ensure they died on, too. It didn’t matter, in the end. He would kill, with the calculated precision of a practiced hand, and he would claim the bounty on the foolish man's head. Nothing but perfect logic in that.

August 14, 2023

Noun: Class, Genre: Crime/Mystery, Character: Slasher Villain

It had been the only thing anyone talked about for weeks. Emily almost couldn’t stand it. If she had to hear her kids come home from school clamoring to find out the latest news on the string of killings in town one more time--

She sighed, tapping one finger against the rim of her steering wheel. It wasn’t their fault, really--everyone in their community was invested in the news, and they should be. Whether they were scared out of their minds or morbidly curious about whoever was going around dismembering entire families, everyone she knew had the right to talk about it as much as they pleased. 

She just wished it didn’t serve as such a reminder to her that she was failing at her job. It was times like these she wished she was still a barista—it wasn’t like adding too much foam to a latte was quite as world-ending for someone as losing all their children and their husband like poor Lyla. She hadn’t been home with them when it happened. A blessing and a curse from what Emily’s heard.

She checked her phone and craned her neck to peer up at the high school. Opal, her eldest daughter, was supposed to have been done with choir practice fifteen minutes ago. Most of the other parents had already picked up their children and gone. It was making Emily more than a little antsy.

She finally appeared in the doorway of the school accompanied by a young man. Emily let out another sigh, sitting back in her seat and trying not to feel annoyed. She could have at least texted. 

The boy walked Opal up to Emily’s car, giving an awkward wave and half-smile to her. He said something, though Emily couldn’t hear what, but whatever he said made Opal laugh. She didn’t stop smiling until he waved to her and began to walk across the street. Must have lived close by.

Opal finally got in, and Emily tried not to be brusque with her while they talked about her day. Just because Emily was stressed out didn’t mean her children should receive the brunt of her stress.

A blessing and a curse. That’s what she’d thought back in the car. But when she got home to find her children’s and husband’s body parts strewn about the floor, she almost would rather have joined them. If only not for Opal, she would have rather taken her shame and pain to the grave with her.

They had only been dead for a few minutes, she would find out. A few minutes between her getting home and the killer escaping. 

How convienent, she thought, that she’d been running fifteen minutes late that day. How utterly perfect for the killer. 

And how utterly egotistical to think she wouldn’t catch on.

August 15, 2023

Noun: Depression, Genre: Fantasy, Character: Shapeshifter

He woke up in a ditch with the worst bloody hangover in his life. Except, at that moment, he was a she, and there was another man in the depression with him. Tall, muscular, and half-naked--probably a farmer if he had to guess. He kept himself as a woman while he tried to extract himself from the man’s light grasp without rousing him. Morning afters were too awkward for his tastes. 

Mission accomplished. The man let out a soft snore, and he slipped on his shirt and trousers before poking his head out of the ditch and squinting against the morning light. There were the city walls in the distance and the river cutting through the land to the right of that. He locked eyes with a nearby sheep chewing on some cud and gave it a devilish grin. 

His gaze slipped back to his partner last night. He wondered if the man had any money on him, but after a moment, decided against robbing him. Not out of any real reason, but just because that seemed a new low, even for him. And he’d just woken up in a fucking hole in the ground--he was about as low as he wanted to get.

He climbed up onto the field of grass, stretching and popping his back. He changed back into a man, his skin tightening in some place, expanding in others, and decided going for an uglier look this time around. Disproportionate features, limp hair--with the feminine clothes, it really went the whole nine yards. 

He wanted to see if he could still manage to pick anyone up like that.

Brushing off the crumbs of dirt on his clothes--but mostly just smearing them into the fabric--he began ambling back toward the city, whistling a merry tune. It was a good day to be a shapeshifter.

August 16, 2023

Noun: Plan, Genre: Magical Realism, Character: Father

“My dad has just been so annoying lately.” Amelia flicked the bendy straw of her little apple juice box, which only pissed her off more. Who sent a junior to high school with an apple juice box in her lunch? She wasn’t five anymore.

“You could always come over to my house,” Mia said across the table from her, grinning sharply, fangs visible under her pale lip. 

Amelia snorted. “And step into a mushroom ring? Your dad would probably never let me back out.”

Mia shrugged. The fae didn't seem too bothered, if her still-present smile was anything to go off. She probably thought she'd get Amelia one day.

"I feel you," David said, nodding, his scales glinting under the afternoon sun. "My dad is such a hoarder, it's impossible to get anywhere in my house."

Amelia smirked. "And what does he hoard again?"

David sighed through his nose, a bit of white smoke wafting from his nostrils. "Newspapers. And participation trophies."

"Why does a dragon collect newspapers? Seems like a bad idea if you ask me," Amelia said.

"Our house is brick," David deadpanned.

"Hey, at least your dad is still kicking." Ophelia clasped her hands together, all three pairs. "I never hear the end of my mom's exes. Oh, this one was rude, this one was boring, this one was just too juicy looking. And having fifty million siblings out there from an immortal spider queen? I never know peace."

Amelia refused to cringe, but the others in their lunch group did. Ophelia probably complained about her mom more than Amelia did her dad. Not that she didn’t have a good reason.

That was alright though. She hadn't forgotten that her dad bought her a purse from something she liked when she was seven for her birthday, but she guessed there were worse fathers out there.

August 17, 2023

Noun: Term, Genre: Military Fiction, Character: Unlikely Hero

What was the term for it again? Oh right, serendipity. This wonderful happenstance that occurs so often in life. Being born in a country, for instance, that was so eager to find young men and put weapons in their hands. Agreeing to it at a young age, not because it was the right thing to do, like so many preached. Not because it would open doorways for him later in life--jobs, school, benefits the general populace didn’t receive. Not even because his parents did it--or even wanted him to have anything to do with it. They were scared he would die or worse. And that was a very real possibility that he was sure a lot of young men his age thought wouldn’t happen to him.

But that didn’t matter to him. He would go and he would fight. And when he came back home and they pinned medals on his chest and called him a hero, he wouldn’t argue with them. But if you ever ask him why he joined in the first place, then, he will look you in the eyes and plainly say:

I didn’t want to help people. I wanted to kill them.

August 18, 2023

Noun: Room, Genre: Essay, Character: Warrior

It is a very strange quandary, the place of warriors in our world. The ends justify the means, after all; that’s why peace borne from bloodshed is seen as viable. And yet, the people that go fight, the people who go kill, we pretend that they don’t exist. That the wars are over and the peace has already been acquired for everything and everyone. So long as the war is not darkening our doorstep, we enjoy peaceful summer days. 

It is a very strange quandary, then, this idea held in the minds of so many. That we need the warriors to fight for us, but that there is no other space for them to inhabit. Warriors will not prosper in a peaceful society--and when the society pretends that’s all there is, what could be left for them? The soldier will oftentimes return home just to find his old position filled--another man in his career, with his wife, with his children. The warrior left to fight, and though he did not win it once and for all, he returns home, just to find that home has lost the room to hold him, too.

August 19, 2023

Noun: Money, Genre: Crime/Mystery, Character: Tyrant

“That’s what it’s all about,” he says, tapping the side of his cigar where it hangs above his ashtray. “Isn’t it?”

The men who, on his word, will live to kill his enemies or die trying. The women who simper and swoon over him and clients alike in their dresses and makeup. The pigs who can be convinced to be blind if only for a moment. But sometimes, that’s all he needs. 

“It makes this whole, wide world go ‘round,” he says, peering over the tops of his shades. There’s a drink in his other hand, ice cubes clinking where they hit the glass and each other in a pool of bourbon. 

It was the sole desire of every country and king, every child and elder and in-between. Anyone who said otherwise was a lying rat.

Just like the one in front of him right now. 

“I’m sorry, sir. Please, I didn’t mean for it to go this far. If you only give me another chance--”

He nods. The rat’s mouth flickers into a smile for a moment before the bang and flash go off. Blood and viscera flare across the room as the rat’s body crumples to the floor. He sets his cigar down and knocks back the rest of his drink.

“Clean this up,” he says. His right-hand man still holds the smoking gun, and the brute nods to him.

This rat wasn’t the only one. Wouldn’t be the only one exterminated, either. He just had to go get the others.