[x]

The Cartographer's DaughterEvery night, he would fold her into his arms before she slept. Creases grew into her, turning brown with wear, and she loved them. When she woke up in the night, dreaming of darkness, he would take her to his desk and draw for her a map of her face, turning it into another world. Tracing the contours of her smile, he would scrawl a warning, "Here be monsters", whispering to her that she was a dragon when angry.

As she grew older, she populated his maps with creatures and peoples from the books she read, or her own creations. He taught her to draw, and to write with an old inkpen, in a cursive script her teacher could make neither head nor ta

The FountainThere were sixteen tall windows. She'd counted them over and over when she was small, her chubby finger outstretched as she spun in tiny circles. Eight walls, sixteen windows, thirty-two black curtains—the arithmetic of her childhood.

"Eight window seats, Daddy. Eight buttons on each—sixty-four. I counted."

The fountain stood dry and dead-center in the middle of the black and white tiles. Eight sides, eight lion-mouth spouts. Sixteen limestone mermaids poised gracefully around the edge. Four thousand and ninety-six blue tiles. Five hundred and twelve white.

And two doors. Always the two doors, huge and solid and radiating a sense

petrichorNiobe weeps.

gold scattered rough across
cracked earth and the last
remains of summer - they fell
like leaves in the arms of the wind.

some scents cannot be captured.
the gods bleed onto rock,
and the stone sends her prayers
in return: petrichor.

listen - the heavy thud of
rain on parched ground;
the monsoon sealing life back in;
the sky bows and kisses earth.

Niobe weeps.

the hanged manThis little red book you call the human body:
take it up and shake it. Shake the flaking pages
out of it, shake it from endpaper to endpaper
until the last of the phrases are gone; shake it
until it's aching and empty, the soul of a bird.

I will give you new words.

The SculptorBefore he would have harvested a tree,
hacked off its limbs,
skinned it,
torn it from the earth,
shaved one by one its cells - its outer core,
until it was what he believed it was,

no more a tree.

Wiser, he walks deep in to the wood,
underneath a forest giant he stops,
looks up in to the leafy branches, sighs,
climbs and sheds his tears upon its boughs.

SuperimposeHe doesn't look like a gymnast. He's all button down shirts and frazzled grey hair framing wire spectacles, a picture perfect professorial archetype down to the very tips of his frayed shoelaces. But he was a gymnast once, or so he tells us, and I believe him because he smiles like he knows something while he's chatting before class.

It's strange to see that image superimposed over the current one – the distinguished professor in pressed khaki slacks and a jacket, worn brown loafers exuding a faintly courteous manner (you can always tell them by their shoes), and a ring on the fourth finger of his left hand – versus the athletic ki

THAT Woman     First they said, "No wind chimes outside the cottages. Three warnings will be given, then you are subject to eviction."
     My Granny said, "Humph. I like my old bamboo windchime. I can't even reach it no more to take it down. It's gonna stay, dammit, and I will too."
     I told Granny, "Not if they evict you, you won't. I can take it down."
     She looked at me over her reading glasses, with that Look she has.
     "If anyone's evicted, you can go with em, Sonny. I'm stayin put. Me and that damn windchim

The Solipsist's LotThere's something about yourself that you don't know. You probably don't remember the circumstances very well, but I do. If you enjoy things the way they are, if you revel in even the smallest speck of ignorance, you need not read ahead. I won't force you. But from what I know of you, you don't like secrets. Especially not when they are about you.

You see, when you were born, so at once was everyone else. Your mother, she sprang into existence, just like that, the instant your tiny infant brain achieved the smallest semblance of self-awareness. Woven out of the ethe

Searching for the SunI.

The day everything ended, she was standing in a parking lot, weary from a long day of departures and destinations, staring up at the sky. Clouds strolled west, their armfuls of grey dripping out of their grasp and spattering onto the asphalt, onto her upturned face. They rolled and crashed into one another, piling up high in the stratosphere like mountains of cottony stone. Once, they had been at war, and their arguments had sliced across the countryside with the recklessness of a summer fire. Now, though, something had calmed them. Perhaps they were tired from their travel like her, or perhaps it was the sun, gently wedging them apart wi

earth circuitAnd when the sun sinks, the earth's skin crawls:

I.
I wonder if this awkward creature would notice me the way I notice him.
He's so tragic at his throne
I stare after him longingly.
And yet,
He never realizes that I'm the one
Who forever basks in his brilliant beams.
If only he knew how much brighter he could burn
[with me]
He'd light up the universe.

II.
I heard him speak of thirst, once.
The quenching lust of the stars had run dry.
So that night, I brought along a jar of acid.
(And how it gleamed in his glow).
I handed it to him, wrapped in taffeta ribbons,
screaming
I wish curdling joy
On my gurgling boy

The Little SparrowHer name was Emma, and she wasn't afraid of falling. For as long as she could remember she had been jumping - always plummeting. She understood the laws of nature: no matter how high she climbed, gravity would always carry her back to the ground; gravity would always grant her momentum to fall and wind-resistance to float. She understood why birds had wings and humans didn't; it was because humans would just as soon leave, and they belonged on the ground.

They always called her a little sparrow, always trying to fly, but they never understood that she didn't want updrafts or wings, she only wanted to scale walls and scurry up trees, to test

Va'eiraThis was a lesson in just how quiet it can be
when you don't make enough noise.

Me, holding a toy gun to a stranger's head
"Remember when things stopped being ridiculous?"

You, eating dandelions in a midnight field
"About the same time things stopped making sense."

A boy in church camp carved a small crucifix
for his arts and crafts project. He won the blue
ribbon and a brand new Bible. The next morning
I found it hanging over our cabin door.
A toad was nailed to the cross.
Still breathing.
Still breathing.

Sometimes we wake up early enough to hide the evil from our world.
Still breathing.

The CartI always got my best book recommendations from my old library cart. Well, the library cart wasn't really mine. I was a shelver at my town's library, before I started college, and I would use their carts to do my job.

I first noticed something was up with the cart when I was shelving juvenile paperbacks. These were the lightest books we owned (and kept in the worst shape - kids are brats). But when I was rolling the cart, it was heavy. It groaned when I pushed it, and steering it was a mini-workout. It wasn't this hard to move a double-stack of adult non-fiction.

What was really odd, though, was as I removed more books, it barely got lighter

Wild Hunt :: LongmaLike any good story, this one does not begin where it began. It does, however, begin where it ends—at a funeral.

The village was not particularly big. Rather, it was frightfully small, and just as frightfully remote. That said, it was little surprise that every denizen turned out for something so important as the funeral of a good man.

—and it truly was each and every one: every man, woman, and child; every son, brother, and father; every maiden, mother, and crone. It was said even the dogs followed at the heels of their masters, even the songbirds gathered in the trees, and the livestock unable to free themselves from their pens

Across the Sea and Around the KotatsuSpring

Taco Rice

Mom starts with rice. Japanese rice, one, two, three Japanese cup-fulls of rice grains into the cooker, because Sis eats a lot of this stuff. It's one of her favorite dishes, taco rice, and Mom's always happy to make it for her because it's the only way Sis will eat her tomatoes. But back to the rice. "You want to rinse at least three or four times, until the water's kind of clear," Mom says as she cups her hand under the cooker pot, letting the cloudy water wash over her hand.

Rice cooking's easy though – just fill enough water to the point the rice's covered, punch in a time (or set it to "Quick Cook," which with our cre

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Teatime

by ~anapests-and-ink, Jan 11, 2012, 12:11:59 PM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

In January, Elsa got new neighbors.  She greeted them with apple cinnamon tea.

It gets so cold, here, they told her, shivering in overstuffed parkas.  Snow had turned to mud in their front hall—an unavoidable side-effect of moving in winter.  Elsa nodded along to their complaints and observations, silently brewing the tea in their kitchen.  They were young; they had big plans.  Allison and Steve, newlyweds, just starting out.  They sat on the cold floor together, sipping with chapped lips.  The house filled with cinnamon.

In April, Allison knocked on Elsa's door.  We're pregnant!  White tea in a china teacup; the taste of flower petals and champagne.  The last caffeine for the next eight months.  Elsa let her keep the cup.

In May, Steve bought a carseat and a crib.  Elsa helped him carry it inside.  Flat-packed, but heavy.  Sturdy.  Allison and Elsa sipped celebratory peppermint, watching Steve fumble with wood glue and a hammer.  Her mother was sewing a quilt, green and yellow because they didn't want to know.

In June, it was Steve.  His face was stretched, too tight in some places, sagging in others.  She gave him chamomile (soothing, with a hint of earth) and sat him at the kitchen table.  We lost the baby.  Elsa didn't say anything.  She'd known before he walked in the door.

In July, they sat on the stoop, watching children ride bikes and run through sprinklers.  Elsa brought pitcher after pitcher of cold green tea.  Sometimes it had lemon wedges, sometimes oranges.  On the hottest days, she added mint.  By August, Allison stopped coming outside.

In November, Elsa joined them for Thanksgiving.  She hadn't been invited—no one had been invited—but she refused to let them be alone.  She brewed blackcurrant, for warmth and sorrow.  Steve chattered about nonsense for hours.  Allison didn't speak.

In December, they rang the doorbell.  We're moving.  Elsa bought them a teapot, stuffed with apple cinnamon and white and green and blackcurrant.  She left out the chamomile.  Steve seemed relieved.

When they left, Elsa made African rooibos (roots and sunshine and all things lost), and drank it sitting on the kitchen floor.

Teatimeby ~anapests-and-ink

Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

For #theWrittenRevolution's Anniversary Contest ([link]): "Intense emotion mixed with something neutral (e.g. sensory perception/math equations)", and a bit of "A specific part of the day, over a span of time, to tell a story".

Questions:

1. Does the form work for you? If not, how would you change it?
2. Does it fit the premises for the contest?
3. Suggestions?

(for #theWrittenRevolution: [link])

edit 5/23/12: Because I am very dim, I forgot to mention that the contest is now closed (as of April 4th, actually...

). I won second place for prose!

...and a DLD. And a DD. Holy crap.

edit 12/3/12: The ever amazing *disrhythmic has done a reading (here: [link]) for #Elocutionists. Amazing reading, amazing group. You should check them both out!

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-05-23

Teatime by ~anapests-and-ink Suggester Writes: "The joy of tea is rediscovered in this quaint, though undeniably emotionally moving piece. Beautiful in its circularity. ( Suggested by `Amberlouie and Featured by ^Beccalicious )

love 2 2

joy 4 4

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

*AnonDesu Feb 19, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Aw man, this is great :>

I could talk about the like, juxtaposition of like, the tea and the realness, but you already know that.

The simplicity is what drives this, you know? Like, the quietness (not silence) of it all. It's subtle. Like the light floral undertone in a good Ti Kuan Yin.

~anapests-and-ink Feb 22, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

A little embarrassed to admit it, but I had to look up Ti Kuan Yin--and now I absolutely must try it.

"Quietness" is very much what I was going for with this piece. I'm very glad you got it!

(and thank you for the fav!)

*AnonDesu Feb 22, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Hahah, don't worry about it. I worked at a tea shop for way too long, and this was the first time I really got to bust out that knowledge outside of business