Month / April 2021

by BiSKITs & Gravy

Terra Spirit Part ? …continued

by K. Osorio-Teamer

She was alive.  

“I’ve been waiting for you to get with the program, niña! I couldn’t believe it took you this long to find your way to me.” 

Olivia looked Ms. Dario up and down, but she was too shocked to move in for a closer inspection. Arabela “Alive and Living” Dario was in a long black dress embroidered with matching feathers. She donned her favorite scarf. How she and the scarf made their way from the funeral home to this room was still a mystery. The tropical bird mask sat perfectly on her face, recreating her sharp cheekbones. The lime green of the beak leading to her deep brown eyes. It was her.  

“Hello? Me oíste? Are you listening?”  

“Yes,” Olivia managed to utter the syllable. Ms. Dario was unchanged. No glossy eyes, decaying skin, or stink of rot. She wasn’t a zombie, but there was some woo woo shit happening here. Olivia wanted to run. She didn’t know if it would be to Ms. Dario or away from her. Either way her feet had merged to the floor. She would stay frozen forever to the spot staring at her not so dead mentor.  

“Viejo, close the door.” Olivia’s heart rampaged in her body, desperately screaming for her to move.  

“Please don’t. I have to-,” Her attempted protest was interrupted by Mr. Dario’s slam of the door.  

“You have to stay. You shouldn’t have come alone, though. You know our rules: Travel in community. Always work together.” 

“Ms. Dario,” Olivia was slowly waking up from her shock, “why are you quoting Terra Spirit to me? And why are you even LIVING?” Ms. Dario put her hands to her chest, completely caught off guard by Olivia’s nerve. 

“You were sweeter when I was alive.”  

“So you ARE dead?”  

“He’s here, Ari. Should I let him in?” Mr. Dario said sweetly. Olivia wasn’t sure how much longer she’d make it through whatever the hell was happening. Adding more people to this circus could only make things worse. Was she dead already? Or maybe it was coma.  

With a nod from his love, Mr. Dario slowly turned the handle and jerked it open swiftly. Arturo hit the floor. The only thing worse than the heavy thud of his body slamming on the cement ground, was the look of horror on Arturo’s face.  

“Olivia!” he whispered shakily as he dashed next to the ice statue previously known as Olivia. The door closed again, and Ms. Dario set her eyes on the frightened pair. Olivia felt the glare passing through her skin.  

“What do you want from us?” Olivia feigned confidence. Ms. Dario met her eyes and Olivia felt the fear melt away.  

“I want you to feel and remember.” The mesmerizing mask and the voice behind it faded as Olivia found herself at the nursing station at work, looking up at Ms. Dario, who was hanging over the counter chatting. Then she was in the hallway while Ms. Dario hooked her thinning arm around Olivia’s, walking as if they were grandmother and granddaughter on a stroll. It got harder to see as tears crashed against Olivia’s eye lids. Someone placed their hands on her arms, and she allowed herself to be held.  

“Oh shit, you’re hugging?” Arturo whispered. “What are you doing to her?” He demanded the darkness surrounding them.  

“She’s feeling her love for me. Her grief. The wave will subside, it always does.” Ms. Dario’s voice calmed Olivia. Her sobs softened into silent tears.  

“How did you do it? How did you MAKE me feel?” Olivia walked closer to her alleged mentor. “Who are you?”  

“I am Arabela Dario, your terra spirit.” 

Arturo screeched an unnatural laugh.  

by BiSKITs & Gravy

Elowan

by S.L. Jordan

There is not enough that can be said for a slow Saturday morning. The kind of Saturday that is perfect for lounging where you can feel the languid breezes as they blow through open windows and make curtains dance the tango.

I was in the perfect spot for such a Saturday. My fellow house mates had left shortly after breakfast to do a little weekend thrifting, and I took advantage of the silence. They left me in my favorite place, where the sun shines directly through the french doors and lands on my body from roots to tips.

Just as I was beginning to turn my appendages toward to sun for an even tanning, I heard the keys in the door along with the excitement spilling from Jaren’s mouth. There was a huge thud before the front door swung open.

“Guess what we found Hunter?” Anise asked loudly as she skipped into the house holding half empty Starbucks cups. At the sound of his name, Hunter came tumbling down the steps -120 pounds of fur – and around the corner to greet Anise and Jaren at the door.

She excitedly grabbed his paws and tried to dance with him as she sang, “we found a French Provincial buffet”. The squeal that came from her body sent Hunter scampering away, but not too far for he still had to sniff and approve of this new item entering into the house.

Jaren continued to struggle with the buffet as Anise bounced from corner to corner, re-imaging the perfect place to put their new find. I stood there, watching the events unfold as they normally did. Anise flapping around like a gust of wind, and Jaren trying his best to direct her energy in productive ways.

Like now, as he huffed his way into the living room, he sighed as he collapsed on the floor and asked Anise if she could bring in the drawers from the car.

She stopped mid-spin and walked over to me, slowly tracing her finger along the side of my body she replied “oh of course. As soon as I put these things down.” Those things were her keys, and the half empty coffee cups. Jaren and I both knew it would be hours before she remembered his request, by which time he would have already retrieved them from the car.

Slowly standing to his full height, Jaren sighed and walked out the door. Moments later he was back with the drawers and laying in the middle of the living room, while Anise walked back and forth over his body as she moved things around to make room. The living room was her baby, a mix of vintage and eclectic finds through the years. I’d would be lying if I said she didn’t have a knack for matching opposites. I guess that’s why her and Jaren have lasted so long – longer than I would have thought when I joined them twelve years ago.

I was a baby then. That was before Hunter. Before the jobs that allowed them to buy over priced vintage finds. Before the gentrification took over, and they moved into High Five Points.

I turned my back to them – let their joy become the white noise in the background, and lifted my face to the sun.

Authors note: Usually, there is a story, a character, something that BEGS me to tell a portion of their story between the 3 weeks I post. But I have been trying to save all my creative juices to edit Nightwatcher. So, I used a writing prompt today that Tony provided for us in March.

Write a scene from the point of view of an object in a room, perhaps a new piece from Ikea or an antique, or a house plant? 

I took the name Elowan from a computer game called Starflight, but MIT took it a step further. On Thursday, researchers from the MIT Media Lab unveiled Elowan, a hybrid between a plant and a robot. Thanks to a system of electrodes and a robotic base with wheels, Elowan can detect light sources — and then drive itself toward them, using the plant’s own electrochemical signals. You can read more about it here.
by BiSKITs & Gravy

Free write exercise

By: IO

The phasing room was filled with antiques of great historical value, all waiting to be teleported to the space shuttle. The shuttle would then take the items to the main ship, Manifest Destiny, which would transport them further to the newly terraformed outer moon where the colony was setting up. Annette had asked about using the long-range teleport to get the items into a climate-controlled storage warehouse all set up on the planet but upper management said it was too expensive. Long-range teleport was for government leaders, industry tycoons, and other people important to the initiation of an intergalactic human settlement. Not “knick-knacks.” Only through the grace of some of these wealthy world-makers was a museum of original Earth culture to be established, as a luxury supplement to maintain links to human history. She was lucky to even receive the use of the short-range phaser.

Lucky was not how Annette would have described her present predicament. One early 20th century sculpture piece from Rodin was sitting on the teleport platform, twitching in and out of existence. Through her communication with preservationists awaiting the statue on the shuttle, she knew that it wasn’t making it to its designated terminus. It was phasing in and out of existence, full stop. 

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