beginnings

Well, this seems to be a beginning. So lets start with the beginning, shall we? Or, rather a series of beginnings.

There was once a little dog named Spode, and he was the worst dog in his entire town. He used to bite the ankles of a child called by everyone in her town Ambelina. The reasons for this was forgotten by the girl, but it was said that on one summers day she was going on a picnic with her family and strayed into the forest next to the meadow.

The forest was haunted by a benevolent pixie, who used to take rides on the back of the great lizard Actuin. Actuin was the head of his lizard clan, and the bitter rival of Clevant, the head of the tortoise clan.

Clevant was the oldest tortoise, and therefor considered the wisest, but this is a logical fallacy, because greater age does not always mean greater wisdom, as Clevant was to learn that fateful day in January. It was a very cold January and the old tortoise was moving very slowly. He was bumbling along, thinking about how to find a warmer place to sun himself when he tumbled along the path to Mr. McGreggor's hut.

And that's all you get for now because it's getting to be rather too long, and rather too late. I shall post more beginnings and possibly some middles later.

Love Bites

The bruise above my kneww
has faded some
I wear my skirt hiked up
And think of you

I want people to see;
to think I'm claimed
with this badge of honor,
this thing of pride

The shape has become strange
as though a bloom
has spread across my skin
in blue and green

Its place seems to suggest
that there are more
trailing up past my hems
to darker places

But really, the truth is
I fell over, riding my bike
while not thinking of you at all
(not at all, I swear)

Resurrect or Reanimate? A concourse on the Benefits and Detriments of Raising the Dead

I collected my first few corpses (don't worry, they were willing subjects!) and I'm ready to Execute my Plans. But there's a very important question to be answered, and I'm leaving it up to you, dear readers.
Shall I reanimate or resurrect the corpses? Both present problems and advantages. For instance, Reanimated don't talk back, but they also don't do anything unless they're explicitly ordered and even then they probably won't do it right. Resurrected can look after themselves and don't need to be reminded how to walk every 5 minutes, but can sometimes come to the absurd conclusion that what their Master is doing is Evil and Must be Thrown Into the Pits of Hell (or something else dreadful)
So what shall I do? Vote in comments section!

Microwaves and echos

It's taken me a long time, but I think I've finally figured out what my microwave is trying to tell me when it beeps.
"Finished!" is 3
"I'm switching power cycles now." is 5 in the middle of heating.
"HELP, I AM ON FIRE." Is 13
"Go away" Is 2 rather short beeps
"Whatever it is, I'm against it." Is 7
"You're not paying enough attention to me" is 4, repeated until it's satisfied
"I don't care what you say, I'm not going to heat that to the right temperature, and you're just going to have to live with it." Is 8
"I've been disconnected!" Is 1.5
"Feed me" is 6
"I am pouting because I am feeling ignored" Is one long, low beep.
and "I'm happy!" NEVER STOPS.

Alone, in the kitchen with an onion

Inspired by the second story on this episode of "selected Shorts" (though you should listen to the first one as well) I have a question for all of you. What do you find yourself making, again and again (even though you know no one else in the world would think it ;s normal) when your alone, in the kitchen with no one else to cook for?
I grill onions. Sometimes in butter, sometimes in olive oil, with mushrooms when I have them, usually with garlic, sometimes with a little cheese melted into it. But usually, just slopped straight from the pan into a bowl, all gooey and salty, eaten alone with a fork.

Armageddon and Tea

Taking a repast between fighting Armageddon.

It really wasn't supposed to turn out this way, and we're very sorry. We didn't realize that this would actually happen, thought it was a joke. Loki and I found this old recipe - very old recipe - in a book buried in the attic at that old church we were scavenging in in Innsmouth. And, well we're both tea enthusiasts you see, so we couldn't resist it. It sounded like fun at the time. So we made it. And drank it.
Forgive us please, we honestly didn't believe this would happen. It's been exciting though, hasn't it? Zombies and horsemen and the leagions of heaven and hell, giant ships made of dead men's toenails, titans and monsters, heroes and villains. Too bad about the robots, really thought they were going to be on our side. And the swine.
We're still sorry for starting the whole thing, honestly. Too bad the tea wasn't very good.

Excerpt from a Very Old Book Indeed:

Armageddon Tea is made from the Blackest of Black Lapsang Souchong leaves dried over the burning embers of Yggdrasil the life tree, imbuing the leaves with smokey bitterness and despair. Other flavors are added later, including bitter orange and Naga Jolokia peppers harvested in their native Assam at the peak of summer.

Instructions for brewing Armageddon tea:
To achieve full flavor, boil 1 cup of leaves in 1 gallon of the tears of the innocent over hellfire until the liquid is reduced to the size of your tea cup. Add a dash of bitter orange extract or essence of end times. Pour into your favorite tea cup and despair!

A word of warning: be careful not to look too deeply into your cup, as there is a slight chance that the blackness of it will consume your soul.

Prices

I've been asked what the price for a story is. But, like it says, price is negotiable. Whatever you can afford is fine withme, can you only spare the second breath that your third daughter took? Fine, I'll take it. Might not be a very long story, but you'll still get one. Maybe you never really wanted that freckle in your eye, anyway. That's cool, I can do something with it.
Lost favorite stuffed animals, odds and ends of bike parts from a bike you don't remember owning, family tapes filled with thumbs in the lens, dragonfly collections, horsefly whips, mighty eggplants, dainty oaks, burnt out light bulbs, the first time you realized that yes, peanut butter cups are an acceptable breakfast, snippets of your favorite dream, your worst nightmare, an old pen that doesn't work anymore (but still writes magnificent stories no one reads), a typewriter that's missing its Q, and has an extra B there instead, the pine needles that got stuck in your foot that time you decided it would be a good idea to go outside barefoot at the cabin, the first time you saw snow and realized that each little bit was unique from every other little bit, your understanding of Quantum Physics.
All these things are accepted, and whatever else you might have around that you don't need. Just ask, and I'll be able to trade something for it, I'm sure.