DREAMING DIFFERENT: A Short Story

The Isle of Shadows - Fantasy Faire (SL) 2020

Dreaming Different

by Judith Cullen

© 2020 

A gentle creak as the door opens, finding a light that should not be on, and a small head which should be asleep - her face turned up in surprise. 

"Mommy!"

"Hey there. What are you doing up, little one?"

The bed sighs with the added weight as two dark, curly heads come together. Two pairs of brown eyes, so much alike, gaze at each other with love and concern.

"I had a dream"

"Oh Honey, I'm so sorry."

WHEN IT IS TIME: A Short Story

NOTE: You can now hear me reading this story on MixCloud

When It Is Time

by Caledonia Skytower

© 2020 

In memory of Elizabeth Cullen

Time. Time. I wanted more time.

She cradled in my hands: fragile, imperfect, diminishing.  

Her bubble of being had once encompassed a broad sphere. At some point she became the object of my life, rather than its influence. In the fullness of time she began to shrink, her focus narrowed, her view spare.  

As with such certainties, it's easy to ascribe them to an undefined future: the inevitable that will happen in some comfortably vague tomorrow. I held her as delicately as I could, aware of the looming presence of that inevitability. It was time, and I wanted more of it.

SOMETHING FUN: A Rhyme!

So in the midst of everything out pops this poem, inspired by a childhood rhyming game.A bit of fun and relief thanks to two fairy sprites on the region of Lunafae at Fantasy Faire SL in support of Relay for Life and the American Cancer Society.

Fairy Vari-Ation

by Judith Cullen

© 2020 

I see you Fae-mate

*clap, clap*

Come flit and fly with me

The moon is bright and free

It shines for all of we

Splash down the rain wash

around the pebbled shore

and we'll be fairy friends

for ever more

*clap*

more

*clap, clap*

more, more.

SEEKING COMPANY - A Short Story

NOTE: You can now hear me reading this story on MixCloud

Seeking Company

by Judith Cullen

© 2020 

                   

"Is this seat taken?"

I dropped to the rough wooden planks without waiting for an answer.  I knew better than to believe the voices that mutter in the gloom of 3 am; the wolves that lurk in the dark beyond the edge of your bed, or under it, their panting breath summoning every doubt and fear from the hidden depths inside you. Their province is the pitch where "false" and "true" are hard to distinguish. 

I escaped outside to a land that was gloom itself, which perfectly matched my mood.  At least I'd left the wolves to gnaw and shred the blankets, while I sought what air and light I could. There was precious little of that - a weak moon and a greenish glowing of perpetual pre-dawn. A trio of skeletons sat at the end of a forbidden pier, fishing lines ending empty above the brown muck of the water. One was drinking. I could sympathize.  They seemed like company, albeit undemanding company, frozen in the timeless moments of their demise.

I wasn't expecting a reply. Imagine the surprise when one of them spoke.

*NEW POEM* - The Nature of Change

Image Public Domain from hubblesite.org - Galaxy Pair NGC 3314

Change Whisperer

© 2020 by Judith Cullen

Smelling it,

the wafting air of change.

The weave apparent,

watching it form and shift.

Noticing when, even

well established patterns adjust.

Sometimes anticipating,

pushing the new arrangement.

Seeming alone in seeing,

movement of time, circumstance.

These efforts making

little sense to anyone else.

Limited remains

perpetual, steadfast, abiding.

Only that unseen

has the chance of constancy.

Without, the weave

is in constant motion. 

*NEW POEM - Waiting for Magic

It's been a while!  I have been diving deep in that other major creative realm of mine, the visual.  A few poems cropped up in my head. It's hard to think when they do that. 

Here's one for fun. Enjoy! ~ jdc

Beans in the Yard

by Judith Cullen

© 2020

They got dropped there on Christmas Day,

The casserole gratefully rescued;

The food still good, still edible.

I should have raked them back then,

whisked them away - disposed.

I was curious. What would happen?

"Do not step on the beans!"

Eight weeks later, they are still there.

No giants are roaming the streets,

Harp music does not waft downstairs,

and the front porch is entirely bereft - 

no burnished fowl or its progeny

squatting in fabled expectation.

I was diligent. I looked.

Maybe the barbecue sauce blocked

all the enchanted potentialities.

Perhaps onions carefully diced are

an antidote to storybook creations.

Some have turned black, while others

grow mushier from rain, snow, and frosts.

Surely one of them might have been magic!

I should have raked them away,

whisked them into the trash.

But I was curious. I wanted to know.

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