words
dollars
wins
losses
hours
minutes
days
calories
grams
thoughts
It all counts,
one way or another.
Sucking
Ever been in a room full of people, and feel like they’re just sucking the energy out of you?
His House
Comfortably furnished, he was starting to like his house.
He was less certain that he liked his host. (Hostess?) He didn’t know her and little understood her, or even if it was a female, or if they had sexes. In his words, she was grey-green with yellow eyes. Unlike the invasion’s early day descriptions, though, he saw that they weren’t all the same color. One of his host’s frequent visitors was very light grey while another was forest green. Grey, green, and in between, that’s what they seemed to be. They all had yellow, parietal eyes, and were hairless, of the parts of them he saw. They liked watching him. In the early days, he’d sat motionless, glaring back at them. Once in a while, he shouted at them. He quit shouting at them because he thought they enjoyed that. Now he treated them with indifference and went about his day as if his captors weren’t present.
His house had running water and electricity. Located in a cage that presented him with a large yard all around it, his house was built for a family of five. About twenty-one hundred square feet, the split level featured three bedrooms and two and a half baths, along with a two car garage. There wasn’t a car. A full complement of appliances, dishes, and cookery was made available to him. They liked it when he cooked and ate.
The house’s front had been removed and replaced by a fine screen. He guessed that was so they could see in and watch him all of the time. Food was delivered in a shopping cart once a week. It was funny to see these creatures, twenty times larger than him, push a shopping cart his size into the little secure delivery area. They only opened the outer door on it when the inner door to his area was closed. It was a prison.
Besides frozen pizzas and dry cereals, they gave him cartons of milk and juice, bottles of wine and cases of beer, and fresh meats, snack foods, and produce. He didn’t know where these goods came from.
He didn’t have a phone, but he had two televisions, and a laptop, and he was connected to an Internet. Streaming shows were available, but nothing new. At times, ruminating about his existence, he mourned that he would never know how “Game of Thrones” ended. He posted on a blog every day, and others commented, and he shared emails. None of that helped them understand. All were in cages like him.
From the scenes and events described by others, he was beginning to picture entire human cities in cages.
Rules
He believed in following rules, and had one for everything. Rules helped expedite life by reducing the time and energy needed to think about things, freeing him to relax. His number one rule was not to get close to anyone or to have a pet. Number two was, only wash items he felt like folding.
He ended up buying a lot of clothes, and was forced to create a rule that he would buy only used clothing. Others didn’t seem to understand, but then, they were operating under a different set of rules.
Floofisode
Floofisode (catfinition) – a brief event or group of events in a cat’s life that helps shape its relationships or define its personality.
In use: The cat knocked a lamp to the floor in pursuit of a bug, breaking the lamp, a floofisode that cemented their wary, but loving, relationship.
Pet
She’d never had one before, but she thought it was time. Everyone else had one. That made it time. Otherwise, she was not part of the norm. She liked being part of the norm.
They were so tiny, they amazed her. She walked past their cages, looking down and studying the inhabitants. A few made noises at her, but most stayed back, wary and watchful. It was one of the latter that attracted her.
Stopping before his cage, she knew he was the one. White, with brown hair and a beard, he looked older than most. Older ones were rarely adopted. His clothes smelled; she would need to buy him new clothes. They took care of themselves, but often needed supplies. Besides food, he would need grooming materials and clothes. The Center sold it all, goods the Forces had captured and brought back with them for the pets.
“Open the cage,” she said. “I want to see this one.”
He seemed to realize something was going on because he stood and stepped forward. His tiny hands were balled into fists. The inhabitants of the other cages began making noise as his cage opened. He stared up at her as she leaned in and picked him up.
“Careful,” the slave said.
“I am,” she said, resentful of the other’s tone and words. “I know what I’m doing.”
The slave scuttered back.
The human fit in her hand. He was so small, delicate, and light. “He has blue eyes,” she said.
“Yes,” the slave said.
She liked his blue eyes. “How old is he?”
“He’s fifty, in human years.”
“How long will he live?”
“He’s been treated. I’ll probably live another hundred human years with proper care, which is about twenty-five of our years.”
“I know. Do you have clothes for him?”
“Yes, I think so. He’s average. I’m sure we can find something to fit him.”
“Then I’ll take him.” She held the human up so he was level with eyes. “I will call you Riajin,” she said.
He squeaked back.
He was so cute.
Risky Business
It’s a risky business,
this writing business,
trying to make stories out of your thoughts.
It’s a risky business,
this writing business,
putting the words in the write way.
You have these images,
these sounds and scenes,
Floating up through your head.
Yeah, and if you’re not fast enough,
not alert enough,
that stuff all fades to dead.
You know, it’s a risky business,
this writing business,
and all that it entails.
But if you keep trying,
and you never stop writing,
They can never say you failed.
Sigh
He wondered, with a sigh, why do all these actors deliver their lines with a sigh?
Destination
Have you ever been out walking, and then suddenly stopped and looked around, and asked yourself, “Where am I going?”, and your mind answers, “Do you mean metaphorically?”
Yes, I have.
Hole
You ever put a sock on that’s almost new, like, bought a month ago, and you find a hole in the toe, so you think about that sock and what you paid, and the hole in the toe, and how cheap some things are made, and how you should take it back to get a refund, but you probably don’t have the receipt, so you decide you should throw it away instead, because it has a hole, but then decide, screw it, nobody will see it, it’s just a sock, and I paid good money for that, so you put it on anyway, and then you can feel your toe sticking through the hole as you’re walking around, reminding you about how cheap it is, and by extension, how cheap you are?
Yeah, me neither.
Michael Seidel, writer 