Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
11:30 PM. 72 degrees F outside. The night was still. Nothing stirred. Moon and starshine relieved the night’s black canopy.
He slipped outside with a flashlight and quietly looked up and down the street and around the bushes. Just as expected, he found no zombies.
He nodded to himself as he returned inside. This conclusively proved that zombies don’t like warm weather.
With Boo’s demise, the mystery of which cat struggled with the litter box was finally decisively closed.
A friend who is a grandmother related a story about her latest granddaughter, Vera. As soon as she found the words, Vera announced that her name was Peaches and she would not answer to any other name.
That was two years ago. She’s now five. A young cat found his way to her side. Cat and human are with one another like snow and white. She calls him Butters. He’s nine months old.
The adventures of Peaches and Butters are just beginning.
The clouds spread like thick, gray frosting.
Then came the atmospheric cannon fire.
The cats arrived at my feet, leery of the sky barrage.
Then came rain, powering down the sky, sluicing down the streets,
followed by the smell, the petrichor of warm asphalt and cement,
grass and dirt, lingering in the afternoon’s fading embrace.
Finally, there was tentative Robin song, announcing,
The end.
Three green lights in a row! Wow. He was on a roll.
Grinning, he shook his head. It took so very little to make him happy these days.
We live in a divisive area. Few agree on anything. Just today, my house told me it was 105 degrees F, the car said it was 102, and Alexa said it was 100.
Time was sneaking toward six in the morning. He was lazing in bed, floating in the space between dreams and being awake, a cat beside him singing a purr. Open windows poured cool morning air over him, a solid reversal from the hundred degrees experienced hours earlier. Just as it seemed sleeping was seizing an edge, a loud grunt – snarl – snuffle sound sent him full awake. He and the cat sat up in panic-orchestrated synchronization, turning as one to look up at the window. After listening a moment more, he raised himself up and looked out the window.
A bear on the other side of the six-foot privacy fence a dozen feet away returned his gaze. As he mumbled, “Holy shit,” to himself, the bear, apparently bored, dropped out of view. Maybe out of sight, but definitely not out of mind.
Michael Seidel, writer 