La Petite Princesse

Mary received her cancer diagnosis in the spring. She said she’d never forget, because the drug store she worked at had the “April is Cancer Awareness Month” daffodil poster. My kindest, sweetest cousin by far. Her world ended one afternoon when it was raining outside.
     “What is the weather like, Pauline?” she asked. Then she decided that this was the day she would die. It all made sense because, really, she was not of this earth. If de Saint-Exupéry had picked a girl, it would have been her—crash landing on a planet and staying for fewer than nineteen years.

Inspired by The State of the World. Image from Picture Box Blue.

The State of the World

“Losses and damages are part of our future,” the IPCC chair declared, before asserting that “. . . effective and equitable climate action now can lead to a more sustainable, resilient and just world.” 

     Oh gentle dreamer! All is love and kindness at the principle level, but humanity can’t agree on bupkis when money’s involved. Still, naiveté is preferable to the BS of the deniers and the Koch brothers. Then there are the survivalists, planning to retreat to a Pacific island (really? An island?); or into a walled compound with private security (private contractors, with guns? And families outside?). That can’t end well.

Inspired by Sorry, not today. Image by Sepp Photography. See the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report here.

Sorry, not today.

What? My turn again? Crap, that was fast. I’m feeling very uninspired right now. Does it have to be exactly 100 words? And I have to find an image? Oh, that’s just too much. What with the state of the world right now, I feel a headache coming on. Does anybody read this stuff anyway? Can I call myself a writer, if I have no readers? And why do we want to archive every single moment of our lives anyway? Why do we take selfies? I feel this has taken a dark turn. Sorry, I have to lie down now.

Inspired by absolutely nothing. Selfie by Nancy.

Toddle’s Wake

Mom’s favourite Christmas was the one where all I’d wanted in the world was a turtle . . . then a second bargain for my birthday. The first—Tiny—was great fun to play with; but the second—Toddle—did little but loll around under his plastic palm. Still, he held on, until the week we were moving back to Canada and decided it’d be best to set them free in the pond off the highway. Poor Tiny, paddling in small anxious circles staring up at me; while Toddle, possessed with a strange new energy, straight off, leaving us far behind in his wake.

Inspired by Not Kool. Photo—Christmas 1968—by Barbara Schulze.

Not Kool

Mom bought me a turtle because she felt bad. Jonesing for change to buy cigarettes she soon discovered my cherished collection of 50-cent pieces. Money is money, and back then those coin-operated laundromat vending machines didn’t discriminate between two or four bits. When did the remorse set it? When the pull-grind-plop-slide of the dispenser coughed out her ill-gotten Rothmans? After her first drag? As soon as I returned from school? It was a little painted turtle from Woolco. One morning, it died; its dried-out carapace stuck to the ersatz rock in its tiny fake pond. Under the plastic palm tree.

Inspired by The Power of Instinct. Image by WillYouAddToTheStory on Etsy.

The Power of Instinct

She’d crossed thousands of miles of sea to return to the beach of her birth. She was sick and ailing, already dying as she left the water one last time to crawl ashore and nest, trying to give her brood—and her species—a chance at survival. She didn't make it. But the evidence on the beach, the crisscrossing tracks of flipper marks like tire treads, the deep pits in the sand, proved that others of her kind had laid their eggs and returned to the sea. She remained behind. Ashes to ashes: a scavenger had pecked out her eyes.

Photo by the author, taken in Bahia Conejos, Mexico. Inspired by Watching and the rest of our recent eyes + animals stories.

Watching

Procrastinating in my upstairs home office, out the window, I see a rat. Then, in a flurry, the wide wings of a red-tailed hawk enter the frame. Diving low, the hawk throws its talons underneath our back gate, catching the rat in mid scurry. I see only the back of the bird, settling its wings. Then the bird turns, and I have a front row seat as it bends to tear flesh off with its hooked beak and swallow the bloody bits whole. My work forgotten, I have this sudden urge to start narrating in my best David Attenborough voice. 

Illustration of a red-tailed hawk by Marta Lynne Scythes. Inspired by the “eye” stories: A Touching Story and The Dog Ate my Retina.

A Touching Story

One small thing she’d taught him was that it’s okay to touch your eyeball. Be careful, but don’t be squeamish.

     His first girlfriend and her first contacts, constantly stopping along the street, a small mirror from her purse, and a moment to fish out the grit—a useful skill for when they broke up, and he took in a cat to comfort him, a long-haired thing that shared his bed and shed on his pillow. And all that time in front of his bathroom mirror, he thought of her, searching for whatever it was that was making his eyes water.

Inspired by The Dog Ate My Retina. Image by DALL·E.

The Dog Ate My Retina

“Just do the Senior Social Dog bit,” Roy, our editor, suggested, referencing the time I took Nimoosh to an older-dogs-only play session. After I just texted, “Okay, you win”, the white flashes in my left eye intensified. So, it wasn’t because something sparkly was on my eyelash—like salty crud or unicorn tears—after all. Now, back from my emergency eye appointment, I can report that it is all about drying jelly and eyeballs and age. But there’s some serendipity in Roy’s suggestion: I’m getting old like Nimmy, and I prefer the company and activities of bitches my own age.

Inspired by Forward Bound. Image of my retina, courtesy of the University Eye Clinic, Toronto.

Forward Bound

We snowshoe up the ridge, our host leading the way, and in front of him his two Australian shepherds. Frankie, at the tail-end of his puppyhood, gambols ahead then circles back—already obedient to his master’s call, and to the electronic collar that zaps him when he wanders out of bounds. Willow, older, pudgier and with shorter legs, sinks too deep into the snow and tires quickly. Often, like a toddler on a hike, she refuses to move, and plops herself at our feet. Her master nudges her on and, heaving with the effort, we all take another step forward.

Willow on Doug’s feet, photo by Doug Bennet. Inspired by Printemps.

Printemps

Winter navel-gazing has led me to wonder if, at the tender age of 60, my best days are behind me. Have I used up all the good times allotted to me leaving only diminishing returns of mildly-amusing events until the day I cark it? My mood has spread to everyone else in the house, in osmosisy-patches, like whiffs of burning hope. Rich’s stomach hurts. Dan hasn’t picked up his guitar since October. Nim mopes. But this Tuesday we started adoption proceedings for a new pup to take up Siko’s Mantle of Happiness. That was the day the sun came out.

Photo of Nim by Laurie Leclair, styling by Roy. Inspired by Claws Out at the Corpse.

Claws Out at the Corpse

Exquisite Corpse’s drabbleers reached deadlock this week over a proposal to convert their site into a dedicated cat blog. Ron’s threat to quit and start his own non-feline site was dismissed by Roy as “creative differences.” (He was later seen smiling enigmatically and humming “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” to himself.) “Give peace a chance,” Nancy said, urging mediation. Laurie, lighting a stick of incense, suggested relaxing the all-cat mandate to include dogs. Ron stormed out of their meeting. Observers wondered whether the group’s best days were Yesterday. Perhaps their intractable differences will tip the Drab Four into the litter-box of history.

Inspired by our recent cat madness and the sundry bugs, ants and beatles circling Left Overs. Image by Alfra Martini; compare it to the real Let It Be cover here.

Left Overs

The rented house my mother moved us into after the divorce had been empty of humans for years. In this absence others had laid claim to it—scurrying feet and squeaks inside the walls and above our heads in the attic; tiny beetles up through the drains in the bathroom—sharp black against the chipped white porcelain; and in the kitchen sink among the dirty dishes, left there sometimes for hours until my sister and I finished arguing about whose turn it was to wash them, a hoard of minuscule ants feasting on crumbs, living on left overs like us.

Inspired by just wanting to get off the cat track. Image by DALL-E.

Cat Story

On the rebound, the newly single man takes on a cat. Then a kitten. Then a new girlfriend. She moves in, they move out, start a home, have a kid—and each step along the way, the cat expresses a displeasure that grows until they simply can’t bear to have her around anymore. This, says the lady running the shelter, is a story she’s heard many times before, to the point she’s reluctant to adopt her cats to single men, but can’t take his in because she’s all full up, and besides the poor old thing would miss him terribly.

A prequel to Tomorrow, I guess. Image by Craiyon.

Quean

Willow is a 19-year-old tabby. That’s 92 in people years. She is still kittenish. Her brother Badger looks like someone made a pelt out of Gordon Lightfoot. How can it be that this eight-pound bundle of claws and micturition stays so young? I think I’ve figured out her secrets:

1. Ask for what you want.
2. Don’t overeat. If you do, throw it up.
3. Don’t hide your light under a bushel: Get involved, stay involved.
4. Don’t hold your pee. Go when you need to, where you need to.

I’ll be following Willow’s life lessons. Apart from the bulimia.

Image by Angelika Betzold. Inspired by Noah Was Not a Cat Person.

Noah Was Not a Cat Person

“Berth the aardvarks on Deck C,” Noah told his son Shem. “They won’t cause trouble with the turtles.”
     He looked up at the sky. Thirty-nine days now, without let-up.
     Japheth rushed up. “Father, you still haven’t boarded the cats!”
     Irritated, Noah looked down at his manifest. Cats again.
     “They’ll make excellent mousers on the voyage,” Japheth wheedled.
     Noah sighed. No one else understood God’s plan, not even his cat-loving son.
     “Alright,” he said, suddenly inspired. “Have them board tomorrow. Later in the day . . . 11 p.m. Let’s see . . . hmmm. Yes. Put them on Deck E, between the jackals and the wolves.”

Inspired by Cat Woman. Image by James Edwin McConnell.

Cat Woman

Her falling-down house has lots of rooms with lots of doors to slam. High perches, sunny corners, and low hiding spots for the cats to explore abound—a feline playground stocked well with scurrying mice. His and her raised voices rattling old skeletons caused the tabbies to disappear for days, and now that all the closets are empty and his stuff thrown out, the cats have even more space to wander. But instead they slink back to her in the too-quiet night, two warm vibrating hearts on the couch—their paws stretched out to touch—to reassure their frail human.

Inspired by Tomorrow, I guess (which slightly appalled Nancy). Drawing by Nancy.

Tomorrow, I guess.

A fine project to tackle between Christmas and New Year’s, with the family out of town, and far too much time to fret over my approach: “I’d like to . . . I want to . . . I need to have my cat put down”
     She’s not all that old. She’s probably not sick. It’s mostly she’s driving us crazy and ruining our home. But here I’m still stuck on the fact she’ll be killed on my say-so. “An overdose of narcotics,” the receptionist tells me rather matter-of-factly, directly into the vein, by appointment only.
     “Tomorrow, I guess. But not too early.”
     “Noon?”
     “That’s fine.”

Inspired by Auld Lang Sigh. Image by Craiyon.

Auld Lang Sigh

Apparently we begin our New Year with Intentions rather than Resolutions. Intentions are lovely, cuddly wishes, and whisper aims and goals softly, “I’m going to be gentler with myself” or “I will set boundaries on my energy-bank.” Whereas NYE Resolutions of yore, with their penitential proclamations like “NO MORE BOOZE UNTIL MARCH” or “YOGA EVERY DAY!” come across as too harsh, almost judgy. So, in an attempt to be current, I’ll swipe tentatively from today’s more palatable butter board zeitgeist. Here are my 2023 Intentions: Be Kinder, Live Lighter, Work Smarter. See? Flabby and nebulous. Kinda like my post-Christmas chin.

Inspired by The New Year’s Pre-Party. Image by Valio84sl on Dreamstime.

The New Year’s Pre-Party

“Let’s ride,” War said, emptying his cup into the fire. “We’ve got work to do.”

     “I’m still peckish,” Famine said. “Let’s finish the wheat before we head out.”

     “If we do, there won’t be any for Lebanon . . .” 

     All four horsemen laughed raucously. 

     “Mind if I bring another ‘friend’ this year?” asked Pestilence.

     “Bah! Your friends always wimp out.”

     “This one’s a finisher.”

     War rolled his eyes as he climbed onto his horse; there was an immediate rumble in far-off Ukraine.

     “Guys! Wait up . . .” 

     Death hadn’t even saddled his horse yet! Typical, thought War. He’s always the last to the party. 

Image by Bryant Arnold, Cartoonaday.com. Inspired by Black Swans and, well, the newspaper.