Illustration Friday: Cracked

I was trying for a tie-in between an egg cracking and a code being cracked.  I only realized half-way through that the red breast only occurs on male robins and this would have to be the female.  Oops.  I’m also aware that robin eggs are generally blue and these are white.  Call it forgetfullness or artistic liscense.  Either way, I’m not doing it over again.  If you would like to actually be able to read the words, go to my Flickr site.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3643/3575298591_c405d9c44c_b.jpg

Hierarchy

Here’s my attempt for last week’s Illustration Friday.

New Name

Well, I have clearly failed to make this project/experiment work.  I won’t go into what that says about me because I’ve spent too much time down on myself already  this weekend.

So, rather than dumping this page, I’ll be making it into a simple posting place for my creative dabblings.  That’s pretty much what it was, but now without the weekly updates (not that they were very good at being weekly before).

So, if there’s anyone left to see, check back once in a while and there might be something new.

I should actually have a new picture up sometime this week because I’m taking a shot at Illustration Friday.  Here’s hoping.

Week 17

I’ve been awful about posting and I know it.

I’ve got 500 or so words today of a new story that may not go anywhere.  I’ve been listening to an audiobook of “The Story Girl” by L.M. Montgomery, so it may read as a little old fashioned since I’ve got that sort of vocabularly stuck in my head.  The image is a picture of a felt knight and horse I made for my wife’s nephews.

This post is copyright Kathryn Walton-Elliott.

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Week 17 Writing (503 words):

The bell over the door shivered out a sharp ting-a-ling-ling as the old hinges suddenly gave in.  Stumbling through, I bit my lip apologetically at the elderly woman seated behind several stacks of books.  She didn’t seem to notice me.

I hoped that her attitude had more to do with her work and less to do with ignoring noisy girls barging into her shop.  Trying to be quiet, I crept forward and uneasily, but joyfully, breathed in the musty smell of hundreds of closely packed volumes.  The shop was filled to bursting with books.  They were everywhere.  Lining the many haphazard mismatched shelves, stacked along the front windowsill, teetering in towers on several small tables tucked wherever there was room, and even piled up on the floor.  I felt like I was swimming in books.  I couldn’t imagine many feelings better than that.

Just as I was approaching my first stack on the round side table near the door, the woman looked up.

“Oh, hello.  When did you come in?”

She hadn’t been ignoring me then.  Maybe she was deaf.

“Just now,” I said as politely and clearly as possible.

I didn’t shout like people do at old deaf folks because I found it difficult to speak much above a whisper with so many books around.  Bookshops and libraries had always taught me quiet.  She couldn’t have been deaf though, because she answered me right away and wasn’t even watching my lips.

“Well, welcome.  You might find it a bit hard to navigate at first,” she said in a matter-of-fact sort of way as she continued to thumb through the book in front of her.

“Thank you,” I managed, feeling a little thrown by her off-hand manner.

Turning back to the table, I started to understand what she had meant about navigation.  At first browse, there didn’t seem to be any order to the way things were set out.  The authors certainly weren’t alphabetized, nor were the titles.  Novels sat next to science texts and poetry cuddled up to history books.  It made for fascinating poking and peeking through, but I couldn’t imagine how you might ever find what you wanted in this place.

As if reading my mind, the woman suddenly spoke again, “Were you looking for anything in particular?”

“No, I- I just noticed your shop and wanted to take a look.  I love books,” I confessed, then felt stupid for such a cliché declaration.

“Hate to disappoint you dear, but it isn’t a shop.”

“Oh?”
This was it.  I had stumbled into some poor old woman’s private library and she was being polite.  But then, I thought, she asked me if I was look for anything and she didn’t sound sarcastic.  I was thoroughly confused.

“It’s a literary borrowing bank.”

“You mean a library?” I asked after a moment to put that together.

“No,” she said without any annoyance at being contradicted, “I mean a literary borrowing bank or a LBB for short if you wish.”

“Oh,” I said again.

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Week 17 Image:

Week 16 – Written Only

Another bit of NaNoWriMo.  Again, it’s bits and pieces and rough.  I’m afraid the visual hasn’t been done yet this week.  I’ll try to get something done and possibly up tomorrow.

This post is copyright Kathryn Walton-Elliott.

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Week 16 Written:

Later, after Chloe couldn’t stand it anymore and had slunk out to apologize to her parents, she settled herself down to make a stab at the homework everyone seemed to think was so important.  While she scowled at the math problems on a worksheet, Mel and Sonia studiously ignored her expression and watched the evening news.

Mel wasn’t sure why she continued this habit.  It always depressed her.  Thinking about it while a fluff piece danced across the screen, she decided it was the guilt.  As a teacher and, well, a human being, she felt like she ought to know what was going on in the world.  Who had time for a newspaper with a daughter and thirty teens to manage?  Sonia usually watched with a line formed between her eyebrows, but never seemed bothered when the shut off the TV and went to bed.

Tonight, the usual stories of political bumbling mixed with fluffy bits of scandal and short “heartwarming” pieces.  Mel was just considering getting a book out when the anchor said something that caught her attention.

“Today the ICCA has declared a state of emergency off the Alaskan coast.  Thousands of Yupik inhabitants of several islands are rapidly being flooded out by rising sea levels.  ICCA issued this statement.”

The picture flipped to reveal a gray-haired man in a somber suit speaking from behind a rich wood podium with the ICCA logo displayed on the front.

“In light of the rising levels of sea-flood induced homelessness in Alaska, we have coordinated with the United States government to institute emergency provisions for the accommodation of Yupik youth.  Adults on the Alaskan islands have voted to remain on the islands as long as possible in hopes that a solution will be reached.  Meanwhile, as safe, sanitary housing is quickly declining, children ages two to eighteen will be relocated to foster homes in the lower forty-eight.  This will primarily be to homes on islands and coastland located along the west coast.  Viable households will be receiving the details and instructions for allocated wards shortly.”

He grimaced at the camera as it switched back to the anchor.  Sonia’s hand found Mel’s and gave it a squeeze.  Mel couldn’t stand to wait through the weather and financial reports.  She flicked off the set and announced with false cheer, “Bedtime, Chloe.”

“But I’m not done.”

“Should have done it earlier then.”

Sonia shot Mel a look.  They tried not to verbally disagree about Chloe in front of Chloe, but Sonia clearly didn’t think Mel’s reasoning was fair.  Mel wavered.

“Fine, take it into you room and finish it up, then straight to bed.  Give us a holler when you’re ready to be tucked in.”

“I’m too old to be tucked in.”

“Your choice.”

They knew Chloe would call them.  She had these bouts of feigned maturity, but she loved attention from her parents and would complain if they forgot to come kiss her goodnight.

Once their daughter had dragged her feet down the hall to her room, Mel turned to Sonia.

“Do you think they’ll send us one?”

Sonia frowned, “They should.  If this is what they’re doing, then we ought to be allocated a child.  I mean, we live on an island, we have a stable income, and we already have a child.”

“I know all that, Son, but I’m wondering if the gay thing will stop them.”

“You’d think they’d be ready to drop that.  I mean, we’re teaching spectrum sexuality in high schools and we have openly gay politicians all over the place.  What’s the problem?”

Mel gave her a look, “You know as well as me that that doesn’t stop old, conservative, white guys from thinking we’re devil-spawn and unfit to care for kids.”

Sonia sighed, “I know.  I just wish I didn’t.”

“Do we want them to choose us?” Mel voiced the question they’d both been avoiding.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of want,” Sonia said slowly, “It’s a matter of doing what’s needed and helping someone who’s, well, in need.”

Mel nodded.  Again, she knew all that, but she was also thinking their level of desire to take care of another kid was going to make an impact whether they wanted it to or not.  She didn’t say this though, since Sonia was pretty perceptive and was probably thinking the same thing.  Talking about it wasn’t going to help right now.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter until we get a letter,” Sonia said as she gathered up glasses and walked off to the kitchen.

Mel noted that she used the word ‘until’, not the word ‘unless’.
+
The letter came a week and half later, on a Thursday afternoon.  Chloe usually picked up the mail on her walk from the where the school bus dropped her.  She liked to flip through the colorful junk and the official looking white envelopes addressed to either Sonia Hart or Melanie Kolby.  Sometimes, around her birthday or a big holiday, she’d get to snatch out a rare envelope addressed to Chloe Hart-Kolby.  It was almost always a card that quickly lost her interest with its impersonal message, but the thrill of getting mail never faded.

Today, she wandered along the shortcut between the main road and their house while checking the front of each item.  Most were the bland, official kind that were almost always labeled Mama’s name.  One, though, was labeled with both her parents’ names.  This was really rare since they weren’t registered for a domestic partnership like Tanya’s moms were.  Chloe eyed the letter.  It looked really serious, with its print directly on the front instead of inside a plastic window.  Up in the corner it didn’t have a stamp or postage mark, but a red, gridded globe with the letters ICCA curved underneath.  There wasn’t any return address either.  Strange.  Chloe held the envelope up to the light, but couldn’t see a thing.  Wrinkling her nose, she slipped it to the bottom of the pile and finished looking through.  By the time she reached the house, the mystery of the letter had sunk to the back of her mind and she was more concerned with getting her homework done so she could go play with Sumptuous.  She hated the new rule about finishing her homework before she could play outside.  Sometimes, she didn’t finish until dinner and then all she could do was run out, tell him she couldn’t do anything tonight and run back in to set the table.  Stupid school.

Week 15

A bit more NaNoWriMo (which I think I may have to give up on) and a sketch that doesn’t show up on my camera (I penciled it lightly because I’m going to watercolor it later) and so isn’t posted.  Oh, the writing is in bits and pieces that may not necessarily follow each other in the way they are here.

Copyright Kathryn Walton-Elliott.

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“Well, I’ll just have to get a good night’s sleep then, won’t I?”

Chloe rolled her eyes and flopped into the chair she’d been hanging on.

“Get up, lazy bones, and set the table,” Mel chided.

Sonia dropped a kiss on Chloe’s head as she went through to the office.

“And, you,” Mel called after her, “don’t sit back down with those.  Dinner’s ready.”

Chloe grabbed a handful of beaten-up old mismatched cutlery out of a kitchen drawer.  She piled a knife and fork at three places.  Rough pottery plates were dealt out next, followed by three worn, but colorful woven napkins.

Mel watched her daughter out of the corner of her eye.  She seemed normal enough right now.  She wasn’t chatting to anyone at all, let alone creatures Mel couldn’t see.  Mel made a fist.  Normal.  She’d promised herself a long time ago that she would stop worrying about being normal.  Chloe figured into this since Mel thought of Chloe as an extension of herself in some ways.

Put it out of your head.  Leave it alone and have dinner with your family.

She put out a potholder and set the wok on the table with a bowl of couscous.

“Sonia, I told you not to get those bills out again.  Dinner’s ready,” Mel called down the hall.

Chloe was already spooning veggies over her couscous.  Mel thought about telling her to wait, but decided it didn’t matter.

“I was coming anyway, Mel.  I only took so long because there was a message on the machine.”

“What about?” Mel asked as she served out the rest of the food.

“Seems Chloe hasn’t been doing her homework,” the reply was directed more to their daughter than to Mel.

“I do so.”

“Don’t be rude, Chloe.  I just want to know what’s up,” Sonia frowned.

“It’s boring,” Chloe shrugged, “I’d rather be outside.”

“Talking to the sky,” put in Mel.

Chloe glared at her mom and pushed a piece of carrot to the side of her plate.

“Mel.  What’s boring about it, sweet?” Sonia looked concerned.

“Sonia, she needs to do it even if it is boring.  It helps her practice what she’s learning,” Mel pointed out, feeling irritated at the reprimand she’d received.

“I’m just curious.  Maybe we could make it more fun.”

“I doubt it,” Chloe mumbled.

“You can go to another room until you’re ready to be helped and listened to,” Sonia said in a clipped voice, the concern replaced by annoyance.

Chloe stared at her food.

“You heard your Mama,” Mel said.

Chloe slid out of her chair and stalked off to her room.  They didn’t get it.  She wasn’t learning anything.  Why practice what you already knew?

+
Mel let her fingers follow the curve of the pot.  Ridges smoothed and gyrated as the wheel spun steadily.  She stared down at the bulbous shape and imaged oily rainbows sliding up to the lips of its mouth.  She missed this.  She missed the guiding hands over her own the most.  Nothing she ever did at the wheel was special, but the sense of rhythm, of a small universe protected by its own velocity… she missed that.  Everything she did now seemed fraught with consequence.  School, parenting, home… it all had too much riding on it.  Here it didn’t matter what she did, just that she was here.  If the pot fell into wet cracks and spun out into a torn flower she could start again and all that would be lost was time.

The wheel slowed down, bumping slightly before it stopped.

Why am I so unhappy?

She scraped the half-formed vessel off the wheel and pushed it back into a large bin of clay.

I have a wonderful partner, a bright, kind daughter, and the chance to help someone who needs it.  I’m doing the job I worked towards.  What has gone wrong?

Propping her already stained elbows on the scrapings of clay, she gazed about the workshop.  Sonia’s finished pieces danced along the walls and her works in progress ghosted quietly under damp cloths.  Sonia found herself here every day.

Is that my problem?  Is it that I don’t know where to look for me anymore?

Sometimes Mel felt so angry and couldn’t figure out what she was angry at.  It wasn’t any one person.  It wasn’t any one thing.  It simply was that she was about to collapse from fury she couldn’t express.

When that happened she tried to get away.  Down to the beach or in here if Sonia wasn’t working.  She hated the way she got with her family when that mood took her.  The easiest thing was to get out of the way of anyone she might snap at.  Eventually the tears would come and the tightness would slowly drain until she felt empty.

She scrapped her fingers through the old clay on the wheel, picking at hard, old scraps and trying to let her mind go blank.

She felt like crying.  She felt like sleeping.  She felt like returning to wherever she had come from.  Something that did not require choice or effort.

+

“Who are you talking to?”

Chloe glanced back at Fredella and bit her lip before answering, “Sumptuous.”

“There’s no one there”, the other girl pointed out in a flat voice.

“You just can’t see him.”

“Doctor checked my eyes a couple years ago.  I can see fine.”

“He’s hard to see.”
“Why?  He small?”

Chloe giggled without thinking, stopping with a choke when she noticed Fredella’s face, “Sorry.  It’s just… he’s huge.”

“Stop messing around with me.”

“I’m not.”

Fredella turned and stalked back to the house.  Chloe watched her go and had a sinking feeling develop in the pit of her stomach.

“She doesn’t like me.”

“She can’t see you.  She doesn’t know whether she likes you.”

Sumptuous frowned at this and scratched his head, “Why can’t she see me?”

Chloe shrugged.  She’d never understood why more people didn’t notice such an obvious individual.  She’d often longed to introduce him to her parents, but she knew that they couldn’t see him, that it would only cause problems.

Week 14

Another offering from my NaNoWriMo attempt.  I’m not sure if I like what I’m coming up with.  However, liking it or not, I did a bit more writing that usual this week.  I’m only posting 1,150 words of here though.  The visual is a rather muddy watercolor of one scene in the story.

Everything on this post is copyright me (Kathryn Walton-Elliott).  Please don’t steal anything to make money or claim it as your own.  Thanks.

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Week 14 Written:

Settling herself on the damp grass, Chloe leaned up against the tree stump so she was out of sight of the sliding glass kitchen door.  Mom would call her in soon if she could see her.  Mama wouldn’t.  Mama would let Chloe come in when she was ready, but as soon as she did come in, there would be something to do.  Chopping, taking out the trash… Mama believed in time for yourself, but being helpful when you came back into the “community”.  Mama was such a hippie sometimes.

Chloe stared out at the sea.  She could just make out Canada in the distance, getting fuzzy and a deeper blue-green as the light seeped away over the horizon.  Watching the familiar vista, she got that reoccurring urge to step onto the distant treetops and walk over everything to see what came next.  She was perfectly aware of the impossibility of this, but felt the need for it anyway.

School tomorrow.  The thought made her want even more to step away into the twilight; maybe sprout wings and fly somewhere with Litany.

Ever since she’d met Lisa, the new neighbor, and found out about home schooling, she’d been perplexed as to why Mom and Mama subjected her to public education.  They could do better, right?  And then she wouldn’t have to deal with the cattiness and competition beginning to zing around her classmates.  She wouldn’t have to deal with the boring test preparation or the dry English lessons.

She’d brought the idea up with Mama (almost certainly more likely to latch onto the idea), but it was a no go.  Mama had listened carefully, just like always and had said she’d talk about it with Mom.  Nothing had happened.  Chloe wondered if she should bring the subject up again, but knew that she would probably only get put off.  Mama took her time and would say something when she was good and ready.

Meanwhile, the days were getting colder and darker and the nasty little notes were increasing in the nooks and crannies of her classroom.  Yuck.  Did she really have to go in tomorrow?  Maybe she could fake being sick.  She could, but Chloe knew she’d feel guilty all day for tricking her parents.  She hated lying to them.  It felt like a nest of snakes in her stomach that twisted tighter and tighter the longer she kept up the lie.

Chloe was deciding which was worse, school or a snake nest in her tummy, when she heard the flutter of wings.  Litany landed on the stump behind her before hopping down to the cooling ground to join her.

“I was hoping you’d come tonight,” Chloe whispered.

“Are you alright, bug?” Litany asked as she groomed down her feathers.

“Just wishing I could stay here with you and the others.”

“But you can’t.”

“I know.  Tell me the story… please.”

Litany smiled at the small girl next to her.  Chloe was hugging her knees and clearly chilled from the damp soaking through her jeans.  Yet she sat there waiting for her story, needing it more than warmth, food, or sleep.

“Many years ago, there was a silent god.  He watched over the stars and counted the ones that fell.  Every night he wrote down the names of the stars still hanging in the sky.  Some say that the stars need to be named to be seen because they are so far from Earth and warm life.  This god was happy enough with his silent, cold friends.  He loved their names and wrote them in beautiful, fine script each night.  However, one night he found himself with no ink with which to record the heavens.  He searched frantically among the soaring columns and shining surfaces of his lofty home.  There was nothing to be found.  He had always subsisted on the company and beauty of the stars.  So much so that he had nothing in his dwelling but glass pens, fine linen paper, and ink.  Now the ink was gone and his sparkling pens made no impression on the sheets spread before him.  In desperation, he looked out of a window and noticed a small collection of dwellings at the bottom of the mountain he lived upon.  What could he do?  He opened his front door, which screamed on rusty hinges and stepped in great strides down the mountainside.  Once among the settlement below he stopped, unsure of how to make his needs known.  He had forgotten how to speak.  The people, who gradually emerged from their homes, stared at this pale giant and his frantic, transparent gestures.  They did not understand him.  Slowly, as they watched his indecipherable anguish, the sky darkened and the stars winked into sight… and started to fall.  The god looked up in despair and a sound escaped from his disused throat.
An old woman standing nearby recognized the name of the North Star.  The god could not speak any words but the names he had written every evening for years upon years.  Name after name tumbled from his parted lips and soon the woman read his desperation and joined him.  The stars that had quivered, uncertain in the sky began to shine steadily and the god began to relax his taunt upwards stare.  The people surrounding him spoke each new name with stronger voices until the words were sung to the heavens.
That night the stars shone more brilliantly than ever before and the god never again sat quietly, forming their names in ink.  Instead, each evening, he walked down the mountain and sang strength to the night sky with the people of the valley.”

Chloe blinked and turned, but Litany was gone.  Sighing with a mix of contentment and yearning, the sun-browned girl pushed herself up off the ground and walked slowly towards the soft lights of the kitchen.

Inside, her mothers were each quietly doing their own chores.  Mom was stirring veggies in a wok and Mama was still doing the bills that Chloe had seen her get out that afternoon.  They both looked tired.

Chloe hung herself over the back of a chair, “What’s for dinner?”

“Just stir-fry and some couscous, baby,” Mom answered, glancing at her daughter before rummaging around for some basil.

“We had that Saturday.”

“No, we had stir fry over rice on Saturday.  Anyway,” Mel said quickly, “if you don’t like it, you can make a PB&J instead.”

Chloe pursed up her mouth and sighed, “Can we have pizza tomorrow?”

“Homemade or delivery?”

Chloe examined Mel, “Um, delivery?” she guessed.

Mel bit her lip, “Maybe.”

Sonia started stacking up papers and clearing the table, “Chloe, you know we don’t get that unless there’s not much in the house to cook.”

“Or unless you two are really tired,” Chloe muttered.

Mel barked a short laugh; “She’s got you there, sweetheart.”

Sonia made a small moue and then smiled wryly.
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Week 14 Visual:

Week 13

I know I’ve skipped two weeks, but what with having family over from the States and getting married, I think I have some valid excuses.  Anyhoo, here’s Week 13.  This week I have a bit more of Mertle trying to get to the moon and two unfinished scenes from my attempt at NaNoWriMo.  For a visual I did another trace and fill in photoshop to produce a book cover for my NaNoWriMo idea.  Enjoy.

Everything on this post is copyright me (Kathryn Walton-Elliott).  Please don’t steal anything to make money or claim it as your own.  Thanks.

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Week 13 Written:

And weren’t they just as enticing?  All those little bits and bobs of colour could take her to her heart’s desire if only she could figure out how to use them.

“Umfh.”

And how to reach them.  Though Mertle had managed to get into the pilot’s seat, it was, sadly, built for someone with longer arms than her’s.  Sitting there, with the metal garden stretching away in front of her, Mertle furrowed her furry little brow and tried to come up with a way to control this amazing vehicle.

“Well,” Mertle said to the night, “it would be no trouble at all if all I needed was to push buttons.  I could just go get one of those long metal sticks and poke at the controls with it.  But what to do about all those knobs?  How can I both reach and turn them?”

She gave a great heaving sigh of frustration and slid down from the seat.

“Perhaps a walk around all that metal will give me an idea,” she thought out loud, “This is clearly the house of an inventor.  Maybe I will become an inventor here as well.”

Humming a badgerly little tune, Mertle waddled out into the maze of white light and shining silver surfaces.  She examined springs and gears.  She turned over dozens of different clips and wires.  Somewhere here must be an answer.  It would be unfair to be so close to achieving her dream only to fail.

She needn’t have worried so, for she was a clever badger and after much twisting and tapping, managed to construct a long arm that had a sort of gripping claw at the end.

Delighted with her ingenuity, Mertle scurried back to the spaceship to try out her device.  However, having managed to manouver it through the door and hoist both it and herself onto the pilot’s seat, she remembered the other problem: she didn’t know which button or knob to activate first.
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Mel watched her daughter discuss the best way to land a boat.  It was an intelligent conversation, full of knowledgeable references to the tides and hull styles.  Anyone listening would be impressed by how capable Chloe was for a ten year-old, except for one thing: there was no one on the other end of the conversation.  Chloe was happily perched on an old fir stump chatting away to thin air.  Mel sighed.

“What was that for, sweet?”

Mel turned from the window and sat across the table from Sonia.  Her partner was busy doing the month’s bills and had asked the question without looking up from her checkbook.

“I’m worried about Chloe.”

Sonia glanced up to read the pinched look on Mel’s face and put down her pen.  She waited quietly for Mel to explain.

“It’s just, well, she’s going to be eleven soon and she’s still talking to things that aren’t there.  Pretty soon people are going to stop thinking her games are cute and start thinking she’s nuts.”

“So?” Sonia shrugged.

“So she’ll have to deal with other people’s uptight attitudes,” Mel glanced over her shoulder at their daughter and heaved another sigh.

“Again, so?  We all do that anyway.  She deals fine with having us as parents.  She’ll deal with people thinking she’s a little odd in the head.”

Mel put her head in her hands.

Sonia reached over and smoothed Mel’s wiry dark hair down, “That’s not it, is it?  There’s something else bothering you about this.”

“It’s me.  I- I’m worried that something’s wrong.  Maybe people will be right.”

Sonia pulled her hand back and raked her fingers through her own mottled brown hair.

“I’m not sure what to say to that,” she finally admitted.

“I’m not sure what you should say.  I feel like the worst mother in the world, thinking that about my beautiful, bright, imaginative daughter,” Mel’s voice held a plea in it.  She watched her partner of fourteen years and waited.

“Do you really think she might be crazy?  That something could actually be wrong?”

It wasn’t the response Mel expected.  She had gone over this conversation dozens of times while she sat in the bath or dug up weeds.  Every time Sonia had been a voice of calm reason and assurance… and, well, a little part of her mind pointed out, denial.  She had never considered the idea that Sonia would entertain the same misgivings as herself.  Sonia had always urged Chloe to be as creative and fantastical as desired.  Sonia was an artist, a sculptor, after all.

_________________________________
The two girls eyed each other across the short span of concrete.

“It’s nice to meet you Fredella, “ Sonia offered, giving Chloe an ill-concealed nudge.

Fredella just nodded.

Mel stepped forward, “Maybe we can all get to know each other later instead of standing out here in the lot, huh?”

Another nod.

“Well, then, um, can I take your bag and Sonia will just take us to the car because I can never find it again, “ Mel jabbered on, ending with a forced chuckle.

Fredella easily gave up her small orange duffel bag and followed the family to their car.  Her only change in expression was a slight tucking at the corners of her mouth when she actually got into the Toyota.

Once settled, unusually far over near the door, Chloe snuck sidelong glances at this strange new person.  Fredella had silky dark hair and a face that looked slightly flattened to Chloe.  Her eyes were also dark and narrow from top to bottom.  She sat slightly hunched, with her hair hanging against her round face.  Surprisingly, she seemed to have no interest in returning Chloe’s covert glances and stared instead at her hands lying still and pale on her lap.

Sonia started up the car and concentrated on weaving through the packed lot.  Mel turned in her seat to smile tightly back at the girls.

“We have a room all ready for you, Fredella.  Luckily, you and Chloe won’t have to share because we have a lovely guest room that Sonia has been storing old sculptures in.  Of course, we’ve cleared all that out and given it a good clean.  I hope you’ll like it.”

Very quietly, the girl spoke her first words, “Thank you.”

Mel’s look of strained cheer softened slightly as she considered this lonely drape of humanity on her back seat.

“You’re welcome, hon,” she murmured.

Sonia, sensing that Mel might be getting a bit too motherly a bit too fast, spoke up, “Do you prefer Fredella or are there any nick-names you’d rather be called?”

Through the rearview mirror, Sonia managed to catch a shake of the head that was a bit like someone shaking a bad idea away.

“Fredella then.”

Chloe thought it was a very odd name, but despite her flights of fancy, knew that it would be rude to say so and watched the water out of the window instead.
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Week 13 Visual:

Week 12

Kate gave me the idea for the writing this week.  She was joking, but it turned out to be a very nice story idea.  “A badger who wants to go to the moon.”  She even drew me a little sketch of the badger dreaming about space travel.  I’ve included it below.

This week’s visual is the first of the favors I’m making for our wedding in two weeks.

Everything on this post is copyright me (Kathryn Walton) except the badger sketch (copyright Katherine Elliott).  Please don’t steal anything to make money or claim it as your own.  Thanks.

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Week 12 Written:

Most badgers were happy to stay near the ground.  In fact, that was how they were designed: flat and, well, a bit like pieces of furry, scuttling ground.

Mertle, however, was not happy with the ground.  For one thing, it was dark.  It was also damp and scattered with the cast-offs nobody else wanted.  Surely no one could live in such an environment and not get depressed.  And yet, Mertle’s friends and family seemed perfectly happy, if gruff, about it.

Whenever Mertle tried to suggest to her friend, Carrie, that this ground-sniffing life might be less than ideal, she was given a look of such pity.

“Oh Mertle,” Carrie sighed, “Why can’t you see how lucky you are?  Other people apparently have something called perspective that makes things ever so complicated.  We have the best of life: simple and straightforward.”

Mertle didn’t ever say so, but she was pretty sure that somehow she had managed to gain some of this thing called “perspective”.  She feared that if Carrie knew that then the looks of pity might possibly turn to looks of alarm.  And then who knew what her dear narrow-minded friend might do.

Thoughts like these were unrelentingly tumbling about in Mertle’s head the night she decided to walk down to the local village for a change of scenery.  Maybe seeing the dullness of concrete under her feet would help her realize how lucky she was to waddle around on soft brown earth most of the time.

On the way down the hill from the woods, Mertle stopped to rest on a particularly springy tuft of grass and gaze up at the inky blue sky.  The moon was out.  And what a moon it was!  It was just rising and it seemed to be so big that it might have been a giant lid trying to cap the darkness beyond.  Mertle looked at it for such a long time that when she finally lowered her head the landscape before her maintained a milky glow, an afterimage of light.

“Oh,” she thought aloud, “I wish I could go there.  I might still be near the ground, but at least it would be a beautiful, bright ground.”

Mertle, of course, didn’t know that the moon does not actually glow, but instead reflects the light from the sun.  She believed that anyone who might be fortunate enough to visit the moon would be surrounded by a luminous landscape.  It appealed so much to her that she suddenly felt sick with desire for the ability to travel to the moon.

With this lovely, but torturous thought in her head, Mertle continued down to the village.  It was very late at night and none of the human people were awake.  A high wooden fence surrounded the first house she came to and she stopped to consider her options.

If she went along the fence she could eventually continue into the village proper.  However, the fence was very long and her stubby little legs were already worn out from traveling down the hill.  Snuffling along the bottom of the obstruction, Mertle soon realized that the earth was very loose and the fence stopped just short of the ground.  It took no more than a few minutes for her to dig a shallow tunnel beneath the wooden boards and another few seconds to slide herself through.

The other side of the fence was not what she had expected.

Emerging from her tunnel, Mertle was confronted with piles upon mounds of shiny metal items.  Springs, sheets, bars, tubes, wires, boxes, sticks… just about every type of metal object one might imagine.

“What a very odd garden,” she thought.

Carefully, she started weaving her way through the clutter.  Everything reflected the moonlight, causing Mertle to find herself surrounded by a myriad of tiny little moons and beams of white light.

“This must be very much like the surface of the moon,” she mused, “though perhaps the moon would be a bit softer.”

Rounding a last corner, Mertle finally found the back of the house this strange garden belonged to.  The house was no less bizarre, with multi-colored wires poking out everywhere and sheets of different material stuck in various places.  However, Mertle quickly forgot about the house when she saw what was sitting just outside the back door.

“I must be dreaming,” she whispered to herself.  She would have given herself a pinch, but her legs were so short that this would have taken a great deal of effort.  Instead, she used her legs to hurry on over to what she was very sure was a spaceship.

Now, please don’t ask me how she knew it was a spaceship when she had never seen one before.  Perhaps she had overheard a human describing one during a wander near the village.  Perhaps she took in the design and worked out its purpose for herself.  I really couldn’t tell you.  All I know is that she was convinced that a spaceship it was and she was entirely correct.

Edging closer, Mertle noticed a small, round hatch near the bottom of the spaceship.  It was ever so slightly ajar and without much thought or caution, she nudged the door open a bit more and disappeared inside.

Inside it was extremely dark.  However, Mertle, being who and what she was, had very little trouble seeing that it was a close, round space with a collection of buttons, levers, and knobs at one end.

Shuffling towards these, Mertle also saw that there was a thick windscreen above the controls.  Her heart began to jump a little.  Her little badger feet began to prickle.  Was this actually possible?

In front of the controls were two soft seats, webbed with bands of cloth.  Mertle whumfed her front legs up onto one and then scrabbled the rest of her body up.  Sitting there, she had the loftiest vantage point she could recall.  In front of her, the buttons, levers, and knobs stretched to either side like the large tray of sweets in the village candy shop window.

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Week 12 Visual:

More Week 11 Writing

I do know why I love the smell and feel of autumn air.  It’s a bit like cold water when you’re thirsty: cool, clear, and sharp.  It cleans out your lungs at the same time as filling your nose with the smell of clean plant decay and wood-smoke.  It’s air that seems to call you on to the horizon with its spacious chill at the same time it calls you into the warmth of everything familiar.  Autumn air, like autumn, sits between two ways of life.  It offers you the journeys of summer and the introspection of winter all at once.  No wonder my memories of autumn include a feeling of conflicting desires.  And yet, as uncomfortable as it sounds, I love the heady mixture of spreading your wings while nestling down, of getting ready to leap while finding the best way to rest, and of knowing that the world is calling you while knowing that there’s a home waiting to hold you safe.  Autumn air is one of the best paradoxes in that it accommodates the wild and domesticated in one breath.  And that makes sense in that autumn is the time when just as the wild world is shedding life, we are harvesting it.  The contained concept of autumn is, of course, a human invention, just another way of labeling and partitioning the world.  However, it’s also a real, natural phenomenon in the cycle of a world that will go on without us.  So, I wonder, would the paradox still exist if we weren’t here to impose specific meanings and perceptions on it?