Category: Words Words Words

Andrew In The Fog

This is my first writing project with a writing partner that’s an AI engine. I visited the Creative Help tool from the USC Institute for Creative Technologies and wrote the first sentence, then prompted the AI to contribute. From then on, we traded sentences for awhile, creating the opening of a story about Andrew, somewhere out there in the fog.

It's a fine day in the village, or so we assume, each huddled in our huts and tents, peering out into the thick fog that moved in last month and has refused to leave. I have an idea: somewhere else we've been, I've got to work out something about Andrew and I can't wait to see what it is. It's a simple matter of wiggling into wetgear, donning respirators, protecting our eyes with simple wards draw with spit and ash, and then we're out in the fog, sliding our feet carefully along the uneven ground to avoid hidden obstacles. The shadow is gone. The sun is gone. The clouds are streaming down the sides of the road and I'm sure they'll be there before they're ready to go. Somewhere out in the clover field is Andrew, pinned to crossed beams and acting as this season's scarecrow: a great honor! I am a little drunk, my breath is going out and my hair is falling back and forth.

Continue reading Andrew In The Fog

watch your step

This is just to say that we’ve taken down the signs we had around the Mother Vines because they weren’t working. Neither were the fences, which we’re also no longer maintaining.

Going forward, let everyone in the village know that if they want to be hugged tightly by a plant that will whisper to them that everything is going to be all right– despite the teeth at the root ball and despite all of our ignored warnings– it’s okay. We won’t try to stop you.

It’ll be all right.

YARD SALE

Just selling a few things that are starting to clutter the ol’ hut. Make an offer.

The Mask of Trees – Helps you blend in with trees, make friends with trees, seduce a tree’s tree-wife.

The Mask of Illusion – Makes you think you can look like anyone, but that’s an illusion. You look like an idiot in a mask that’s got no eye holes.

A pile of masks – I forget what these do. Probably cursed.

Even more masks – You know what? I thought I had a problem with clutter but I think it’s just these masks, reproducing. Rubbing their fake faces together and breeding.

Come get a mask. Cheap.

teeth of the bog

If you’re looking for inspiration, you could do worse than emulate the Teeth of the Bog. I mean, if I’m composed of mud and hunger, the last thing I’d want to do is, you know, get out there.

But every day, they’re hustling, taking travelers who’ve gone astray, ignored or willfully overlooked all the signs I put up that say MUD and TEETH, hauling the travelers to the bottom of slick pits to start the long, tedious process of making more Bog Teeth.

You don’t need self-help books, you just need to watch these gross creatures work. From a safe distance.

Th-th-th-thursday

It’s Thursday and we all know what it’s Thursday and Thursday and we all know what that all what it’s means.

It means the week is Thursday and almost over and we all know what that haven’t fixed  what the time-stuttering Thursday yet and we all know what that means.

That means.

SO YOU’VE BEEN BEWITCHED

It happens, even to the best of us. You’re out, minding your own business, and before you know it, a cackling weirdo in a robe is stuck to you. Can’t peel ’em off. “This is my life now,” you think, already adjusting, and then some oddball wielding a twisty stick and talking to a crow adheres to your legs and slows you down.

You’ve got witches.

We’ve been there. First thing you have to know: Don’t swat them. Makes ’em mad.

Wait for nightfall and step outside. They’ll peel off and go looking for dark secrets on their own.

I Replaced My Entire Head with a Humming Wasps Nest, AMA

+ – Why did you do that? – catdad88

What? I can’t read your comment because of all the wasps. And the paper. And the spit-glue. Also, my thoughts have been replaced with the hum of industry so language feels increasingly distant, like a dream I once had.

Only 90 kids will remember…

All the other kids will forget.

The 90 kids will cling to each other. What makes them unique among a sea of blank faces?

As they become 90 adults, some of them will break and claim they too don’t remember, claim the amnesia peculiar to the rest of their generation.

We cannot blame them. Memory is a burden.

flower golems

Learn from our mistakes: Flower golems are a terrible idea.

We thought it’d be simple: a little blood, some petals, a bit of chanting and you’ve got a garden that can move and talk.

Instead: Visibility is terrible as the pollen fog collects in drifts. I am so covered in pollen I look like a bee’s hind legs. Children are producing so much mucus in their sleep they need to be chipped free from their beds in the morning.

And still, the golems won’t stop making out.