) Jan – Entered the mirror realm

) Dec – Exited the mirror realm, hair long and white. Started this list with no memory of that other reversed world. Did anyone see me there? Behind them as they combed their hair? What was I doing?

It’s Friday and we all know what that means! It’s time to follow people! Chase them down! Let the breath leave their lungs as they collapse into heaps like jellyfish, exhausted from our pursuit!

Consider the following:

Edith the Forgotten – Last seen by the lake’s shore in a wet dress. Was she swimming? Did she almost drown? Or is it a sign of solidarity with the waves? Follow to find out!

The Fur-Legged Triplets – Last seen under the porch, clutching eggs. Their eggs? Purloined eggs? Have you counted your own egg supply? Follow, follow!

Bobbing, mesmerizing lights in the bog – What are they up to? Let your thoughts fog and FOLLOW!

#ff

According to my scrying pool, today’s agenda was to include “kicking butt and taking names” but all I’ve managed by nightfall is to collect 18 names.

18 of my neighbors now answer to no name, cut free from the bonds of nomenclature. They drift where instinct takes them, responding not at all to their former names, which I have in a sack at the foot of my bed. (Closet’s full.)

But I have not kicked a single butt. What a day. Time to confess my failure to the scrying pool and pay a penance of fresh tears, to maintain the pool’s volume.

Most of magic is storytelling.

That’s why I buried my teeth out in the back garden. Someday the rain is going to bring them up again and when I tell people I can conjure a garden that eats fools, they can see its grinning and hungry mouth.

And I’ll be laughing with my toothless one, a summoner without peer.

All of a sudden all the cups falling out of your hands? All of a sudden all the hair falling out of your head?

Oh boy oh goshum. You’ve got the “I’ve Been Cursed” blues, buddy.

“What can I do?” you might be saying all mumblety as your teeth fall out ’cause of the curse.

It’s easy. Just send me $19.99 and take that extra penny and bury it outside when the fog rolls up. Walk around it 17 times ’til you forget which way the coin was: heads up or down.

I’ll be giving $9.99 to the person who cursed you, plus a look like: “knock it off Jack”.

You’ll be fiddle-fit by mid-month, no problem! Hoozah!

A writing collaboration with AI, generated by the Creative Help tool from the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. I wrote the header and first sentence, then prompted the AI to contribute. From then on, we traded sentences for awhile.

Continue reading Dating Advice for the Modern Era

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.

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.

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.

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.