Experience Writing

If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I’m responding to Lurking in the Shadows.

For today’s images I thought about how dark it was in my closet the other day, and turned it into a shadow puppet theater.

OctPoWriMo 2023: Facing Our Fears

While waiting to see if the mushrooms kill me

In the slanted light	 	they look so harmless
fancy forest growth		but may hold 
to gather hope or 		a poison shadow
a wish fulfilled or 		a fungal threat
a fairy ring that 		killed the grass
came with April 		in a late snow 
I had thought if 		only I could find
wild mushrooms		        the blackened death
would grow and		        spread through the yard would
be good to eat			pop up as different types
I would be able		        to identify if poisonous or
to grow everything		I like to eat and
I need and there 		I wondered if I dared if
they were, those 		types could be both like
white puff balls or 		death caps or “Jack-o-lanterns”
and then today, 		facing my fears, I plucked 
I dared to try 			the ones available in the yard
little brown ones 		that are supposed to be tasty
from the fairy ring		sauteed in butter with salt
I put them on a pizza		absolutely delicious: if deadly



*This poem took me so long, I'm pretty positive my mushrooms were only delicious.

Writober 2023

Logline: A boy in a no-pets apartment really wants a pet, so he lets a stray into the building’s laundry room and cares for it. As it grows, it turns out not to be the dog he thought it was and things get complicated.

Here’s a selection from my story: The Washing Machine is Out of Order

Bobby was playing ball in the old laundry room in the basement of the building when he heard the skritch-skratching at the back door. No one ever came down there. The washer was old and rusty inside. He had heard people complain that it stained their clothes and sometimes would stop mid-cycle, but the super never fixed anything. His mom called him a lazy S.O.B. When Bobby asked what a SOB was she said it meant a silly old bear which seemed nice to him. 

Bobby climbed the stairs and looked through the cracked glass of the door. A little stray with matted, dirty hair was scratching at the door. Bobby had been begging his mommy for a doggy for years but she said there were no pets allowed in the building. And it was true that no one else had a pet that he knew of, but he wanted a dog so badly. Maybe he could just play with this one in the laundry room for a while and pretend like it was his. When he opened the door, the stray rushed in and sat at his feet. He knelt down and it leapt into his arms and licked his face. Someone must have shaved its belly, poor thing.

“Oo, you stink, buddy,” Bobby said pushing the mutt to the floor and standing up. “I’ll have to find some shampoo and wash you up. But for now, do you want to play ball?” 

Bobby headed for the laundry room and his new friend followed. It never barked. It didn’t make any doggie noises, except one time it yelped when Bobby accidentally stepped on its hair. It didn’t scratch or bite just shivered under the folding table for a bit and licked its owie, then came out to play again. It was very good at fetch and Bobby forgot all his troubles and the time, and the hunger growling in his belly as he threw and threw the ball. He finally had to go to the bathroom and he figured his friend probably did too. Searching through the abandoned clothes in the broken laundry basket in the corner he found an old tie. Holding up the shiny green piece of fabric with little embroidered candy canes dotting it, he said, “What do you think, buddy?”

The stray sat patiently as Bobby tied the thin end around its neck. As if knowing what Bobby wanted, it led him to the door. Bobby held the makeshift leash in his left hand as he opened the door. He was shocked to see it was dark already. “Wow, boy. Are you a boy? Do you mind if I call you boy? We’ve been playing a long time. Let’s just walk around the building, okay? Since you don’t have a collar we’ll have to make sure we don’t find a dog catcher, right? I wonder where you came from.”

Beware the Shadow Lurkers!