ROUS
Spent the evening sewing a beanie and tail so my baby can be a Rodent Of Unusual Size at a Halloween party tomorrow. My husband and I will also be in Princess Bride costumes
Needs
It’s incredible what can change in a person the moment they become a parent. For Carla, she found that nothing about her baby seemed to disgust her.
Spit up, wet nappies, drool, even blow-outs were addressed quickly. Things that would have made her gag were now everyday jobs. After all, her baby needed her.
She fed him on demand. The suckling sounds which would horrify her from an adult mouth were endearing. As he grew and tried new foods, Carla experimented with all kinds of purees. Bananas, which never failed to make her queasy, were his favourite for a while. She could get through mashing them into a horrid sludge by imagining his gummy smile.
As he grew even larger, she found he enjoyed other things she would have once thought distasteful. But when it was all he would eat, she made sure he had it.
A staunch vegetarian, she learned to cook meat.
A lifelong adherent to food safety guidelines, she cooked it rarer and rarer.
A pacifist, she began to bring him fresh, dripping meat.
When he was finally able to verbalise his needs, Carla carried out the job she’d been avoiding, certain she couldn’t stomach it. As she stood over the stranger, dripping knife in hand, she was surprised how easily she could now see the body as just another task in an endless rota.
After all, her baby needed to be fed.
Two stars
⭐⭐
This recipe just didn’t work for me. I followed everything exactly, thought I had to convert the measurements into cups since my measuring cups don’t show millilitres.
The only reason I can think of that mine didn’t work is that I used egg for the binding agent. I was worried about it boiling over before I could put the blood in, but I know I read they work the same.
The demon I summoned only appears in my dreams. He shows me all the ways I could die the next day while laughing. Two stars, since I guess it’s another way to outlive my enemies.
Next time I’ll try a different recipe to summon a vengeance demon.
Two Sentence Stories (part 23)
Emma was furious that her father had remarried so soon after her mother’s death. She had put so much work into making the last one look like an accident
Terry was sure his ex wouldn’t be upset that he’d moved into the house across the street. He’d certainly paid the plastic surgeon enough.
Eerily, eerily, eerily, eerily
The ever-growing song I sing to my son, to amuse myself:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
Row, row, row your boat
Right across the lake
If you see the Loch Ness monster
don’t forget to quake
Row, row, row your boat
Beside the highway
If you see Fresno Nightcrawlers
don’t forget to bray
Row, row, row your boat
gently down the river
If you see Bigfoot tracks
don’t forget to shiver
Row, row, row your boat
right across the sea
if you hear a siren sing
don’t forget to flee
Row, row, row your boat
under the moonlight
If you see the Mothman flutter
it’s time to say goodnight
Cookies
I’m too sad to write. I made a batch of cookies with a sweetener to make them lower calorie and apart from one, they’re all in the bin.
They tasted like soap and despair
The Letter
Luke tried to make every birthday the best day he could for Sasha. It wasn’t easy after her mother’s passing, but he did his best to keep distract her from who was missing. It never worked. Every birthday ended the same: with a letter.
One letter from Sarah for every year her daughter grew up without her. A handwritten expression of love, grief, pride and hopes. Who she imagined her daughter would be at this age, age-appropriate advice, and stories from the few years they’d had together.
It didn’t matter if they were surrounded by friends and relatives, out all day or even on a holiday, Sasha would get her letter. She used to ask Luke to read it to her when she was too young, and she still passed the sealed envelope to him as part of the tradition.
Every year, Luke forced his voice to stop shaking as he read. He tried not cry at details only Sarah knew about their lives together. He read it loudly in order to drown out Sarah’s narration in his mind, the letter perfectly matching her mannerisms.
Luke dreaded the day Sasha moved out and spent a birthday without him there to read it to her. He had an equal fear that she would sooner find out how her mother had died.
It had been sudden and unexpected. It had left Sarah no way to say goodbye to her husband and young child.
But every year, the letter appeared under Sasha’s pillow.
Dad
Adam was scared about getting caught. He knew graffiti was wrong, but it was important to him to add the name to the wall.
He’d stuck behind after the tour guide described it. It was a list of everyone who had died on the temple’s grounds, whose souls were believed to remain there in eternal service. It was considered an honour to be so dedicated, the guide had explained.
Finished scratching in the name with his room key, Adam checked the shallow marks to make sure it was legible, then caught up with his mother, holding her sweaty hand. It was too warm to be wearing long sleeves, but she needed to hide the fresh bruises. His father walked ahead of them silently, begrudging them this tour as another apology.
Being young, Adam did not yet understand the difference between cause and effect. He understood that everyone listed on that wall died in the temple. He did not understand that the names were written after.
He watched his father swear as he stumbled and hoped he’d been clear enough.
“dad”
Sirens
Anna had lived there forever
In the house with the light blue door
She offered every new neighbour a hand
but they always wanted more
The Sinclair twins would use her pool
Leaving puddles and towels sprawled
Anna asked them to clean up
But they left when their mother called
Mr Dickson borrowed her power tools
Anna asked for them when they spoke
He eventually replaced them with his own
and pretended he didn’t know how they broke
Ms Lincoln borrowed ingredients
Sugar, flour, peanut butter
but when Anna fell and cried out for help
Ms Lincoln silently closed her shutters
Mrs Kathy took hours of Anna’s time
Complaining about misconduct
But whenever Anna tried to talk in turn
Kathy told her it was rude to interrupt
When the newspapers filled with warnings
Anna told all about her shelter
It had enough room and food for all
As expected of their thankless helper
At midnight the sirens blared
They feared they’d be dead before the dawn
But Anna bid them welcome to her basement
And they waited in the dark for the power to turn on
It was perhaps an hour later
Still waiting for their host to provide
That someone found the door locked
and barred from the outside
Anna carried the key upstairs
and turned off the recording of sirens
perhaps she’d let them out
When she’d had enough peace and silence
Based on an earlier two sentence story
Sketched Text 