The Storytellers' Conference (Part 1) - 31 Stories (January 2022)

My first multi-parter of the month! I just couldn't finish this whole thing today, but I have a good idea of where things are going, and it was too much fun to think of the ways an author might need to make herself scarce online for a day or two. Enjoy part one of draft zero of The Storytellers' Conference!

The envelope was fancier than anything I'd seen before, and sealed with wax. I wasn't sure how it had found me, since it had no postmark or return address - it hadn't been processed by our postal service, that much seemed clear. It also hadn't appeared at my PO Box, or in my assistant's hands, which is where all the important mail came from. No, this had appeared on the door of my office, inside my house. That was more than a little frightening, and I was tempted to call the police and have someone check it for explosives or anthrax or something equally insidious.

It was ridiculous to think that way, though - I wasn't anyone famous. I had sold a couple of books, and they'd gotten decent reviews and had good sales, but I wasn't the kind of author that people would seek out to hurt. I wrote fluffy romance novels set on spaceships, for heaven's sake - I wasn't trying to change the world with my stories, I was trying to give people something light to read while they were escaping the horrors of the real world. I wore the label of "escapism" like a badge of honor, and the only people who had a problem with it were the small, vocal minority who seemed to think that anyone who dared put words on a page had the obligation to use those words to fight all of the injustices of the world, and anyone who was writing to make themselves and their audience happy, heaven forbid, was just wasting their time. I had been added to the occasional list of "authors not doing it right," but even then, no one really knew who I was. So why would someone break into my house to leave an envelope at my office door?

My curiosity got the better of me, and I carefully peeled up the seal and opened the envelope. The contents were thick, printed on heavy gold paper that matched the envelope, and reminded me of my cousin's extravagant wedding invitation. I couldn't think of who I knew that was willing to shell out that kind of money for a wedding, and when I fully extracted the contents, I saw that it was an invitation, but not to a wedding.

I could feel that there were additional documents inside the invitation, and so I moved over to my desk and sat down to dissect the contents without dropping everything on the floor. The front of the invitation was printed - possibly hand-written? - with words in heavy black ink and extremely curly calligraphy. "You have been called to join the Storytellers at the Infinite Library," it said, the capital letters sporting the kinds of additional flair that wouldn't seem out of place in an medieval manuscript. Beneath the large text, smaller text in a more plain font read, "Please see the instructions inside for directions to the Infinite Library."

Storytellers? Infinite Library? None of this was ringing a bell. I remembered spending time with some other writers in the different writing classes and intensive clinics I had taken over the years, and there had been rumors of different secret society type things that authors had sworn existed, but we were all people who made things up for a living - there was no reason to believe any of it. I was tempted to call someone, or at least jump online and see if there was anything on the various social media sites about this kind of invitation, but I thought it best to read the rest of the invitation first.

Opening the ornate card, there was a smaller envelope that simply had "Infinite Library, ATTN: Librarian" written on the front. I picked it up and saw that it was open and contained another card - it was an RSVP. There were the usual options for either attending or not, and a short list of things to check if there were food allergies, along with a blank for any accommodation needs. It was thoughtful, and it made no mention of a plus-one, which I would expect in a wedding invitation. Actually, on the back of the card, there was another plainly-printed line: "Please note that this invitation is for the person to whom it was addressed and no one else. If you require someone to attend with you for assistance, please note that on your card, and we will be in contact with further instructions."

There was another page, this time printed on finer paper instead of the heavy card of the invitation, with more plain-text printing. This explained, in detail, that the invitation was not to be distributed, photographed, or shared in any way, on pain of having the invitation revoked and any access to the Infinite Library denied. There was a small map that detailed where to go on the day of the event, and how I would be met by an escort who would take me the rest of the way to the Library. I wouldn't need to bring anything but myself and whatever I would need to get through a day, morning through evening, but I was assured that I would be home that night.

"Photography within the Infinite Library is forbidden, and your cell phone will not have service for the duration of the event. Please make sure your loved ones, and anyone who would be concerned if they are not able to contact you, are informed that you will be completely unavailable through your normal channels for the duration of the event. We will provide you with an emergency number for your loved ones to use while you are unavailable. In case of a life-threatening emergency to you or a loved one, a Librarian will find you and escort you to the place where you are needed."

It sounded incredibly ominous across the board, and more than a little impossible. Going completely offline for an entire day was the definition of problematic in my world - I had children, and a mother who was not in the best health. There were other people who could help, of course - my sister was always wanting to watch the kids, and they were old enough that they could manage a lot of small things on their own. My brother lived closer to Mom than I did, and was the main point of contact for her anyway, so I was just wanting to be available if he needed something, but he wasn't the type to ask for help. And if they gave me a number to give people in case of an emergency, well, wasn't that like it was when I was a kid and my parents would go out to dinner? The babysitter had the number of the restaurant they were going to, in case anything happened - it wasn't like they had immediate access to us the entire time they were gone, and we never even thought of calling them.

Would it really be so bad? Why was I so anxious to go to this thing? I didn't even know what the Infinite Library was, much less what the Storyteller Conference was or who would be there. None of it made any sense. So why did I want to go so badly?

My phone rang, scaring the crap out of me - I'd been daydreaming at my desk and hadn't even finished putting my bag down or getting my day started properly. I reached for my phone and saw that it was my assistant, and frowned. She very rarely called in the morning. "Joanie? What's going on?"

"Lisa! Oh, thank God," she said, her anxiety bubbling over in her voice. "Listen, I don't know what's going on, but you should probably think about laying low for a day or two, OK? There's a new article that just came out, and it's not being too kind to the romance world. Especially not the sci-fi romance world. Um." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "They call you out by name."

I felt my skin grow clammy, and I reached for my laptop, nudging the mysterious invitation to the side as I did so. "What kind of article, Joanie?"

"I mean, they don't say as much about you as they do about some of the others - there are some people that they really go off about, like REALLY go off about, and they only mention you in one paragraph, but, um. It's. Um." I could imagine her moving her hands through the air as she tried to think of something to say - Joanie was a very expressive speaker, especially when she was trying to find the right words.

"Joanie, just tell me where to find this article," I said, booting up my computer and opening the browser to a new tab. "I get that it's going to be bad, so I might as well see how bad it is." I waited, my fingers poised on the keys, for her to give me a name, but got nothing but silence on the other end.

"Joanie," I said in a warning tone. "I know I'm not going to like it, but it's better that I know what's being said than to be blindsided completely. Come on. Out with it. You don't want me to Google myself, do you?"

"No! God, no, not now," she blurted out, and I winced. It had to be pretty bad, and there had to be talk online already if she didn't want me searching for it on my own. "Fine. It's in Locus. It's an editorial, naturally, but it's the one that's at the top of the page right now. It's, um, pretty obvious which one it is."

I headed over to the magazine's website and found the article quickly - "Smut on a Spaceship?" - and groaned. "Seriously? I don't even write that kind of romance!"

"You know how it is," Joanie said, her voice taking on its normal motherly tone now that the news was out there. "If there's a kissing scene, or fade to black, some people figure that means it's all about sex, and that's all they'll focus on." She sighed deeply. "I'll let you go so you can read it, but I don't think you should respond to it right now. That's probably the worst thing you could do at the moment, is respond - you need to give it a few days to sit, and let people forget about it." She said her goodbyes and hung up, and I put down my phone and clicked through to the article.

It started off bad, and just kept getting worse. The author was the type of reader who believed that sci-fi was the sacred ground of the white men that were the pantheon of the golden age, and so any woman who dared come near the hallowed field should be run out of town with a scarlet A on her chest. The fact that some women, and some men (who the author had some incredibly mean-spirited things to say about), dared to make some of their sci-fi stories about characters and their relationships to each other rather than all science all the time, well, that was even more unacceptable.

After he'd laid out his thesis statement, he started naming names. Several of them were bigger names in the sci-fi community, some of which didn't even write books that were commonly considered "romance." They were simply guilty of having characters in loving relationships, and letting those relationships form a part of the book. Those of us who did write romance novels explicitly, well, we were simply the worst of the worst.

"As for Linda Gates, her latest atrocities toward the genre include having a relationship with multiple partners, all of whom engage in an orgy on a generation ship that had children on board. What kind of author would have such depraved behavior in her protagonists, if she herself wasn't filled with depravity?"

I dropped my head to my desk, gently bouncing it off the hard wood of the surface once or twice. The characterization of my book was, naturally, completely inaccurate, but my book did have a polyamorous relationship on a generation ship, and that quad did have a night together that faded to black before things got too spicy. It fit both the characters and the book, but I knew it was a risk. And now, here was the consequence.

When I lifted my head from the desk again, my eyes fell on the invitation. Maybe now was the perfect time to be offline for a little bit... (TO BE CONTINUED!)

Come With Me If You Want to Live - Day 4 of 31 Stories (January 2022)

Whew, this one got long, and I need to figure out a better ending. Again, using a prompt from The Writing Network: your character discovers time travel. Enjoy draft zero of Come With Me If You Want to Live!

The snow crunched under our feet as we walked the normal path between school and home. Our breath formed clouds in the air ahead of us, growing and blowing until they intermingled in the air over our heads. The idea of our breaths intermingling made me feel a little funny, and I hugged my arms around my chest to keep myself warm and to keep from reaching out to hold her hand. I'd only been walking to school with her and home for about a week now, and I didn't want to move too quickly. She was the first girl I'd ever really, REALLY liked, and I didn't want to screw things up. (I was also absolutely terrified and didn't really know what I supposed to do, but that was besides the point.)

"Elisa?" she asked, twisting her gloved hands together as we walked. I focused on her fingers, clad in bright pink and purple woolen stripes, to keep from staring at her face too intensely. I'd already learned that looking at someone's face for too long made them uncomfortable. Anna's voice was soft, almost squeaking, ,like she wanted to talk to me but didn't want me to hear here at the same time.

"What is it, Anna?" I said. I kept my voice soft, too, since I didn't want to raise my voice to be louder than hers. If she wanted to be quiet, I could be quiet, too. I glanced up from her fingers to her face, and stopped walking. "Is everything OK?"

I don't know why I asked that. Her face made it clear that everything was not, in fact, OK. Everything, in fact, was terrible, and she was crying, and it was probably my fault somehow. I didn't know what to do or how to fix it, but I knew I didn't want Anna to cry anymore. I dropped my hands down into my pockets and hastily handed her the napkins that I always kept in my coats. (Mom always said to take extra napkins when we went to get food, because they were always useful. Mom might be a lot of things, but she wasn't wrong about that.) "Here, if you need them."

Anna took the napkins and wiped her eyes, but she kept looking up at me, and her eyes kept overbrimming with more tears. I was panicking. What do I do know? Why didn't I ask my big brother Jake how to handle crying girls? I'd seen him with his girlfriends enough, he'd been around enough of them when they were crying, he would know what to do! I thought for a second, letting out a slow breath, and I noticed that Anna was doing the same thing. Maybe that would help! I started taking the big, long, deep breaths Daddy always had me take when I got "wound up," and letting them out real slow, and watched Anna do the same thing with me. After a few breaths, she smiled a little, and I smiled back at her.

"Is there anything I can do?" I asked, my hands still in my pockets. My phone only had three numbers programmed into it, but one of them was Daddy, and he would be able to help. He always did. I ran my finger around the edge of the phone in my pocket while I waited for her to answer.

Anna shook her head, then stopped, staring at the snow in front of her. Then she mustered up her strength, and pulled one of my hands out of my pocket to take it in hers. I was too stunned to stop her. "Come with me, if you want to live," she whispered fiercely, then she turned, still clutching my hand, and ran. Since I'm very attached to my hand, I ran after her.

Running on hard snow isn't easy, and her short legs and my long ones didn't really mesh well to run together, but we managed it. We ran past my house, past her house, and around behind her house to the abandoned pharmacy on the corner. She kept marching forward, but I started pulling back. She stopped and turned to face me. "What is it, Elisa?"

"I'm not allowed to go in there," I said automatically, sounding like the little baby that I secretly was. I was a big girl of twelve, almost thirteen, really, but I couldn't do something my mom and daddy had told me I wasn't allowed to do! "There are people who use that place to shoot up drugs and stuff. It's not safe for kids."

Anna came closer, still holding my hand, and put her other gloved hand on my cheek. I'd never had another girl touch my cheek like that before, and I was surprised she didn't burn her hand from the heat of my blush. "I know you're scared," she whispered, and every word made her sound a little different, a little older, than she had before. "Don't be scared. I won't take you any place where you'll get hurt. Do you trust me?"

I blinked furiously, trying to kickstart my brain back into gear. Did I trust her? I'd known her for all of three weeks, maybe? I'd never seen her before she showed up at school one day as a new kid, whose dad had moved the whole family to our little town in the middle of the year because of some great job that Anna had never been able to explain properly. Though, to be fair, I didn't really know what Mom or Daddy did for work, so that didn't really matter. But she'd been shy, and then she'd sat down next to me at lunch, and we'd started chatting, and she had such a pretty smile, and she didn't know anyone else, and did I trust her?

Well, no, not really. But did I have a choice right now? Probably? I wasn't think about that part right then, though - I was just thinking about how nice her hand felt in mine, and how close her face was to mine, and how much I really, really didn't want to mess things up.

"Of course!" I squeaked, and she grinned. I'd given the right answer after all. She squeezed my hand, then turned and walked to the door of the abandoned pharmacy. I was going to be in so much trouble, but I really, really hoped it would be worth it.

The glass part of the door had been boarded up for years, and there was a big padlock and chain across the handle. I figured that she would walk away once she realized it was locked, until she pulled a key out of her jacket pocket and touched it to the padlock. The lock disappeared, taking the chain with it, and I did a double-take. That wasn't how chains worked. And I had a lock like that for my bike before - those keys didn't just touch the lock to make it go away, you had to fight to get it into the lock and then force it to turn. Before I could say anything, though, Anna had dragged me through the door, closing it carefully behind me. In the silence, I could just make out the sound of a chain slithering against the door.

I was a little distracted for that, though - in the center of the room, where the aisles of the pharmacy used to be, was a huge metal cage, lit up from inside with a bunch of orange lamps. The cage was open on one side, and it was angular, not round like a bird cage. It was big enough to take up most of the space in the pharmacy, and I could make out a set of bunk beds and a dresser inside. I also saw an adult woman moving around inside, standing at a panel with a lot of switches and dials on it, who didn't even look up when Anna cleared her throat.

"About time you made it back," she said, flipping another switch and noting something down on a clipboard. "Come on, I think there's some stew on the burner out back. Your father says he's just about fixed the chronotriggers, so we should be good to leave tomorrow-" she cut off when she finally looked up and saw me standing there, taking it all in.

"Anna Marie," she whispered, coming out of the cage and grabbing Anna by the arm, dragging her away from me. "What do you think you are doing?"

Anna stared stubbornly at the woman - it had to be her mother, they had the same cheekbones and scowls - and folded her arms across her chest. "We're taking her with us, or I'm not going."

Her mother started to speak, but a man's voice cut through the air. "Taking who with us? What are you trying to do, Anna-Banana?" I froze, because I knew that voice. There was no way I should have known that voice, but I knew it. Anna looked full of sorrow, while her mother still had fury in her eyes.

I forgot about both of them completely when Daddy came around the corner of the cage, carrying a pot of something hot and steaming. He froze, the same as I did, and we stared at each other for what felt like forever. I fully expected the stew to have frozen over solid by the time we moved again, but it was still steaming hot when he carefully put it down on a table in the cage. "Elisa?" His voice was filled with wonder and...sorrow? Why did he sound so sad?

"Daddy, what are you doing here?" I asked, trying to sound like the grown-up I desperately wanted to be, and failing. I knew I sounded like a little kid, and one that was going to burst into long, loud, ugly tears at any second. I knew Daddy and Mom weren't happy together, and that Mom had talked to her best friend about wanting to leave, but...did he have a whole other family? Why did Anna just now show up? Why did she have to show up now, and ruin everything?

"Elisa..." He took a step toward me, but the woman stood up and kept him from getting any closer, whispering something furiously in his ear that I couldn't hear. I turned from them to Anna, and she had her head bowed, refusing to meet my eyes. Daddy was looking at the ground the same way Anna was, nodding every now and then at whatever the woman was telling him, and everyone was ignoring me and not saying anything about why my father was in the abandoned pharmacy with a whole new family and a big glowing cage and a pot of stew!

I couldn't take it anymore. "HEY!" I shouted, stamping my feet for emphasis. Everyone looked up, and the woman stopped whispering. "Somebody tell me why my Daddy, who was just at home when I left for school this morning, is here with you two, and why he looks like he hasn't seen me in years, and who you are, and what the...what the HELL is that cage thing?" I gasped, having never used the H word before, but it was the only thing I could think of to get my point across.

The woman looked from me back to Daddy and started to whisper again, but he threw his hands in the air. "Enough! Evelyn, she's seen too much, she has to know what's going on." He pushed past her, leaving her to watch him through narrowed eyes with her arms crossed. Anna was watching a little more cautiously, and once Daddy had walked past her, she moved to her mother and the two of them started whispering.

None of that mattered, though. Daddy squatted in front of me, bringing himself down closer to my level, and chuckled when he realized that now I was a little taller than he was. I smiled, too - I couldn't help myself. He sighed, then ran his hand over his face. "Ah, Sprout," he said with another sigh. "I think you need to sit down with us for dinner."

I frowned. "Mom's not going to like that," I protested. "She always gets mad if I change my plans without telling her first."

He winced, then stood up straight and put his hand on my shoulder. "Let's get you in the vehicle, and I'll tell you all about it." He put out his other hand to the woman, who walked with Anna in front of her, and all of us walked into the cage. The door closed behind us, and the walls glowed bright orange as we all sat at the table where Daddy had set down the stew. He smiled to himself. "I wondered why we had an extra place setting this morning," he commented, and the woman sighed.

"I guess it was supposed to happen after all," she said, nodding to Anna. Anna flushed a little, then pulled her gloves off and shoved them in her jacket pockets before setting the table. "You'd better fill your other daughter in, Stan."

I winced to hear myself referred to as his "other" daughter, because it confirmed what I first thought about Anna, but I was more curious about what was going on than anything. I looked at Daddy expectantly, and he sighed again. "Elisa...Elisa, we're in a time machine right now. I'm not from around here originally - I'm from about 2525, but I travelled back to 2006 on a mission and got stuck. I met your mother, and we had you, and then Kathryn came to rescue me. Will come to rescue me. The timing is a little hazy. Either way, I came home." He started dishing up the stew to the plates that Kathryn handed him, acting as if he hadn't just spouted absolute nonsense at me.

"But...if she rescued you...why are you here now?" I asked, trying to figure out what the best question to ask in this field of ridiculousness was. Kathryn made an impressed face as she passed me a plate of stew. "She's pretty clever, Stan. Must get that from you."

He shot her a wuthering stare, which I appreciated. I might love Daddy more, but I still loved my mom. "We came back here because I'd left a few things behind when I landed here the first time, so we had to clean up. The abandoned pharmacy had been as good a place as any to leave things, but it's not good to leave futuristic tech out where just anybody can find it. Because it was going to take us some time to fix it, Kathryn thought it would be a good idea for Anna to go to school for a little bit, so it wouldn't be suspicious to have a girl her age running around and not in class. I guess that's how she met you?" He asked the last question to Anna directly, and she nodded.

"I saw her in the lunch room, and I remembered her from the picture you showed me in your wallet. We started talking, and I knew...I knew..." She looked down at her plate again, and her eyes started to well up. She sniffled. "I didn't want to let her die with the rest of them," she finished in a small voice.

"Die? With the rest of who?" I asked, looking around the table. Anna wouldn't look up, and Kathryn looked away. Only Daddy met my eyes, and they were full of sorrow again.

"I'm so sorry, Sprout," he said softly. "Your mom and your brother, they had a car accident on the way to dinner tonight. They didn't make it. And if you'd been at home when you should have been, you'd have been in the car, and you would have died, too."

No Summer - Day 3 of 31 Stories (January 2022)

While I started with the idea from The Writing Network's prompt for today ("Write a story about a year without a summer,") I ended up taking it in a different direction - is there ever really a summer if summer never ends? Behold, draft zero of No Summer.

 Everything was dry as dust, and the heat was becoming unbearable. That's what people were saying on television, at least, but we had been through "unbearable" heat for the better part of a year now, and most of us had managed to bear it. We didn't like it, exactly, and there had been a few of us who hadn't managed to bear it, but most of us managed to make it from one day to the next.

Scientists still weren't sure what happened, exactly. The seasons just...stopped. The spring had been hotter than most of the ones we'd had before, but nothing out of the ordinary. The summer had been dry, the sun blasting down and making the ground rock-hard and keeping anything from growing. We knew that the fall would kill off anything that the summer hadn't already destroyed, but at least the temperatures would cool off.

Except...the temperatures never cooled off. The end of the year, and winter should have arrived, but it never did. No snow, no cold air to blow in and take the edge off the unrelenting heat. The trees remained bare, even when spring should have arrived and things should have started budding and blooming. Everything that should have been growing simply didn't, unless it was in a greenhouse of some sort. The ground remained baked dry and dusty, with no hint of shade or rain to allow things to grow again.

By the time I graduated from high school, I didn't remember much of a world without an endless wave of heat. The names of the seasons didn't mean much to me, even though I had some vague memories of snow and jumping in piles of fallen leaves. My youngest brother, only three years old, didn't understand when people referred to "spring" or "summer," because the heat was all he'd ever known.

Every now and again, the scientists would come up with a new plan, a new study that would lead them to believe that the seasons would come back. They thought they could seed the clouds, bring on the rain, and kick-start a water cycle again. Unfortunately, the clouds were too thin and far away, and so the missiles with the chemicals used to seed the clouds ended up falling back to the earth with no impact on the sky at all. We all saw them go up, hope in our throats, and felt the pain of that hope burn down when the missiles came crashing back down.

It wasn't like this everywhere in the world, I'd heard. There were parts of other countries, other continents, that still had a season or two. They weren't the same four seasons that the old books talked about - usually, there was a growing season, and a harvesting season, with perhaps a time of cold and ice in between. Still, those places seemed so far away, especially when some of us had never had the means to do any kind of real traveling, and we knew it was unlikely that we'd ever experience these seasons for ourselves. For some of us, the greenhouses and hydroponic farms were the only things that would give us the chance to earn a livelihood, and they were what kept the people of our homes fed. There was nothing for it but to keep working and hoping that the next year might be a little better, knowing full well that it likely wouldn't be.

Still, in my heart of hearts, I wanted to go away from home. It felt awful to even think it, but I wanted to learn about more than just the greenhouses and farms. I knew that the ways we were doing things weren't the best ways out there - I'd seen things online about different, more efficient methods that people in other areas that were similarly set up like us were using, and they were able to have higher yields with less water usage. I showed them to my parents, but they weren't the ones who had the say-so about the 'houses and farms - we all just worked in them, but we didn't own them or have any kind of management in them. The people who did have the power wouldn't listen to some kid who was coming to them with ideas they'd seen online. I knew because those were the exact words they used when I tried to show them what other states were doing, and how they were able to increase their yield. I wasn't an authority in any way, and so they had no obligation to listen to me. I didn't even know what it took to run a 'house or a farm, so why would I be able to tell them anything about how to run theirs better?

It set a fire in me that I had to keep banked down, for the sake of my own sanity. I wasn't an authority, it was true, but I had the chance to go out and learn enough to make myself an authority - make myself someone they would have to listen to. There were schools that were offering degree programs specifically in hydroponic farming and greenhouse growth, finding the best ways to increase yields with less water, because it was a big issue. If I'd been able to go to one of those schools, get one of those degrees, spend some time in the other states that had spent more money and time in figuring out a better way to deal with a lack of seasons instead of just hodge-podging it all together the way we had, I would stand a chance of getting someone to listen to me when I came back home. I could bring that information back, and make things better for everyone at home.

It was a pipe dream, though, because we'd never be able to afford to send me to school. Not only was travel and school expensive, my family couldn't do without my income from working in the 'house. Besides, just because I wanted to do it didn't mean that I was the right person to do it. There were plenty of people who were smarter than I was, who would do much better if they were sent off to school to make things better. Hell, my best friend's sister was saving up money to go be an actress on the coast, because she hated working in the 'house and the farm with the rest of us, and she'd had a plan in place to do that since she was twelve. She wasn't planning to come back until she'd made as much money as she could, and then she was going to move all of her family away from here and buy them a big house out on the coast, where they could see her in the movies and spend their days lounging around and dancing in the rain. It wasn't my kind of dream, but I could admire the intensity of it for her.

I came home from my shift at the 'house after graduation - the ceremony had been a small affair, since most of our schooling was done remotely and online to avoid having to plumb and cool another big building in the community. We had the ceremony early in the morning, before the heat really turned up, and so we could go on to work our full shifts for the day; there was no point in wasting a day just because we finished school. I'd heard from my grandparents once that they wished we'd been able to have a big party for graduation, but that always seemed kind of foolish to me - why celebrate something where you've just finished the bare minimum, and it's not actually going to change anything in your day to day life? Well, that's not entirely true - now that I didn't have school to worry about, the law said that I could work a normal 50 hour week, instead of restricting it to 35 hours to provide sufficient time for classroom instruction. I was looking forward to that, at least.

I came into my bedroom and set my jacket on the back of my chair, with my mask tossed into the laundry basket next to the door. The jacket was more for protection against the dust that permeated everything, and the masks had to be washed every three days to keep the dust from clogging up the cloth and rendering them useless. I started to take off my boots, before I noticed that there was something on my bed, on top of my pillow. I could just make out the edges of it with the light from the moon outside, but it wasn't enough to see exactly what it was. I turned on my bedside lamp, squinting to try to keep from blinding myself, and gave myself a moment to adjust before picking up the object.

It was a large envelope with my name and address on it, with a return address from the state college at the capitol. I frowned, wondering what they wanted, because I'd never written to a college before. Still, my heart started pounding a little louder as I pulled the envelope open and slid out a large stack of paper. On top of the stack was a small pile of shiny cardboard cut-outs - confetti? Why was a college sending me confetti?

I shook the things back into the envelope as best as I could and then looked at the top page of the stack. My heart, which had been pounding so loudly only seconds before, felt like it stopped. I had been accepted to the college, and my tuition was being paid for by a scholarship specifically for people from my town. Apparently, someone had heard what I had done by talking to the owners of the 'houses and farms, and they decided- they wanted- they-

There was a small, handwritten note at the bottom of the front page. "Become an expert. Come back and change their minds. I believe you can do it." No name, no initials, no nothing. Just a mission statement, and a belief in me that I didn't have in myself.

It was everything I needed to change the world.

Sinking Island - Day 2 of 31 Stories (January 2022)

 I decided to use one of the prompts from The Writing Network today - they're the people who are hosting the 31 Stories challenge, and they are putting up two prompts per day, to be used (or not) as one sees fit. Today, I used the prompt: Neighbors meet with a visiting geologist that provides facts proving their island is sinking. So please enjoy draft zero of Sinking Island.

HOA meetings were the bane of my existence, as they were for any right-thinking person, but they were part of the cost of living on one of the most remote, resourceful, and technologically-enhanced islands in the world. You paid your 7000 credits per annum, you followed the rules put in place that are partially for protection but mostly to make sure everything and everybody looks the same, and you attend the mandatory meetings every lunar cycle. Considering we were one of the last remaining outposts in this hemisphere, it wasn't that much of a price to pay, but good grief, it was boring.

I had the window for the video meeting open on my main screen, with a small window in the corner showing me the most recent episode of the latest iteration of Baking Show. (I refused to use the term "Great British Baking Show," even though all the ads still referred to it as such, because Great Britain has sunk beneath the waves some eighty years before I was born. Nostalgia's one thing, but that was just taking branding a bit too far.) The contestants had just revealed the technical challenge, which would be to make a form of steamed bun and hoisin sauce - a tricky feat, considering they were competing from a bubble in which open flame and liquid water were prohibited. I had heard that the challenges hadn't been quite so grueling in the older seasons, but I didn't see how they could compare.

I had the video on mute with captions, of course, because I had to keep the volume of the meeting turned up in case anyone asked a question and required a response. I had learned the hard way early on in my residence in Riozona that not responding when someone asked a question was equivalent to telling the entire HOA that you hadn't, in fact, been paying the slightest bit of attention to the mandatory meeting, and thus you owed them an additional 3000 credits. The lesson I took away was that I needed to be better about not getting caught; actually paying complete attention to everything being said during these day-long meetings was simply out of the question.

I had enough of an ear out to the meeting that I was able to tell when the tone of the president's voice changed, and the other residents also shifted in their level of participation. I paused my video and put the meeting in full-screen so I could see if anything was being shared.

President Jacobs had their hands up in a conciliatory fashion, as though they were able to push the people on the screen away. "Residents, I assure you, we don't know anything for certain," they were saying, their voice just panicked enough on the edges to take away any sense of tranquility they might have been going for. "This is why we want to bring in Dr. Segovia, who is an expert in environmental matters and will be able to answer all of your questions. It will mean another meeting next week, but that will be optional, I assure you."

"An optional meeting? You want to make the meeting in which we meet with an environmental specialist who will tell us if Riozona is going to sink like all the other land masses optional?" My next-door neighbor Bruce was getting a little hot under the collar, and I could hear his voice through both the computer speakers and through the open window in my office. He rarely spoke above a library voice, so to hear him shout was enough to shock me out of any kind of complacency I might still have been in.

I wasn't the only one who had this reaction. I saw several other faces on the screen with their mouths moving, but none of their voices were audible - even Bruce's voice had been silenced. It appeared that President Jacobs, or more likely one of their assistants, had muted everyone to make sure no one else could interrupt the call. It was a big mistake, in my mind, because all that would do was tick people off even more, but I'm not the one in charge. Thank God.

"I understand your concern, and in the interest of not taking up too much of your time, I move that we close this meeting now and will continue discussing this particular topic at next week's optional meeting. All other business of the HOA will be moved to next month's mandatory meeting. Do I have a second? All in favor? Wonderful, it's unanimous, see you next week." President Jacobs ended the call without allowing a single one of us to respond to any of their calls for second or a vote. I sat back in my chair, blinking foolishly. The President had a tattoo of a QR code to the most current version of Robert's Rules of Order on their wrist - they knew what they just did was completely out of line. Things had to be BAD.

One week later, I was back in the video meeting with the HOA, along with everyone else in Riozona. Evidently, just because the meeting was considered optional, it didn't mean that any of the residents were willing to miss the opportunity to hear from a specialist who might be able to tell us if our island was the next to disappear. President Jacobs looked more disgruntled with every new face joining the meeting, but there was nothing they could do - too many people were on the call to allow them to end it and pretend it was an error.

In another screen that had been pinned in the window, a middle-aged woman sat in what looked to be a lab environment, wearing a lab coat. She was fiddling with her glasses nervously, her hands moving quickly between her glasses, her hair, and something on the table in front of her - notes, perhaps, or something on her computer. She quickly looked at and away from the camera multiple times, a nervous smile on her face, and I felt myself giving in to compassion for her. She did not want to be here, and she did not want to have to talk to us. I felt badly for her, until I realized that if she didn't want to talk to us, it could only mean that the things she was going to talk about were not going to be things we liked.

About one minute after the meeting was scheduled to start, President Jacobs cleared their throat and got everyone's attention. "I'm sure you're all very eager to hear from our special guest, so I will simply introduce her to get things started. Dr. Segovia is a leading environmental scientist out of the former United States. She currently works out of a lab in Central Kansas, where she has been studying the ongoing effects of climate change to the coastal regions of Western Europe and eastern North America. She came to me with information that I thought...well, why don't you start, Dr. Segovia?"

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she began speaking. Her voice was much lower in tone than I had imagined, and there was a great deal of sorrow in it. "Thank you, President Jacobs, and good afternoon, residents of Riozona. I regret to inform you that the island you are currently inhabiting will not remain large enough to sustain life in its current structure. The waters are rising, and the land itself is sinking. The combination of effects is speeding up the process of reclamation of land, and means that before the end of the next solar cycle, your island will be completely uninhabitable."

Silence followed her pronouncement, and she fiddled with something on her desk as she looked at the camera, then at her screen, off to the side, or anywhere else. No one on the meeting was saying anything, not even President Jacobs - judging by their stunned expression, I didn't think they had been fully briefed before the meeting. We were all just...stunned. How do you even respond to that?

Finally, Dr. Segovia broke the silence. "Um, if there aren't any questions...?" She looked at the camera again, then off-screen, and I realized that she was trying to figure out if she could just leave. She'd done her job, after all. When no one spoke up, she added, "President Jacobs has my contact information if you think of anything. Again, I'm very sorry." And with that, she hung up.

A few seconds later, President Jacobs ended the call. They never said anything, either - what was there to say, exactly? "Sorry you scrimped and saved all of your credits so you could move to an island paradise that's going to be gone in a year? No refunds?" There were lots of questions, but none that Dr. Segovia would be able to answer. Where would we go? What would happen to our homes, our things, our people? Was there room for us somewhere else on the planet? What if we couldn't leave?

Those were tomorrow's questions; no answers were coming right now. Tonight, we just needed to figure out how we were going to say goodbye.

The Three Muskeruffies - 31 Stories in 31 Days (January 2022)

It's 2022! I can tell some of my neighbors are excited still, as they are still letting off (entirely illegal) fireworks in the area. 

As for me, I'm trying to start the year gently, without making any sudden moves or anything that might make the year think I'm threatening it for dominance. I'm taking a little bit of time to write, which means you all get to see it - isn't that exciting? I'm doing the 31 stories in 31 days challenge again, giving myself an incentive to write every day and also a chance to build up a bit of momentum. This time, they aren't all necessarily going to be fiction - I may slip some memoir-type stuff in here, as I think of it. Today, for example, is about a small stuffed dog and my first experience with non-binary characters, which I didn't even think of in those terms until just today. 

As a reminder, this is always draft zero, no editing, take it as it comes. Just want to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. And now, let me introduce you to The Three Muskeruffies.

I was heartbroken when I realized that Samantha, my little stuffed dog, had gotten lost. She was the twin of my brother's dog Sammy, and they were the best of friends - how could we ever explain to him that his sister had gone missing? How would he ever get over the loss, the grief, of losing his twin sister and best friend? They did everything together, including running their detective agency out of the big cardboard Mansion where they (and all of the other animals in my house) lived. Could the agency of Samantha and Sammy survive if one of them was no longer around?

I was distraught, and naturally, I made that everyone's problem. In particular, my mother and father had to hear about how awful Sammy's life had to be, if Samantha wasn't around. And no, I didn't know where I'd left her! I didn't remember the last place I'd seen her! If I'd remembered that, then I would know where she was and she wouldn't be lost! It was probably a solid week before my mother finally came up with a solution. She came home after work and presented me with a new little dog. It was identical to Samantha and Sammy, and yet...not. The face was sewn slightly differently, so it was clear to everyone (meaning my brother and me) that this was not the same dog at all. Even my mother, who had a lot of patience for the imaginations of her children even if that imagination led to more arguments that she was not ever planning to have than she could ever count, understood that this wasn't a replacement dog.

"This is Robin," Mom said as she handed the little dog to me. "Samantha and Sammy had a cousin who needs a place to stay, and I thought Sammy might be lonely. Here you go!" And away she went, figuring she'd done enough to continue with the wild machinations of her children to keep them busy for another hour or three.

Robin was a good name for the dog, in part because my brother and I couldn't decide on a lot of things. For one thing, we couldn't decide who Robin belonged to, and since my dog was a girl and his dog was a boy, who knew if Robin was a boy or a girl? Not us, that's for sure, and Robin wasn't talking. We basically used whatever pronouns came to mind when they came up, but the fact that Robin was a cousin (another conveniently non-gendered word) meant that we didn't have to worry about it too much, and frankly, we didn't give it much thought.

Less than a week after Robin joined the family, my brother and I had Sammy and Robin investigating the disappearance of the hairbrush (a recurring mystery in our house), and upon spelunking under the couch, Robin encountered...Samantha! She'd been trapped under there for ages, and had quite the story to tell of fighting off pirates and hiding under the couch to keep herself safe, subsisting on nothing but dust bunnies and the occasional cookie crumb for survival. She had to go to the hospital in the Mansion for a little bit to get checked out; the resident doctor, Racky Sr. (a giant raccoon that would have taken up the majority of the real estate in the Mansion if he lived in it directly, which is why he built an annex for himself and his son), before she was allowed to rejoin the family business.

It wasn't enough for the family to have just Samantha and Sammy's names on the business anymore, though. Robin wasn't going anywhere. Together, they decided that they were stronger as three, and as the good fans of classic action movies and novels that we were, my brother and I came up with the best name possible for the new business - The Three Muskeruffies. (They even had a theme song. Sammy, sadly, didn't have the greatest of voices, but he tried, bless his little cotton heart.)

The Three Muskeruffies only had about another year to adventure together before my brother "outgrew" them, but I'll never forget the bond that they had, and how they helped us develop a bond stronger than I thought possible. We don't talk that much anymore, my brother and I, but there's still a little part of me that remembers the Muskeruffies and the other denizens of the Mansion, and how they helped a pair of kids who moved around a ton, and had nobody other than each other to rely on every time they became the new kids in school. Our parents helped, where they could, but they were in the world of adults; we weren't quite ready for that yet, and it was nice to have someone else in the world of kids to be with. I just wish we hadn't been in such a screaming hurry to grow up, but that always seems to be the way. 

Here's to the Three Muskeruffies, may they ever adventure together!

August Debrief and What's Next

I'm drafting this up now, on the 29th, though I plan on posting after the end of the month. I want to get some thoughts down about my experience with the 31 stories in 31 days challenge, because it has been enlightening.

First, I want to shout out to the team that created the challenge, and the community on Discord that was incredibly supportive and enthusiastic throughout the entire experience. The team put out prompts every day (sometimes multiple prompts), worked on giveaways, engaged the community members to discuss what was going well, what wasn't, and being overall incredibly encouraging for all of us. I don't know how many people actually managed to hit 31 stories - I know I didn't, but I also figured pretty early on that writing more days than I didn't each week was what I needed to get things going for my brain.

I have been having a rough time with regards to my mental health of late. 2020 was not kind to any of us, and the combination of that, some physical health struggles, and just general brain goblin shenanigans have made the last year and a half more of a struggle than they need to be. I've been on more ups and downs than the average roller coaster, and it's been a challenge to convince myself to write anything. There's been some kind of wonderful alchemy this past month, though, of not having a word count to hit, not having to work on a specific story or slog my way through a part of my story that I'm stuck on, and knowing that all I'm doing is coming up with draft zero, which may very well not turn out to be anything beyond scribbles on a digital page - all of that together has been freeing for me. 

I know that, in a true definition of the term, the things I've written aren't short stories. They don't have developed plots or characters, there isn't any kind of meaning or depth to them, they're just scenes that I thought would be fun. Several of them tie back to the world of the Infinite Library, which is a novel that I started drafting for Nanowrimo last year and realized I was getting stuck on, and so I took the opportunity to flesh out bits and pieces of the universe in which the Library exists, as well as play with some ideas from the overarching thought of "a library where all of the world's literature exists and characters can travel between their books." It's not an especially unique idea, but it was one I'd wanted to play with, and I like some of what I came up with.

Some of the things I wrote came from a couple of decks of writing prompt cards that I've had kicking around for ages - the Reckless Deck series. Even then, I didn't use the cards quite how they are "meant" to be used, because I didn't necessarily write using a character or world that used all of the traits on the cards that I drew. I looked at the combination of cards (which included things like costume, weapon, integral feature, home land, etc.) and let it inspire something. There was no planning, no plotting or outlining, just a vague notion of "it would be neat if" or "what could be cool would be" and just going.

It's taking me a while to build up to saying this, but I actually like some of the things I wrote this month. I'm well aware of their faults, because obviously - everything's a draft zero, there's been absolutely no editing, and again, there's no depth to the narrative or characters. But I feel like I managed to do some fun things with words that turned out pretty well. I've gotten some positive feedback from people, as well, which is never going to hurt my feelings. Overall, this is probably the best I've felt about my writing in a very long time, and it's writing that I did with very little planning or taking the time to overthink things.

So what happens next? Well, there are two things, separate stories that I started, that I want to go back to and flesh out a bit more, see if I can turn it into something a little more polished and engaging. I've roughed out a shape for the pattern with pencil and graph paper, and now I want to go in and clean up the edges, push out the corners and see if I can make it into something that looks a little nicer overall. I may try to send them out into the world and see if anyone wants to print them, I may decide to just put a prettied-up version on my blog, but either way, I think they're stories that I would like to tell to more people if I can.

At the end of the day, I tell stories. It's what I've done since I was a little kid, and it's what I love to do. Writing stories down, making up characters and worlds and putting them out there for other people to experience, it's all something I like doing. I don't think I'll ever be a professional writer, and I know I'll never be comfortable making a living with nothing but my writing - I'm far too anxious and crave stability in all things, so having an income that varies based on sales of books would be a quick trip to a nervous breakdown, and I've already done that before, thanks much. But coming up with stories and letting other people read them if they want to? I can probably do that.

I want to keep writing more days than I'm not, but I don't think it'll be a new short story each time, like it was for August. I may spend September fleshing out the things I want to hang onto from August, or finishing up the multi-part stories I started - if you have any strong feelings one way or the other about what you'd like to see, let me know in the comments! And thanks. Having you read my stuff, knowing that at least a couple of people in the world are looking at what words I'm putting on a page, has been a really nice boost to the psyche. I'll try to give you more to read if you want it.

Day 12 of 31 Stories - Character Field Day

 I know it's been a few days. I have still been writing, the stories just haven't gotten beyond an extended drabble yet, and it feels weird to post something that isn't finished. Today's is a little odd, as well. I'd mentioned that I had a story not so much take a left turn as a pirouette and then fall down the stairs, and I decided to write down the discussion I may as well have had with the character who led the way on that particular journey. So enjoy day 12 - Character Field Day

I flip through the notes on the page in front of me, then address the blank screen on my computer. I have a rough idea of what kind of characters I want to write, and how they may play out. The first character type has wings, some sort of musical ability, maybe a bard or troubadour type in a fantasy setting - let's put them over here and see how-

-*poof* Nope! I don't sing, I don't tell stories, and I'm not in a standard fantasy setting. In fact, I show up as the anchor for a complex-yet-undefined physical pyramid-ish shape of other avian-Human hybrids (and Humans has the capital H, very important).

*blink blink* Well then. That... that was unexpected. All right, so we've got hybrids between birds and human- excuse me, Humans. OK, I can work with that. Sounds like you're still a performer, though, so maybe a circus? You can get away with a lot in a circus.

-*ponders* A circus could work. We're going to be in a modern-ish setting, so there are audience members that assume we're all smoke and mirrors and prosthetics, so we have to stand there and deal with the scrutiny, but we should have some time to ourselves.

I can make that work. Let's give you a bouncer, big guy - probably strictly Human so he can deal with the prejudice that is apparently now popping up in this fantasy world, thanks for that - and give you all a moment to chat. Everybody speaks English, right?

-Oh, please! What kind of world with animal-Human hybrids would allow for that sort of thing? We're bird folk. Some of us have beaks, and those don't make the same kinds of sounds. Nah, I think I'm going to be the only one in my troupe who has to deal with the Humans - the others don't talk. At least, they don't talk to Humans

Got it, makes sense. So you're the leader of the, ah, flock, then?

-... I haven't decided if that's a slur, or just a bad pun. And no, I'm not the leader - I don't make the decisions, I just speak them to the poor souls without beaks. Well, the other poor souls. You know what I mean.

Aha! So you are a bard! My original idea stands!

-Whatever makes you happy. *eye roll*

By the by, you ever going to tell me your name?

-... Maybe?

What is it with you characters and your inability to tell me your names right away? Ugh. You act like I'm going to steal your names away and hide them away until I need to control you.

-That's exactly what you writer-types do with our names. And you even have the audacity to change our names on your whims! How do you think we feel when we get used to thinking of ourselves as, say, Melvin, and one day you decide that no, really, our name is Malcolm. Everything we knew as Melvin was a lie - we're really Malcolm, and in fact, we never were Melvin. It was all a lie, nothing to see here, run along now. Do you know how many characters are in therapy for this kind of thing??

I can't say I ever thought of it. Also, I don't think I've ever named a character either Melvin or Malcolm, and I doubt I ever would, really. Neither are names that say much to me. Melvin just sounds too silly, especially.

-NOT THE POINT. Ugh, writers like you are why so many of us have to go through Revision Therapy. I'm just glad I'm a one-off, so you probably won't have a chance to mess with me again and I can go back to the Library and hang out with all the other character sketches that aren't going anywhere.

OK, ow. And the more you talk, the more likely it is that you'll be showing up again, Melvin.

-... I thought you weren't going to name a character Melvin?

I changed my mind. It suits you. At least for right now. I might change my mind again later.

Day 11 of 31 Stories - A Creator Arrives

Today's story is a little different. Earlier today, we learned of the death of a member of our community, Jeffrey Cook. Eric (my husband) knew Jeff better than I did, having met him many years ago and gaming with him for several years. They hadn't been close in a while - life moved them in different directions physically, and scheduling became less feasible for everyone - but Eric always considered Jeff a friend.

I knew Jeff primarily as a writer, as that was where I had met him. Jeff was an author for Clockwork Dragon, where he wrote several books and stories for their Writerpunk anthologies. I saw him at nearly every convention I went to, as he would man the booth in the dealer's room for Clockwork Dragon, and he always made a point of chatting with me, asking how I was doing and how my writing was going.

His presence will be missed in our communities, and I hope my small tribute will be read with the love and respect with which it was written. (And for those interested in his writing, his author page on Amazon shows just how broad his work was. I highly recommend his books and the anthologies to which he contributed.)

And now, day 11 - A Creator Arrives. For you, Jeff.

The atrium of the Library was bustling with excitement as several Librarians and their assistants moved around to the different doors, leading to various branches within the Library. All of them were carrying a clipboard or notebook, and flipping through pages rapidly as they called out to one another. Occasionally, one would start walking one way, flip a page, and turn around to walk back in the exact opposite direction. From the outside it looked like a type of choreographed chaos, but none of the Librarians seemed particularly concerned. Some of the assistants looked frazzled, of course, but that's because assistants usually have to figure out how to carry out the directives their Librarians give them - a question few Librarians need concern themselves with once they have assistants.

Brenda, one of the Prime-side employees who had just returned from a trip to the grocery store and was cutting through the atrium to get to her apartment before her shift at the cafe, watched all the hustle and bustle with a bemused frown. She'd been working in the Library for a little over six months, which made her feel as though she were more of an established member of the Library's inner circle than she actually was. Still, she was certain that this behavior was out of the ordinary, and she wouldn't be able to rest easy until she knew what was going on.

"Excuse me?" she called out, trying to get the attention of one of the assistants. (She assumed it was an assistant, at any rate - the creature had four arms, all of which were occupied with either scribbling notes on one clipboard or rapidly flipping through a notebook and scanning the pages.) "What's going on?"

The four-armed assistant didn't even look up as it went by. "A Creator's made his way to the Library," it said as it continued on its way. "We're very busy." Before Brenda could ask any follow-up questions, it had already moved through a door on the other side of the atrium.

"This must be your first time, huh?" Brenda jumped in shock as she heard Daniel's voice far too close to her ear. He was a co-worker in the cafe, and had been working in the Library for several years. He'd made it a point to take all of the new Prime-side employees under his wing, particularly those employees who were both young and attractive. Brenda tried to hide her shudder of revulsion, but she didn't try that hard. She just shook her head no and waited for Daniel to start explaining. It wouldn't take long.

"You see," he began, his voice taking the tone of a professor starting to lecture his class (Brenda suppressed a roll of her eyes), "Creators are the people in Prime who, well, create the universes found in books. They're the authors, the storytellers, the people who come up with the characters and worlds and put it all together to develop a new universe. Each universe eventually finds its way into the Library, on the branch where it fits, depending on the type of content and the sorts of elements it has in common with the other universes. That's where the doors lead to."

Looking around the atrium, Brenda saw that several of the doors that were getting the most attention were labeled such things as as "YA - Science Fiction" and "Fantasy - Modern." A few others were getting less attention, but there were some Librarians and assistants moving purposefully toward "Punk - Classic Literature" and "YA - Punk - Science." The doors for those branches were much smaller, but they still led to areas that had more books than Brenda had imagined possible.

"When a Creator makes his or her way into the Library, the Librarians and their staff make sure that the branches that house that Creator's universes are set to receive them - that's what they're doing now. They're cleaning up before the Creator comes to see where their universes live." Daniel grinned at Brenda, gesturing toward the chaos in front of them. "Nice, isn't it?"

"Out of the way!" bellowed a centaur as she began moving through the crowd. There were a few gasps from the Librarians and assistants, and Brenda saw one or two of them give very brief bows in the centaur's direction. That was not something Brenda had expected, though it wasn't entirely unheard of. She elbowed Daniel in the side to get his attention and whispered, "Do we bow? Who is that?" Daniel responded with a shrug, but nodded his head in something resembling a bow when the centaur looked in their direction. Brenda quickly followed suit, just to be on the safe side.

The room had fallen silent, with everyone who wasn't in one of the branches now standing along the curved wall of the atrium. The open part of the room, leading from the transit tunnels that opened to Prime and other non-fictional universes, was clear, and everyone was facing the entrance and holding their breath. Brenda found herself waiting with a pounding heart, even though she didn't know what she was waiting for.

After no more than a minute, a figure entered the atrium from the Prime-side transit tunnels. It was a man, towering in height but not using his advantage to be intimidating. His long, dark hair hung straight down his back, under a top hat decorated with gears and goggles. His eyes shone in wonder as he took in the atrium, seeing the Librarians and their assistants, recognizing them as being creations he wouldn't have seen in the flesh in Prime. He stopped when he got close to the centaur, who bowed her head in greeting.

"We welcome you, as a Creator, to the Infinite Library," she intoned, and Brenda shivered as the words resonated. They had the tones of an incantation, and everyone in the atrium stood a little straighter after they had been said. 

The man's smile could have lit up the night sky, and Brenda knew that he had come home.

Day 10 of 31 Stories - God of Something

This one got away from me a little bit, and so while I'm at a good stopping point, I think there's going to be at least a part 2, if not more. enjoy day 10 - God of Something.

I stumbled into the atrium of a building that didn't look familiar at all, though to be honest, nothing looked familiar yet. I didn't look familiar to myself. Up until a breath ago, I hadn't existed in any form, and suddenly, there I was, standing in a room surrounded by pillars, trying not to fall over, and really wishing I had some idea of what the hell was going on. And what the hell "hell" was. And who was talking when I was hearing all of these things.

"Hello?" I called out, and jumped. My voice was...unexpected. It was high, and there was some kind of accent, but I couldn't place it. (I didn't even know how I knew it was an accent, to be honest...) My voice echoed around the room, and somehow seemed to get louder as it echoed. I didn't think that was how echoes were supposed to work, but maybe I was wrong? I was probably wrong. I found my feet beneath me and stood up straight, feeling a lot of cloth fall away as I straightened my hunch. I looked down at myself, trying to figure out what I was looking at.

There was a lot of cloth on me, that much was obvious. I couldn't see my legs without grabbing through handfuls and handfuls of thick, white, stiff fabric. All of it was attached to itself, and it all came up to my waist and met at a thin belt of silver. My hands were tan, with long, thin fingers that had several fine silver-colored rings on each one. My arms were covered by the same type of fabric as my legs, though there wasn't as much of it. I wish I could see more of the rest of me.

"Department of new deities, this is Denise, how can I help you?" I heard another voice in the room, that somehow didn't echo the same way my voice had. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And your sphere of influence?...Uh-huh. Well, That's something that I'm going to need to know so I can log you in our records appropriately, so please get back to me as soon as you have heard from your creator and/or your first prophet, acolyte, or believer. Uh-huh. You're welcome." There was a sound of a chime, and the voice changed in tone. It had originally been high-pitched and friendly, but after the chime, the voice came out much lower in tone and not anything that I would consider to be friendly. "Ugh. Why can't these people just tell me what they're the gods of? How do they not know this stuff?"

"Hon, you know as well as I do that the creators work in mysterious ways," another voice replied. Before I could start looking around to see where the voices were coming from, I heard footsteps on the marble floor. They were heavy, making much more noise than I imagined my own footsteps would sound like - my feet didn't have any kind of covering on them, so I didn't imagine there would be any sharp or hard edge to ring out against the marble. "Oh! Denise, this one of yours?"

The feet had stopped within my line of sight, and I could see they were shiny and brown, and there were four of them. They led up to legs that were splotched with cream and brown, and looked like they were covered in some kind of hair? It didn't look like the skin that covered my legs - I stuck my own foot out of the yards of fabric and wiggled my toes, comparing my foot to the feet in front of me. The legs were different, and my feet had toes with silver rings, while these feet didn't have toes at all. Huh.

"Denise!" I jumped, realizing just how close the voice was to me now, and I looked up to see where it was coming from. The head attached to the legs looked more like mine, as far as i could tell - it was shaped the same way my head felt, at least, and there wasn't the same kind of hair on it as were on the legs. Were my legs supposed to look like that? There was hair on their face, too, coming down in a point at the bottom of their face, just below their mouth, which opened again and let loose another shout.

"I'm coming!" The high-pitched voice was back, and I could hear it was moving, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I looked around me frantically, trying to figure out where I could go if I needed to run, and tried to grab enough of the fabric around my legs that I wouldn't trip over it if I needed to run. I still hadn't figured everything about these legs out, but I didn't imagine that having fabric wrapped around them would help me run. I was still battling the cloth when another set of footsteps clattered to a stop in front of me. This time, the feet had something red over them, and the bottoms were hard and came to a point in the front and swooped up onto a high tip in the back. The legs looked mostly like mine, but more pale, and the fabric around them stopped much higher up and away from the feet. It seemed a lot more functional that way, but I wasn't sure about the feet.

"Well, that's new," the high-pitched voice said, and I saw it was coming from another head that looked to be shaped like mine was. There was no hair on the face this time, but the mouth was very red, and there were three different colors smeared together above the eyes, in a way that the other head didn't have. I wondered if my eyes had the color smears on them, too, or if only some people had that. "You must be a new deity. Do you know what your domain is?"

I heard the words. They didn't make much sense, but I heard them. I turned my head to the side, staring between the two heads, and finally moved my mouth to see if I could make any noise like they did. "Domain? What... huh?"

"I think I know why your callers seem so confused now, Denise," the first head said. It came closer to me and leaned forward. "I apologize for the confusion. You appear to be lost. Do you know where you are, or where you came from?"

I shook my head and heard a jingling when I did so. It made me jump, which made something jingle even louder in my ear. I reached up to cover my ears, but when I did, I felt something handing from the hair in front of my ears - something metal, that jingled when I touched it. I tried to pull it out far enough to let me see it, but it wouldn't come out of my hair, so I just kept pulling that part of my hair forward and tried to focus on the little bit I could see.

Denise watched the new god spin herself in a circle, trying to look at the tiny spoons that hung from a flower in her hair, and sighed. "Yeah, OK," she said to her centaur co-worker, who was covering his mouth to hide his smile. "I guess the deities really don't know too much about what they're about when they're first created, if this one is any indication."

"How'd she end up here, that's what I'd like to know," Roman replied, once he'd gotten his expression under control. Regardless of how powerful a deity might be, they're still a god, and it's not worth finding out about their vengeance by laughing at them outright. "Their creator must be here in the Library, do you think?"

"Maybe, but that still doesn't tell us much." Denise sighed and looked at her watch, seeing her last five minutes of work tick down. "Come on, we'll get her settled in the break room and let her be the night shift's problem. Unless you want to work overtime?"

She watched Roman's blond tail twitch at the thought. "Hardly. I've got a date tonight. All right. Um, miss?"

The goddess stopped spinning and glared, cross-eyed, at the centaur. "Me?"

"Yes, miss. If you'll come with us, we have a room where you can lie down and freshen up, take a look in the mirror and answer some of your questions for yourself. My colleague and I are getting ready to leave for the night, but I'll make sure to introduce you to the next shift, so they'll be able to help with any concerns you may have." Roman offered the goddess one of his arms, and she stared at it, holding up her own arm to compare. When it got close enough to his, he gently took her arm and started directing her to the break room.

Denise followed, scribbling notes on her clipboard and thanking the innumerable and unnamed gods that she was leaving for the day. This was so not her style of thing. Surely Erica could handle it, right? Everything would be fine, right?

Right.

TO BE CONTINUED

Day 9 of 31 Stories - Next Big Thing

I've always loved seeing how movies interpret books, and how they change things/get them "wrong" in the interpretation. Naturally, I needed to play with that. Enjoy day 9 - Next Big Thing.

The conference room was in the process of getting set up when all hell broke loose. Again.

This was my first time getting to actually be involved with the movie tie-ins, and I was extremely excited to get to meet everyone and see how things would go. We all knew that a new movie was coming out shortly, and with each new preview, a little more about the movie was being made public. The series had been around for decades, encompassing five core books written by the original creators and at least a dozen more books that were part of an expanded world, written after the original series and focusing on different parts of the lore that hadn't been explored in the original books. The Powers that Be that owned the rights to all of the series had decided that those expanded world books were part of the official story as well, which meant there had been a lot to incorporate, and that had been...well, it had been a nightmare, to hear my predecessor tell it. He had been more than happy to hand over the role of Lorekeeper to me after my apprenticeship, particularly since that happened to be when a new movie was announced. He'd muttered something about "over my dead body," chugged half a bottle of champagne at his retirement party, and stopped answering phone calls or emails almost immediately. I don't know that we ever even got a forwarding address - his apartment had been empty by the next day. I admit, it wasn't a great sign, but I promised myself that I was up to the challenge!

It was a strange position to be in, being an author in Prime who had a job in the Library, but I had worked in small ways in the world of the Lore, the series for which I was now Lorekeeper, for decades. I had contributed my bit to the unofficial expanded world of Lore, helping to keep the fan communities thriving in the years between books or movies, and some of the producers had even said that my ideas had been fun. Not that that ever turned into anything real, like a credit or money or anything, but it still gave me the warm fuzzy feeling of being appreciated. When I found the job posting for official Lorekeeper, well, I don't think I'd waited an hour before putting my name into the ring with an impassioned cover letter and links to my fandom sites. I'd still been astonished to get a positive response right away, and even more so when I learned that I would be keeping the Lore plot lines from the inside out, as it were, but I certainly wasn't going to complain.

This was supposed to be my first big meeting, getting all of the principals together and going over what we knew from the new movie. By virtue of my new position, I had actually gotten an official copy of the script for the movie that was due to come out in a month (Prime-time), and so I'd drawn up detailed explanations of how the new movie incorporated the storylines from both the main series and the expanded world. Obviously there had been some cuts, some things shifted around, just like anything else, but it was truthfully a lot more faithful to the written canon that I had anticipated.

Unfortunately, there had been one big change that leaked before our meeting, which is where all hell broke loose. Lydia stormed into the meeting room, followed by Lysander, her crow familiar, who swooped over her head in a graceful arc. Behind them came crow-Lydia and human-Lysander from one of the expanded world novels. None of them looked pleased with anyone around them, but especially, they looked displeased with me. I put my hands up in a gesture meant to be placating, but was more likely to help me protect my face should any of the crows decided to go for my eyes. "Can I help you?"

"Help?" Human-Lydia spat, while crow-Lysander cawed overhead and swooped around to land on her shoulder. Just behind them, human-Lysander and crow-Lydia took a mirrored stance. "There's nothing you can do to 'help,' you obsequious little non-fic, unless you can tell me why they are still here." She stabbed a finger at her mirror-self, who also looked peeved. Human-Lysander at least seemed to have it in for human-Lydia more than for me, but it didn't look like it would take much to push the scales back over to me.

"There's no need for name-calling, thank you, Lydia, and you know that Lysander-" Crow-Lysander cut me off with an annoyed caw, and I sighed and adjusted my speech. "That human-Lysander and his familiar are both accepted parts of the Lore. You both were called to this meeting for good reason, which I will get into once we actually start the meeting." I put my hands down, deliberately trying not to look like I was terrified of the razor-sharp beaks in front of me, and focused on the human eyes glaring at me instead. "You'll just have to wait with everyone else."

"I. Don't. Wait." Lydia's voice came out like a rumble of thunder, and the lights in the room flickered just a touch as she bore down on me. I really hated dealing with a character who was canonically described as seven feet tall and looming - it meant there was no wiggle room with regards to just how much taller than I am she is, and she uses her looming capabilities to great effect. "You will tell me now, non-fic, or I will beat the words out of you with my bare hands."

"No call for that, Liddy," came a jovial voice from the doorway. As both Lydias and Lysanders turned away from me, I allowed myself a brief moment of internal relief before putting my brave front back on. "If you beat her up now, then she can't tell everyone about how I'm saving the day this time."

Horatio strode in, his sword somehow shining audibly on his hip as he confidently walked over to the corner where Lydia and Lysander had trapped me. "M'lady," he said smoothly, reaching around them and taking my hand. "I believe you have a quest for us?"

"Thank you, Horatio. Not a quest, exactly, but there are some thing that we need to go over..." I trailed off as I saw the rest of the characters come into the room, and I looked at the clock on the wall. Surprisingly, everyone was actually on time for a change. I sighed in resignation. "All right, everyone take your seats, and we'll get started."

It took a few more minutes for everyone to find chairs that put them an appropriate distance away from their mortal enemies and nearer to their dear friends, as usual, and some maneuvering was required to get staffs out of the way, but finally everyone sat down and looked at me expectantly. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and put on my best smile.

"Welcome, everyone! Thank you for coming. I know we're all excited to hear about the newest movie in the world of Lore, and so I'll try to be brief and to the point. The newest movie is not going to focus on the storyline of any particular book from the core series - the studios have decided that audiences no longer need to see how Horatio first becomes the greatest hero in the realm, as that story has been told on film several times now." Horatio looked a bit deflated, but not for long - his ego wouldn't allow him to stay down for very long. The rest of the characters, on the other hand, suddenly perked up. If Horatio wasn't going to be the focus of the story, then who was?

I gulped down some water and continued. "In fact, the studios have decided to take a new approach, refocusing their energies on one of the characters who hasn't had as much time in the spotlight. Gwendolyn? Where are you, sweetheart?" Everyone looked around the table, bewildered, until a small woman's hand raised shakily. She was sitting as far from the front of the table as she could, trying to hide from everyone's attention, and now it was all coming down on her head. I smiled and waved her up to the front, knowing deep down that I was probably going to destroy the young woman's life with this news. Still, as a fan of the world, I could not WAIT.

Gwendolyn stumbled up to the front, eyes downcast and hands twisted into the apron hanging loosely from her waist. A chorus of murmurs followed her, and I watched the faces of the crowd as the penny dropped. I had never been so thankful to see that big, brash smile from Horatio as I had been at that moment, but he looked as excited as a child when he realized where this was going.

"Gwendolyn, honey, we're so glad you're here," I said, doing my best to avoid the false cheer that adults use with young people all too frequently. "In the summer, people are going to learn that there's a lot more about you, and a lot of things that are very special about you, than they ever knew." I ducked my head down, trying to catch her eye and get a better sense of what this would mean to her.

I didn't need to wait for long. She stopped twisting her hands in her apron and slowly, so slowly, lifted her eyes to meet mine. I could have sworn her eyes had been a dishwater gray-brown before, but now I could see they were a rich, dark brown with flecks of silver. I could see her face filling out in detail as the script of the new movie made its way into her essence, and with a gasp, she stood straight for the first time. She was beautiful, strong and powerful, all the things that young women would love to see on screen and in themselves. "Me?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"You," I responded, my eyes filling with tears. "It's time."

She turned to the rest of the room, and even Lydia and Lysander bowed their heads before her. It was time for a new hero in the world of Lore, and the world had chosen her.

Day 8 of 31 Stories - The Many Faces of August France

This is what happens when I spend too much time thinking about biographies and historical fiction, I think - I start wondering what happens when new information about a person comes to light, and someone takes another stab at writing their biography. This was fun. Enjoy day 8 - The Many Faces of August France.

The room was starting to fill up, but there were still a few empty chairs closer to the front of the room where the dais stood. The audience was made up of people who looked roughly the same, if you glanced quickly - it would take at least a second look to notice that some people had longer hair, or darker hair; some wore clothes that were a bit more tailored or more tattered; some had skin that was a shade or two lighter, or had notable scars on slightly different parts of their faces. Overall, there was a strong resemblance between everyone, but not enough to say exactly how they were related. Cousins, perhaps, or aunts and uncles.

The audience was fairly quiet - that, at least, seemed to be a universal. Nearly every member of the audience was reading a book of some sort, though some were making notes in notebooks of many types. Most were leather of some form, though some were cardboard or paper. All were writing with a fountain pen of some form or another, and each had a pocket dedicated to the purpose of holding both notebook and pen.

At the front of the room, someone approached the dais, and the small amount of noise being made by the others quieted down. The ones who had been reading closed their books and pulled out their own notebooks, while those taking notes flipped to a blank page. All looked to the newcomer expectantly, pens poised and waiting.

The person at the dais cleared their throat and took a sip of water from the glass conveniently left on a table next to the dais for them. "Greetings, my friends and fellows," they said, their voice still a touch hoarse in spite of the water. The rest of the attendees muttered something in response, in tones that mimicked both the original speaker and each other, a susurrus of greeting. The speaker at the dais nodded in acknowledgement and places their own notebook on the slanted surface in front of them, allowing themselves a moment to find their appropriate notes and have some business for their hands as they pulled themselves together.

"I appreciate you taking the time to gather here and allow me to speak to you as the newest member of our order. As you may be aware, there has been a recent resurgence in popularity in the history of those who created the inaugural library of botanical sciences, which has led to renewed interest in ourselves and our fellow botanists. I believe I recognize a few of you from books written in the last decade or so, yes?" The speaker directed their words to three of the attendees who were sitting closer to the front of the audience, who shared a rueful smile with each other and the speaker. There were one or two audience members toward the back of the room who looked uncomfortable when considering the newer members, and a careful observer would note that the superficial differences between those in the back of the room and those in the front were the most extreme of all of the differences. Those in the back were better-dressed and had more conspicuous signs of wealth and social standing, and also had skin that was paler and less obviously scarred. Those in the front, however, dressed in a manner that indicated their clothing, while once considered quite expensive, had been repaired often and not well, and were likely to be more patch than original fabric. None of the three newer members appeared to be solely of Caucasian descent, unlike the older members. They all looked as though they had spent more time outdoors and doing hard labor, rather than sitting in libraries and studying, and their scars had not healed as cleanly as the older audience members.

The speaker at the front of the room more closely resembled the newer members of the audience than the older, though their clothing was of a higher quality. Unlike the majority of audience members, their hair grew long down their back, pulled into a braid, and was nearly as black as pitch with thin streaks of white shot through the length. Their bearing was not as straight and proud as that of the men they stood in front of, but rather somewhat hunched, as though they were trying to hide something of themselves. Still, they carried on with their prepared remarks.

"In the last year, some bright spark decided that it was time to tell the full story of the founding of the library of botanical sciences, and dedicated herself to making a movie about us. She worked with several historians, going as far back into our backgrounds as she could, and a new source of primary resources was discovered in the home of our former love." The speaker watched the audience carefully as they took notes, recognizing that some of the older audience members were starting to look alarmed.

"Our former love?" One man raised his hand in confusion. When the speaker nodded to him, he stood, raising himself above the audience from about the middle of the room. "Begging your pardon, but my book stated that we never had a true love. In point of fact, it was understood that we were asexual, and had no desire for a romantic partnership." He looked around to the other men in the audience, confused by the sudden chorus of snickers. "Is that not correct?"

"Don't know where they got that idea, old man," another audience member said. "Per my book, we were a bit of a hound, fathering children everywhere we went. 'Asexual' wasn't even a term when I was written, though," he added defensively as some of the snickers turned to sounds of outrage.

"I say," one of the older men began, but the speaker raised their hands and brought the attention of the room back to the front. The asexual version of the man they all presumed to be sat down, still looking confused.

"By our former love, I refer to Emilia Jenkins-Waldorf," the speaker explained, seeing looks of recognition appear on the faces around them. "We wrote her many letters over our life, and she kept most of them. They hadn't been found before now, but her great-great-grandson was willing to share those letters with the historians working with the movie director, and so some more of our less public aspects have become, well, public." They shrugged, sheepish. "That's where I came from."

"Well, tell us about yourself, then," one of the newer members said eagerly. His fellows nodded in agreement, pens poised to take down notes and see what else they could learn about themselves. Several of the other men in the audience prepared themselves similarly, faces with some degree of curiosity or excitement. Only the men in the back of the room looked upset at hearing about yet another iteration, and the speaker didn't believe that would change once they heard the speaker out.

"I was born August Louise France, in 1811," they began, only to be stopped almost immediately.

"Louise? Did they misspell your middle name already?" The older August snorted with derision. "Some historian, if they can't even get our middle name correct."

The speaker took another deep breath and let it out slowly before straightening up, allowing her shoulders to fall back and her full silhouette to be made clear. "No," she said. "My name is, was, and always has been, August Louise France. I was named after my father's brother, August, and after my mother's sister, Louise. I am, was, and always have been, a woman."

Twenty minutes later, the worst of the brouhaha had subsided. The elder Augusts, those written back in the late 19th century when no one could conceive of a groundbreaking scientist being anything but a Caucasian man, had left in a huff; the oldest of them had to be helped out by two of his brethren, as the shock had been too much for his system. Louise, as she asked to be called, had been willing to answer questions from the rest of the Augusts, and there had been many, many questions. She was grateful that some of the Augusts had been more accepting, telling her that their own stories had made so much more sense now that they had the additional information, and the August who had been depicted as asexual had nearly been apoplectic when he realized how his author had twisted events to avoid the same revelation. Louise set up some time to meet with that August one on one, as she felt he might have more specific questions than the others would.

Eventually, Louise was left with the three newest Augusts, those whose biggest revelation had been that August had not been purely Caucasian. Gus, the newest of the three, was the most supportive of all of the Augusts; he, of course, had been the most recent dropper of bombshells, and so he knew better than most what she was experiencing. "Don't worry about them," he said, as the last of the angry Augusts left the room. "They'll get over it, or they won't. Either way, you have your story to tell, and it sounds like the letters will back it up more than most of these guys."

"Yeah, they're just cranky because you being here with all your primary sources are going to keep them from getting read," Auggy, the middle of the three new guys (as they called themselves), added. "I just hope it'll lead some people to take another look at us, too. There were a lot of people who discarded us as - what did they call us, A?"

"'Identity politics run amok,' I think was my favorite," A responded. He'd been the first to come out with the news that August France had been the son of a white settler and Mexican mother, and had faced his fair share of scrutiny because of it. "Because saying that some historical figure isn't white is saying they're somehow not as good, or something? I never really understood it, I just wish my author had been willing to stick up for me."

"His author disavowed him, claiming he'd had back sources," Gus whispered to Louise. "It was pretty harsh, especially when Auggy and I came along with the same narrative. And now you!"

Louise ducked her head in embarrassment. "I don't want to be anything special," she said. "I didn't want to be anyone special then, either. I just wanted to study, and a mixed woman wasn't going to be able to do anything in a school. A mixed man, well, he stood a chance. My father was the one willing to keep my secret, and so was Emilia." All four sighed with regret at the memory. "Keeping my secret was what drove her away, though," Louise said softly. "It's because of me that we never married. We never could have been ourselves openly, not if we were to maintain any standing in society."

All of them looked at the floor, lost in thought, before Louise finally stirred. "Well, with luck, we won't be needing to meet anyone new anytime soon. I look forward to seeing you around the Library, though." She stood straight, and each man shook her hand firmly before gathering their books and heading to the door. Once the last of them left, Louise let her shoulders slump again as she took her own notebook and book from the dais.

Back to work, she supposed. At least until the next face of August France appeared to replace her, may it be many years from now.