The Very Hungry Butterfly Only Has Two Weeks Left

One morning, the very contented butterfly who was once a very hungry caterpillar became aware of his own mortality rate.

Numbers flashed in his head and he understood how the moon and sun’s rotation around the earth counted as a “day” and how “days” became “weeks.” The very aware butterfly realized he only had two weeks left on this world.

This depressed the very miserable butterfly, and he spent a large amount of time on his lonesome, not that he knew any other butterflies.

On Sunday, he spent one hour moping. But he was still depressed.

On Monday, he spent two hours crying. But he was still depressed.

On Tuesday, he spent three hours in the fetal position. But he was still depressed.

On Wednesday, he spent four hours trying to eat. But he was still depressed.

On Thursday, he spent five hours empty and hollow. But he was still depressed.

On Friday, he spent six hours thinking. But he was still depressed.

On Saturday, he realized the last week of his life should be meaningful and decided to find a field of flowers to pass away in. He felt much better.

Now the butterfly wasn’t a big and healthy butterfly anymore. He was small and shriveled.

Still, the very sickly butterfly fluttered for six days to find a field of flowers.

On the seventh day, the butterfly found a luscious field filled to the brim with many flowers to peacefully spend his last moments in.

Another butterfly emerged from a cocoon at that moment.

The very tired butterfly asked the young butterfly why he looked so happy.

“Because,” the young butterfly said, “I can go where I want and do whatever I want! Being a caterpillar held me back, but no more!”

The old butterfly asked what if he knew he only had two weeks to live.

“Then I would live it up, of course! Assuming I was healthy enough to, that is.”

The young butterfly flitted away onto his own destiny.

The very quiet butterfly understood what the young one meant. It may have been a late lesson to learn, but it was a good one.

Then the butterfly passed on, contented once more.

In his next life, the butterfly was born as a writer for children’s books.

Mrs. & Mrs. Gronk-Uggg

Mrs. and Mrs. Gronk-Uggg were married in a lush field on November 3rd, 2018 B.C. in front of a slightly disapproving crowd. Of course, being the first of anything was always going to face backlash, but being the first married lesbians in history really ruffled some raptor feathers.

Garna Gronk, a vivacious blonde who kept the girls away with a club, met Clunnk Uggg (she claims her upbringing was from a very traditional family) back in 2023 B.C. They adopted a baby triceratops, Corey, to practice for real babies.

“Ugggh,” teased Garna about Clunnk’s uni-brow.

“Gaahh!” Clunnk slapped her away.

The cave fell silent for a while.

“Geeh.” Garna was always asking about having real children, even back when they were dating.

Clunnk grunted nothing.

“GEEH.” Garna was insistent this time.

“Rarak. Ganna rarra rarak.” Clunnk brushed her off as usual.

“Geeh…” Her mate pouted.

Clunnk held up two furs to her chest. “Haa… og harrak?”

“…Harrak. Gonur.” Garna loved her mate, but she couldn’t pull off winter colors.

“Hagga.” The big party was tonight, and Clunnk didn’t want to look fat.

Corey growled at nothing in particular.

At the party over at Greg and Lalanda Smook’s cave, Garna was glaring at a woman wearing the same fur as her.

“Konak?” Clunnk didn’t see the big deal.

“Giva…” she said, lamenting the woman wore it better.

Greg tapped his wine urn. “Hello, fellow neanderthals. I’m Greg Smook, but you already know that. Welcome to our party! Oh, and I see two children who should be on the hay by now! Good night, Zanndak and Orla!”

Lalanda translated for her upright blabbermouth.

Zanndak gave Garna a big grin (while catching a peek at her cleavage) and rushed off to bed. Orla hugged her parents and followed suit.

Garna frowned. Clunnk slapped her forehead. This wasn’t at all what Garna needed.

Greg and Lalanda approached Mrs. and Mrs. Gronk-Uggg. Lalanda looked about ready to kick him.

“Hey, ladies! How’s the marriage going? Any trouble in paradise? Ha ha! Just kidding.”

Mrs. Gronk and Mrs. Uggg looked at him with tilted heads. Why did he have to evolve so… annoyingly? All those big words and none of them necessary.

Lalanda kicked him.

“Rura?” Lalanda asked Clunnk about her rock business.

“Enomi dotur.” Economic downturn, answered Mrs. Uggg.

“So Garna, thinking about having kids of your own? With your body, I’d advise against it! Ha ha! Just kidding.”

She didn’t follow any of that, but she understood “kids” in any language.

“Ug. Ugh. Uug.”

“Okay, don’t get your saber-tooth panties in a bunch. I was just asking. You know, there’s a great adoption clinic across from my work cave. Maybe you and,” he pointed at Clunnk “can check it out.”

“Sluya.”

“A sperm donor? I wasn’t really kidding about your body. It, it’s great. Don’t ruin it with kids. After what happened with Lalanda, I don’t want you to go flabby.”

She caught his drift and punched him in the nose.

The guest clamored around Greg to see if he died. He hadn’t, but some wish he had. Lalanda helped him up.

“Unga bunga!” Clunnk excused herself and Mrs. Gronk.

After an argument late into the night back at their cave, the couple came to a conclusion: Garna would have a baby on her own via sperm donor and Cluunk Uggg would be completely hands off.

However, after nine months, there were complications. Garna Gronk passed away during childbirth, giving birth to a healthy son. Ms. Uggg named the boy Dedek, meaning death in her tongue.

Cluunk, Corey and Dedek lived normally for cavepeople, despite Cluunk living in complete silence around her late wife’s son. Eventually, Corey grew up and moved out of the cave, leaving six-year-old Dedek to talk to himself.

Nothing Cluunk observed Dedek do impressed her. He had so many similarities to the deceased Garna Gronk, who Dedek couldn’t even miss, not having known her.

Ms. Uggg pulled out some old cave paintings she put away when her wife died. When she rediscovered her old wedding painting, she wept.

“Ongo?” asked Dedek about Garna in the painting.

Cluunk said nothing, as usual.

“Epp!” Dedek noted their eyes and hair looked the same.

Finally, Cluunk turned to Dedek and opened up.

“Shala wum ropik.” She explained that this person was his mother, her wife whom she loved very much. When Dedek was born, it felt like her whole world was ripped away from her, but part of Garna Gronk lived on in Dedek Gronk-Uggg. She couldn’t truly abandon the boy knowing where and who he came from, and chose to be silent around him out of anger and sadness.

“Slimuok.” But no longer, she decided. They would become a real mother and son, and live for the memory of Garna, not remain frigid due to her loss.

Dedek hugged his mother and wept. He felt home, which was odd, because he was always home. Even if he only had one mother, he wouldn’t give her up to the wolves of the world, the dinosaurs of demise, the homo sapiens of horror. Their embrace lasted until fifteen minutes, when Cluunk realized she had a raptor over the fire burning.

The She-Bandit

“Once more, from the beginning,” the she-bandit demanded. Her mask muffled her words, but her intentions came out clearly.

Tetris (not the game, the merchant) slowed down her words. “My precious jewel was stolen. A man on a camel stole my cross-hatch gem. It’s a gem made of many other jewels. Please, find it for me, or…”

The she-bandit sighed, muffled. “A man on a camel? Like every man travelling in the desert? How can I identify this man?”

“Well…” Tetris gulped. “That’s the problem. He… or she, maybe… was in disguise, so it could be anyone.”

“Tough break, kid. I can’t waste my time looking for a super-expensive jewel that you can’t even sell without it getting stolen. I suggest you try fishing in sand pits. You’d have more luck.”

As the she-bandit rose, a blinding sparkling object dropped from her boot.

“THE CROSS-HATCH GEM!” Tetris shrieked.

“Oops.” The she-bandit considered her words carefully. “Okay. To be fair, I didn’t steal it. A merchant sold it to me for a fortune, so I’m…”

“And that blood on your knife, I’m led to believe is from a flying cow?”

The she-bandit looked at her weapon.

“Can’t blame me for trying. But I just stabbed him in the arm for it. A murderer I’m not.”

Banging came from the closet.

“Father! You tried to steal from your own daughter?”

A fat man in Arabian garb with a knife wound on his shoulder was tied up in the closet.

“She was trying to steal it from us while you were relieving yourself! She did this to me!”

The she-bandit laughed. “Oh, please. What about the person on the camel?”

Tetris examined the gem. “This is a clever forgery! So you stole the real one from my father and replaced it with a fake, stole the false one back on camel-back while in disguise to shift the blame and…”

“I’m confused,” said the she-bandit. “And this was supposed to be my scheme. Why don’t I just take both and call it a day?” She pulled out a knife. “Unless you don’t like keeping both of your ears.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Tetris. She pulled out a new kind of weapon. “It’s called a gun. It may look like a horn, but it packs a punch.”

“What could that possibly–”

BANG!

“MY ARM!”

“We’ll be taking our things back, Miss She-Bandit. Rot in Hell, please.”

After they left the she-bandit’s den, she began extracting the bullet.

“Damn coward. Guns. It’ll never catch on.”

“Excuse me?”

A young man with sandy blonde hair approached the bleeding woman.

“Not now, kid. I’m kind of bleeding out here.”

“Can I–”

“NO!” she jerked back. “Look, what is it you want?”

“I have a gem, and I assure you, it’s not worth wounding me over.”

She scratched her head. “So you heard all that. What, what, out with it!”

He opened a gold painted box with a teensy-weensy jewel. It seemed to be a ruby.

“You’re right. It’s not worth the effort. So what’s up?”

“The much-larger part of the jewel was stolen by bandits. As a bandit yourself, I tracked you down–”

“Found one of my advertisements, you mean.”

“Okay, yes. Please help me find the bandits. I think they go by the Graham Bandits.”

“How much are you willing to pay for me to betray my former gang?” she muffled.

“Oh… I had hoped you would have done it out of good will…”

She laughed and laughed and laughed.

“…But I do have 37 thousand kolens. And the use of my flying cow, if you’d like.”

She stopped laughing.

“Is the gem really that valuable?”

“No, but it was my late wife’s favorite.”

The she-bandit shook his hand and took a map to their new hideout. It had been seventeen years since she left the Graham Bandits, and for the better. On the whole, she could swipe gems and get a reward for them better than those chuckleheads could simply steal from others.

She rode the cow as far as a mile before the hideout. No sense in dropping off right in front. She could figure out the traps easily. A flying arrow? No problem. A hole in the sand? She could go around it easy-peasy. She was never particularly perfect at spike traps, which is why she recommended not bothering to put any in her own den. The gang also lacked spike traps at her request, still keeping to it seventeen years later.

When she got to the entrance, she jumped onto a rock. Perfect. The whole gang was there with crossbows aimed right at her.

The young man with sandy blonde hair emerged from the shadows.

“So, the former Graham leader is caught by the new turd,” the she-bandit said. “How did you get here before me?”

“Flying jaguar, of course.”

She smiled under her face mask. “Of course. So what now?”

“Now you admit I’m the better Graham leader and we’ll kill you with crossbows,” he mumbled.

“And if I don’t?”

“Well then, we’ll defile you and then kill you with crossbows.”

“You don’t want to defile me.”

“Oh, but I do. Ever since I saw your portrait on the wall of former leaders, I knew you were the one.”

“Guys,” she groaned, “You don’t want this. You knew me as a little girl.”

“Of course not, She-Bandit. But he’s the leader, and we have to shoot you.” A ruffian with a thick beard turned away from her piercing glare.

“And defile me?”

“I think he means to do it himself. Like the royal we.”

“SILENCE!” The gang leader clapped his palms together. “Now, remove your mask.”

“You’re the better leader, guy. Definitely outstanding. My, my leadership was like, nothing compared to yours.”

“Mask. Off.”

The other Graham Bandits turned away.

“Fine.”

As she lowered her black mask, the Graham leader’s mouth turned downwards.

She had a multitude of zits and pimples scattered across her face and a notable mustache forming above her lip. Her lips themselves were cracked and pale, while the corners of her mouth had white gunk forming.

“Like I wear a mask to disguise myself? No no. At this point, my eyes are gorgeous and recognizable. Still want your way with me?”

The leader yanked a crossbow from a female gang member’s hands. “I’ll end you right now, monster!”

The other members shot the man with sandy blonde hair. He breathed out, “This was supposed to…” and died.

“Nice loyalty, Graham gang.” She hopped off the rock. “But as the most recent living leader, I suggest you disband. If that’s your pick of leader, you really need to reevaluate your lives.” She affixed her mask once more.

“Sorry about…”

“It’s fine. Hey, is there any good gems around here, like a large ruby?”

“No. That tiny ruby is the best we could do under his leadership. He was obsessed with you to the point of ignoring his duties.”

“No gold, any kind of compensation?”

“Uh…”

“How about the flying cow and jaguar?”

“Those are on loan, actually.”

“Ah. I shan’t deprive you of that, Borshnick.”

“Thanks, Gulda.”

“She-Bandit. I’m the She-Bandit. And I’m having a really lousy day.”

Last Costume Party

I only dressed as Don Quixote because I love Man of La Mancha. I could care less about the book. Yes, I could care less, because if the book didn’t exist, the musical wouldn’t either.

Sigh. I really wish I could have seen the musical before the world was destroyed. I miss theater. Oh, we have electricity left in some places, but it’s choppy. But enough about the present nightmare. This is my life as a boy, when my sister and her boyfriend had the idea for one last costume party.

Oh, and she’s not my sister, Amy. She’s my babysitter from childhood. But she’s like… dead. She was. “She’s” as in “she was.” Sorry if “she’s” doesn’t mean “she was.” I didn’t want to spoil the ending. I can’t keep up the charade any longer. This is her final costume party. She died, Michael. She’s dead.

Right, Amy, my “sister” who “was.” We were in the house we’d been bumming in and she suggested something to liven the mood. I’m sorry, I’m not much of a narrator these days. I think the loneliness has driven me mad. I never had someone to die with like Amy did, so I haven’t killed myself yet.

What’s with the madness in Don Quixote? He gets to go on an adventure while my madness leads me to ramble in a memoir. If anyone finds this, I was a very pleasant child. Right, back to my tale.

Amy found a half-dilapidated costume shop and dressed in a frog costume. She helped me find a Don Quixote costume and I adored it. Josh, the stupid boyfriend, dressed as purple grapes. They had green grapes for babies, but Josh wouldn’t put it on.

Our costume party was great. Let me break it down by the woods the woods he didn’t stop red red red

Sorry. I’m the only one left. It’s been 47 years since that day. I’m half-dilapidated in the brain, myself. Let me break it down by paragraph red.

Food: Cans and cans of food! We had peas, tuna, corn, something green, and a bird I killed! A pigeon, I think. Even Josh enjoyed it. Amy hugged me for finding such fresh meat.

Music: Man of La Mancha, and it wasn’t even my birthday! The power was out that day, so we used batteries and a boom box. Thank God for Duracell and this hellhole I live in every single day. I HATE YOU AND WILL FIGHT YOU TO THE END LORD.

Costume Contest: Amy won the costume contest. She seemed a little sad that day, so Josh and I separately voted for her, although she voted for me. I miss her more than I miss Duracell batteries.

When we were going to start telling scary stories, Amy ran out of the house and into the woods woods wooden areas. She took the Swiss army knife, Josh noticed. We ran after her and discovered her in the darkest part of the woods.

“Don’t come any closer!” Amy warbled. “I’m going to end myself!”

“Then it doesn’t matter if we come closer.” Josh always was too logical for his own good. Was.

Amy stabbed herself. I cried and screamed, running towards her.

“I couldn’t… another… day like this… sad.”

She was right. It was no way to live, even with a costume party.

“Josh… please, come with me. I love… you…” And she died.

Josh started to run. I asked where he was going, and noted she needed a proper burial.

“No way am I willing to die for a woman! This is goodbye, brat.”

He didn’t stop. I ran after him and tripped on a rock. I held the knife out and fell into Josh.

Red.

RED.

MMy hands were ccccovered in blood. I killed Josh. He died with Amy, like she wanted.

I buried them both, even though Josh didn’t deserve to die with her, the sour grapes. Amy looked so peaceful in death, my happy frog princess. Josh was wearing a grape costume. Serves him right.

I promised myself to die like Amy, but I haven’t seen another person in 47 years. If anyone finds this memoir, please bury it in the darkest part of the woods. That is where I wish to be buried with it as well.

To Bury Treasure

“Heathcliff… it’s me, Cathy, I’ve come home, I’m so cold…” Burt wasn’t sure of the lyrics, but she got them mostly right.

She held a pair of large sandals in one hand and a treasure chest under her other arm.

She disapproved of the way the sand squished in between her toes. It was as if she had been walking on salted brains. She also disapproved of the way the seagulls were circling around her and Skipper.

Skipper. Dumb dog. He had the IQ of a dalmatian but lacked the inbreeding. He was a good boy, and Burt knew that, but damn, was he ever stupid. Once, she pretended to throw a ball, and he ran into the street, narrowly avoiding a Toyota Camry.

She named him that because of the way he jumped with each step. She tried it, but her heels were too large and she nearly tripped over herself. Burt looked around embarrassed. No one. She was relieved, but lonesome. Hoping to mooch a lunch off of others, she realized it was too cloudy and that she was no better than the seagulls surrounding her.

She sat against a wooden fence in the sand. The chest could wait.

Burt spotted Skipper playing with a seagull who appeared to be as dumb as the husky. They made a game of tilting their heads repeatedly and looking in a direction that led to nothing.

“Bow, wow!”

“Squawk!”

“Ha ha!” Burt laughed at the animal friends, and took a photo of the two getting along. In her entire life, it received three likes across all of her social platforms.

She found more energy surging through her long legs. “Here Skipper!” He circled around for a bit until he found “here.”

With a seagull on his back, Skipper pawed at the wooden box Burt kept locked. “No, Skipper! It’s for later, and you can’t have!”

Since her parents died… rather, they were dead to her, but yes, very much alive, she felt companionship in both nature and beasts. Like her, they were unpredictable (and as her former friends once said, full of beauty. She would heavily deny these remarks and individuals).

She had a brother, but he was in jail, while her other brother was in a coma. She was bereft of friends and family, but being alone suited Burt Campbell (no relation to the Richard Mulligan character).

Her real name was Alberta… as she thought about her name, she walked onto a shard of glass. She missed the salted brain sensation. As she took the bandage from her arm and put it on her sole, she continued thinking about her name. Alberta was not her favorite name. She was nicknamed “Bertie” for short, then “Bert,” but she spelled it with a U. Not the best name story, she thought.

The cold chill brushed against her skin. She rolled down the plaid sleeves of her shirt and buttoned it at the wrists. Her inner narration was yawning. Nothing of interest happened to her. She had heard about a woman who couldn’t see the color blue and wondered what that was like. She also recalled the news piece about the day seven pizza chefs and a delivery guy vanished. An unlikely story, she felt, but entertaining.

Burt dropped the treasure chest.

“Let’s look at him one more time.”

She opened the lock, lifted the lid of the box and saw that it was still filled to the brim with bones and a dog skull.

“Sorry, Skipper. I give you a lot of flak for being dumb, but Gil was even dumber. He was a dalmatian. Really dumb. He was my best friend after Tom went into the coma. Then he got hit by a Toyota Camry and… well, you’re here.”

“Bow.”

“I bow to no dog,” she joked. “Can you dig? I forgot my shovel.”

Burt closed the lid and locked it again. “Dig, Skipper. Dig for Gil.”

She motioned digging and eventually just dug the sand with her own hands. Skipper started digging two minutes before she finished.

“Good boy, Skipper.” She went silent for four minutes. “Goodbye, Gil.”

“Goodbye, friend. Thank you for taking such good care of me.”

She wheeled around and saw a fat bald man with a thin mustache and spectacles. She didn’t feel any anger. Actually, she felt relieved, like Gil had wanted to say that.

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Name’s Dean.”

“Bur–Alberta. Well, have a nice day at the beach, Dean.”

“I always do!” He chuckled at her, then sighed.

Burt wondered if it was illegal to keep a seagull. Before she could react, it flew away.

“Both of us lost a friend today, huh?”

“Wowowo.”

“Come on, I’ll make you some nice pork ch–” She checked her breast pocket. “I think I dropped my keys in the hole. Where was it again?”

The seagull came back with Burt’s keys in its beak. It sat on Skipper’s back again.

“Guess you guys aren’t so dumb, huh?”

Skipper howled and the seagull, later named Keys, squawked.

Tiny At The Dairy Barn

How could this happen to Lauren Lockwood? She considered herself, as many do, to be a good person. She didn’t smoke, so it didn’t make sense that she shriveled up as she did.

She shrank to no bigger than a can of Coke. She knew this because she had been drinking a can of Coke when it happened, and it was laying on the ground next to her. Next time, Diet Coke for sure.

Thank goodness she was carrying doll clothes with her when it happened. Lauren put on the lensless plastic frames and the high heels, seriously doubting Barbie and her associates’ fashion sense. The doll laid next to her, undressed, as if to say “Good luck, kid. I’m going to wait here to be burned by a bored teen boy.”

She wobbled in the shoes, not used to such crap quality. They should make leather shoes for dolls, she thought. Clearly it’s time for an upgrade.

The Dairy Barn loomed overhead like a skyscraper. It hadn’t been doing the best business, but dammit, this was her childhood hangout. Now she was wondering if she should go back, or potentially sue. Who would listen to me like this? she wondered. I was short before and got ignored, but this…

As a child, she was on the petite side. The other girls would call her Little Lauren Lockwood and throw acorns. “Scoop them up, Little Lauren! Scoop them up!” She shuddered at the memory. That’s why she always wore pumps, to pump up her spirits. She would give anything to go back to being 5″4′.

Lauren heard rustling in the bushes. Was it a bird, or a squirrel? She started to run, but fell on her face. She crawled on the colossal asphalt surrounding the Dairy Barn. No Lockwood was pathetic enough to let themself get eaten by a creature.

The entity popped out. A beaver? In New York? That seemed unlikely. The creature sniffed at her shoes for a moment, then stepped back. Then the beaver lunged in the air at her. She crouched in fear, but the thing just fell on its chin. She watched as it struggled to rise, so she walked over and punched it in the snout six times.

The beaver cringed and shuddered. Lauren felt pity for the dam beast. She decided to exploit him. Slowly inching her way towards him, she climbed aboard the monster’s back, being careful not to pull out his fur. Then she kicked him to get him moving.

Across the asphalt she rode. She felt like Bastian from The Neverending Story riding the Luckdragon. She tried to ignore the smell. Coincidentally, the beaver tried to ignore her smell. She had been doused in some sugary drink and was sticky. He picked the tiny thing up and licked it clean, much to her chagrin yet slight amusement.

The tiny woman made it to the Dairy Barn window. The beaver followed her in what seemed to be an absurd attraction. He lifted her back onto his head and she climbed onto the window sill.

“Next.”

“Yes,” she squeaked. “I drank a Coca-Cola from your drive-thru…”

“Speak up please.”

“I said, I had a Coke from your store and…”

“What?”

“Yo, da lady wants to go back ta normal size already, yeah? And I drank a Sprite and it made me a beaver!”

Lauren looked at him in shock. “You can talk? But then, why…”

The beaver smiled. “Would ya have let me lick ya if ya knew?” No, she would not have.

“This happens all the time. Just pee it out and you’ll be fine again. Please move ahead. Next!” With that, they left.

The following week, Lauren bought a Hostess Ring-Ding instead. She had gone back to normal size and felt confident going to Dairy Barn once more.

She wondered about Steven, the beaver who drank Sprite, but didn’t worry about him. After all, he came on way strong.

She saw a man sipping on a Sprite and he spotted her. Was it Steven? She didn’t wait to find out. Like Coca-Cola, she was done with him.

This story was sponsored in part by Pepsi. Pepsi: How do you know Coca-Cola products won’t alter your metabolism? Drink Pepsi.

Uma Thurman of the Owls

“Have you ever seen Motherhood? No one has. It’s $1.99 online. $1.99 to see me act.”

The owls were trying to sleep, but she kept chattering on.

“My Super-Ex Girlfriend is $2.99. I don’t know. To me, they’re of a similar quality.”

She tried picking off feathers from the snowy owl with her toes, succeeding all too well. She held them in place.

“Ta-da! Quentin would have loved this. But forget him. Forever.”

She watched the largest owl fly away in what she perceived as something other than annoyance.

“Off to get us some worms, right bros?” She laughed nervously. The barn owl turned away from her.

Uma Thurman flopped onto her back. Why didn’t the other owls like her? Was it because she was so tall? Her size 11 (she claimed) talons? Her tired eyes? She identified as an owl now. She recalled what had happened.

As of today, she said in a public speech, I no longer feel like a human. I’m being watched and photographed all the time. I feel overly sexualized and criticized. Therefore, I will now live my life as an owl. I will move to an undisclosed tree with other owls and if you think I’m mad, you’re just a bigot.

Many people supported her in fear of being ousted as bigots. Uma bought five male owls and moved to the top of a dragon blood tree.

But now they hate me, even though I’m one of them. What did I do wrong?

The thought struck her. “I’m not a predator like my brothers! I need to use my talons to attack, and I’ve just been lazing about!”

She ran and ran and ran and jumped off of the tree, toes outstretched to grab an animal with. She fell and fell and fell and landed on Quentin Tarantino. He lay unconscious on the dirty ground. She stood up and realized he must have been looking for her.

A cruel idea struck her brain. What was the name of her big movie he directed? Kill Quentin? That sounded right to her.

That night, Uma fed an ambiguous meat to her brothers. “Eat up,” she said. She turned to the snowy owl. “Uh, those are for me. I eat the feet.”

The largest owl hooted. The roundest owl hooed. The snowy owl whoed. The barn owl whomed. The bland owl said nothing. The Uma owl said, “What are we going to do now, brothers?”

The owls picked her up with their talons and flew off. Over the forests flew the six owls, high in the sky, over the trees and beyond the clouds. Past rivers. Past valleys. Past the boundaries of the forest.

Finally, Uma felt like one of her brethren. Uma laughed in excitement, hoping this flight would never end.

They went into the human territories and stopped at a police station. Uma ran, barefoot, but the five owls’ strength was no match for one owl.

“I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go!” She panicked. “You can’t take me to jail over Quentin! Directors are creepos!”

“What seems to be the problem?” asked the sergeant. “Ain’t you Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction?”

“N-n-no! I’m an owl! An owl!” She stomped frantically.

“That’s Uma Thurman, the self-proclaimed owl,” said a female cop. “I recognize her from Motherhood.”

“Oh, would you like an autograph?”

“I hated that movie. Worst waste of $1.99 I spent.”

The owls began to hoot wildly. To Uma, they seemed to be pecking a path of truth into her skull. She couldn’t withstand it any longer.

“I KILLED QUENTIN TARANTINO AND ATE HIM! But it’s fine, right? I’m an owl. You can’t arrest me.”

“Actually,” said the second cop, “an animal that attacks a human usually gets put down, and you killed one. Let’s send her to animal control.”

Uma froze. This wasn’t right at all. “I was only kidding. I’m not really an owl.”

“No, no. You made it clear. You’re an owl and we’re putting you down. Hello, animal control?”

“But I’m human! I have human children! My ex-husbands are human!”

“That so? Then we’ll send them to jail for bestiality.”

The animal control came in. “Which owl is she?”

“The big yellow one with the goofy claws.”

“But I am a human! I am human!” She kept on screaming it until the words couldn’t be heard.

At the animal control center, Uma was strapped down with leather ropes.

“You can’t do this! Kill Bill! Pulp Fiction! The Producers! I’m too famous for this! Too rich! Too… COME ON, I’m human for Christ’s sake! Quentin totally deserved being eaten! You can’t do this to another human being!”

“Stop hooting, little one. It’ll all be over soon.”

Uma shouted and wailed and cried, but to no avail. The needle pierced Uma Thurman the owl’s skin and…

Blueless

She had lost the ability to see, or even visualize the color blue.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true– Eloise still could see and visualize greens and purples, but not blue.

That hadn’t been the truth either. For whatever reason, she could only visualize a blue giraffe. A specific blue giraffe in a picture book she read as a child. What had happened?

Eloise sighed as she tried to apply the color blue to a high-heeled shoe. Her mind couldn’t grasp it; the shoe came out gray. She looked towards the sky and wished to tell if it was a rainy day or not. If the sun hadn’t been there, she couldn’t tell.

She never told a soul about her condition. After all of those commercials about premature babies, beaten dogs and children starving in Africa, not being able to see blue felt kind of… dumb, if she was being honest. There were more important things. Love. Friends. Her gray toenail polish.

Eloise stared at her toes. She really missed the color blue. It wasn’t even her favorite color; that title belonged to orange, blue’s foe. She slipped on orange and black socks to cover up her gray toes.

She thought of the giraffe again. She hated it, but it had become necessary to maintain sanity. Blue giraffe… Eloise considered listening to Eiffel 65’s “Blue,” but her depression talked her out of it. Would she ever see blue again? Da ba dee da ba da? The song stuck in her head like a fever dream.

Laughing at her misery, Eloise rolled over on the couch. She’d try to forget the giraffe, but it danced around in her thoughts. Nothing seemed to please her anymore. Her son drew a cat with a blue crayon and she cried into it. Her husband wondered why they didn’t sleep together anymore, and then told her he had “blue balls.” She just lied back and told him to go for it. Sensing something was wrong, he went to sleep instead.

She dreamed of greens and reds and yellows, but no blue. Then the damn blue giraffe showed up and began to sing.

“Hello, hello, hello me dearie! I’m here to show ye– okay, that’s enough. I’m here to open your subconscious.”

Eloise frowned. “No thanks. If I can’t remember when I lost my ability to see blue, I don’t think–”

The giraffe put a hoof up to Eloise’s lips. “Non, non, child. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to show you why you stuck me in your brain.”

The world swirled around them in shades of peach and vermilion and pewter, but no blue. Then she saw herself as a child.

Young Eloise was holding a gray crayon… no, the label read “Berry Blue.” She was coloring a book of zoo animals. She could tell that this is where the giraffe came from. On the money, she spotted a page with a giraffe, colored entirely blue.

Her uncle stormed in, drunk as ever. “I bought you that coloring book and those crayons, and you only use blue, blue, BLUE! Little brat!” At that, he stomped on all of the blue crayons. With tears in her eyes, Young Eloise vowed not to let her guardian control her color choices.

“And that is why you still visualize my blue skin. Your defiance stuck.” The giraffe sounded proud of his colorist.

“But tell me, please, why can’t I see blue anymore? I must have lost the ability six months or so ago, not as a child!”

“What else happened six or seven months ago?”

“Well… the company had the merger… I bought that blue toenail polish, and it looks gray now… my uncle died… My uncle?”

“Nail equals hit on head! He was controlling of your choices as a child, and when he died, you didn’t have to hold onto color defiance any longer! All your life, you’ve controlled your own color choices. He died and your need to control color spontaneously vanished!”

Eloise mulled this over in her mind. “That’s dumb and so are you. My uncle’s death was no great loss to me and I hated him. Why would that make me forget how blue looks?”

The giraffe turned dark. “Okay, level time. It had nothing to do with color control. You’re nothing more than a filthy murderer. He was going to leave everything in his will to the dog, so you killed him. Eloise, the murderer, blocked out blue in shock. Maybe it had to do with that crayon-stomping incident, maybe not. But you should turn yourself in or die of guilt.”

Eloise popped up awake. She looked at the sky. Black. She slept through the day.

Eloise walked into her son’s bedroom and kissed him on the forehead, careful not to wake him up.

She went into her husband’s study and began to kiss him passionately, as if she’d never see him again. The two spent the night entangled.

The next day, Eloise turned herself in. However, after a few hours behind bars, she was let go.

“But I killed my uncle! I could kill again!”

The sergeant sighed. “If you do, please turn yourself in. The doctor who did your uncle’s autopsy was questioned about Mr. Pietro’s passing, and she said it was clearly caused by lung cancer. Why did you think you killed him?”

“B-but… the blue giraffe in my dream said…”

“If we listened to our dreams, I’d be a ballet dancer by now. Go home, Mrs. Mulberry.”

Pleased that she wasn’t a murderer and that she could get the giraffe out of her mind, Eloise looked upward. Still gray, but it appeared a little bluer than usual. And who needed blue when she had plenty of other colors to admire, to utilize, to wear? She went to the drug store and picked up a bottle of orange nail polish.

Nineteen months later, the color blue came back, but in her eyes, beige faded. She decided it was “no great loss.”

Sad King of Leaves

Found amidst a field of leaves by a lonely entanglement, the beginning of the Sad King of Leaves’ life runs the course of a standard hero. Raised by a non-genetic guardian, only to end up saving and leading his people. Yet the Sad King of Leaves was anything but standard, and was nothing to call heroic. The entanglement raised him until its untimely death, on the King’s 12^th birthday, rather on the anniversary when found.

Some might say that he had been quite heroic surviving. The Sad King of Leaves suffered from suicidal thoughts and would frequently escape his sadness by digging an exit through his arm. For the latter fact, few viewed him as heroic, while the few that did were named Mirzha and wore turtlenecks that didn’t properly cover their wrinkly green necks, for everyone in the Sad King of Leaves’ domain was a leaf. A small bit of information that largely attributed to his sadness; with his strawberry-squash hair with a fine texture of hay, saggy lifeless eyes with no discernible color left, and the inability to produce carbon dioxide, the King knew he was different. He was human. And he was alone.

The leaves, being kindly beings at heart, gathered together to find the proper treatment for their king of great lamentation. Noticing constant fluids leaking from their ruler’s eyes, Bondy suggested watering him more. The rest of the leaves made the notion unanimous: The Sad King of Leaves must be properly watered with water suited for a king. This notion, however, was only passed when the other leaves finished yelling at Bondy for being a dumb idiot who doesn’t even know how humans are supposed to work and that the fluid the king leaked were tears.

So the matter had then been disposed. The only proper water for their king was straight from the Proprietor of Precipitation, who lived on the West Leftside Faded Hills, through a series of intricate obstacles including a tunnel made of the pain in your heart (you, the specific reader), a 20-foot snake made up of small mongooses, and the thing that sadly was, which gave the Faded Hills its name. The Proprietor of Precipitation opted to take her Storm-Surfing Pachyderm, Gussman, rather than die. She would also take around three to six frogs with her, but that was unintentional. Frogs, regardless of color, evolutionary divide, convenience of travel size, breath, or poison content loved her. Toads wished she would just drop dead. In response, the young miss Proprietor stuck out her tongue and went on her way.

The old miss Proprietor had left this world entrusted to the child, or had let her believe she had been vanquished. Occasionally, the Proprietor of Precipitation had wondered what “Hold my place, child,” her mentor’s final message of poignancy, had meant. But now was not the right time to ponder. She climbed Gussman’s legs onto his back and tugged his ears. As they flew off, no nobler than their cause, she held her umbrella aloft and let the waters overtake her. Folding the umbrella inside out, the rains neatly gathered for her cause, to replenish the Sad King of Leaves.

She hadn’t seen the king in the longest. Was the entanglement still as kind as ever? Why did they now refer to it as the “sad” king? News of a child reached her last year. Was it the new king? The frogs chirped and croaked as they flew, minding the environmental outbursts of thunder and hail. The Proprietor tipped her umbrella toward a jar, filling it to the roughest brim.

After an hour below the clouds, Gussman decided above the clouds was the insurance he needed to survive. This proved fruitless when after two minutes, the Proprietor realized they had made it. Waving her hands above the jar, she mumbled something with great clarity in mind. The water sparkled brightly, annoyed at its change in properties.

Storms of leaves blasted the Proprietor in powerful elation. She had not been back since she was -20 years old, a negative age she wished not to disclose to the unknown masses. “Please show me to the king,” she asked, yet it was more of a ruthless demand. The leaves, had they had eyes, looked upon one another with great sadness. “He refuses to see any visitors, ma’am.”

She glowered. “Oh. He’ll see me.” She shoved aside the leaves and kicked in the door with her rain boots. “Your highness, I have the water you requested.” A timid and lost voice scratched out, “Just leave it by the door.” She noticed the king was a person, not the entanglement she expected. Feeling that pointing it out would push him over the edge, she questioned his depression.

“I don’t belong here,” he wheezed. “I’m not a leaf. I’m barely even human,” and saying this, he revealed his scratched-out arm. “The subjects are just being polite to me. I know they wish I were dead.” He buried his face into his hands. “Mmmfffmmmuh Fffufiimmm.” “What?” “I wish everyone else were dead,” he said barely more clearly. “Then I would know I have no place to fit in.”

The Proprietor of Precipitation stuck a funnel in the Sad King of Leaves’ mouth and laughed like the young girl she was. She lifted the jar and poured the rainwater into his mouth, still cackling like a small maniac all the while. “I don’t care about your problems. I had a job to do and I did it. You have a job too, and you have no skill at it. Goodbye.” She paused. “Where is your father’s grave so I can visit?” The Sad King of Leaves pointed out the window. “Thanks,” she muttered ungratefully.

His arm froze in place for ten minutes. As he stared at the mutilation, he wondered if, as king, he had to take that rude response from her. He thought about many mistakes in his life, about his father, about his people, about himself. He decided to make up for it. No more crying on the floor. He was going to cry on his throne, like a TRUE king! No more cutting his flesh. Time to cut the flesh of those who were rude to him, like that Proprietor! He gathered the leaves with the royal rake. Time to start a war, he thought. Maybe on the Fifth Soil Kingdom.

“Why do you always treat those depressed royals so shabbily?” asked Gussman. “They’re depressed and really need kindness.” “Ah, not so, my friend. Royals tend to get angrier than most people. I’m trading sad for mad, which is not too bad.” “Okay, so what if the royals go mad with power?” “What?” asked the Proprietor. “Like they’d ever go from that depressed to that upbeat? I’d eat my umbrella if that ever happened.”

Although the water sparkled with magic, there was no true power to alter one’s mood. The jar, however, was laced with anger-inducing honey, so it’s not as though she pulled a fast one on the royals. Speaking of, the Sad King of Leaves conquered many kingdoms and became one of the most cruel, vicious and sad dictators of all time. The Proprietor of Precipitation ate umbrella pie two weeks after their meeting.

Stapler and Tape

The end came not from fire or ice, but from protein drinks. After the first tainted Power Fountain beverage claimed a human life, the world and Power Fountain LTD shortly broke down from there.The world was survived by the employees of the dissolution of society.

Holed up in a skyscraper for four years caused strain upon the 217 remaining people on Earth, even if it did come with new friendships, greater understandings, astonishing romances between accountants and marketing reps, births, clarity of demise, factions, deformed births, a short-lived quest for a legendary lost game of Solitaire removed from the computers to maintain productivity, lost births, murders, suicides, murder suicides, suicidal murders, muimimal surcers, and very little filing.

By the end, 215 people had died. This is the story of how the remaining one and a half people spent their final day on a planet that would be be inherited by the smarter iguanas.

The CEO that started the kerfuffle coughed out a gold tooth. It was not natural gold; not when he first started guzzling his own protein drink. Once the water fountains broke down and the maintenance staff dissolved into a puddle of protein years prior, Gonson Gobsmack (CEO) opened the vault that held the last untainted Power Fountain cans and issued them to the final nine humans.

To his immeasurable regret, even though they were untainted, sitting in aluminium cans for years had adverse effects on the consumer. Seven died. Two remained; Kevin Beecher (Data Entry Clerk) survived off of pen ink due to insurmountable fear of the protein drink. Gobsmack fared better only a day longer than the other seven who drank.

He was essentially dead, but delusion kept the man who sucked the world away busy.

“Beecher, file these folders for me, would you? Got to have things orderly for our clients. Appearances give us power. Power Fountain. Power…” Then he died.

Kevin nodded. He knew the last CEO on Earth had been confused, but who was he to ignored a dying man’s request?

He took the colorful folders to the cabinets and began sorting them by state. New Jersey (now barren, orange and musty ash within a month of the tainted shipment), Ohio (survivors lived there for a week until a turtle raced into them and caused the living corpses to shatter), Montana (a revolutionary form of suicide was invented there, but no one was around to document it), and Michigan (the only state with an inhabitant, Kevin Beecher).

He placed the folders into the correct slot, coldly pretending that he wasn’t just shuffling the names of corpses around a hollow coffin. Even seeing a folder with his own mother’s first name on it couldn’t distract him from his menial task.

The last data entry clerk wiped away a smudge from his lips. It had always been a disastrous habit of his, drinking slightly toxic pen ink at work. But it had been a large company, and he had enough experience with data entry that he could pretend he wasn’t there for Quality Assurance purposes, watching the world melt off while drinking a pen over a vat of protein-enhancing liquid.

“Gibson, Kristen. Hewlett, Stewart.”

He told himself that it started when a cute girl in marketing laughed at the ink on his face. Not a mean laugh, but a “chase after my heart” laugh.

“Larson, Alison. Brie, Brie.”

But he knew it was a predispositional habit of his spawning from middle school. He just chewed his was through a pen and liked the taste of it. Now he needs it to survive.

“Seofusall, Demi.”

Kevin Beecher realized with horror that his work is done. Nothing could distract him anymore. He rose and turned from the standing metal caskets. His footsteps kept time with the blinking of iguanas, more and more spawning each day.

He continued trudging past the marketing girl, who had died drinking the “clean shipment” only a day gone. She had been his office wife for three years but never bore him a child. They couldn’t justify it. They saw the world; it was not a world of hope.

Finally, he reached the center of the office. For five hours, Kevin gyrated wildly, saying nothing and looking eager for a vacation day. At last, his voice shone through his dance.

“And… done! Well, now that that’s over with, better go get the handgun my boss keeps in his desk and blow my brains all over the office.”