Fiction – Page 77 – Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog

Sanctuary

How far will you go to find home?

There is a planet on the scanners. It is large and round and red. The sun is yellow and warming, and the planet is in the sun’s life zone. The gravity is slightly stronger than Earth’s. The air is a bit richer, and there is abundant water under the surface.

The red coloring comes from two things. The surface of the planet is covered with red vegetation and their spores are everywhere. The ground is also red, although not with spores but with clay and slate like so faraway Connecticut.

The dog beside me raises his massive head and growls. I scratch behind his ears and his hind legs start thumping the cabin floor. I make him thump in time to songs I sing, switching legs as I go from chorus to lead and back.

“We’ll go down, see if this is the one.”

His ears go up slightly. I wonder how many of the words he understands.

“Take the dog,” my wife said. The cabin has room for me and one more. The taste of her lips is still on mine. The smell of her hair is here before me. I can delight in her touch and feel her sun-warmed and reddened skin.

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Mitre

Sometimes the Elderly offer their own solutions

Mitre left her home this morning as she had every morning as far back as she could remember, descending concrete steps to sand and sea, her two hands guiding her, clenched on a rusted iron railing. Twenty feet from the bottom stair, at the end of a path made of sun bleached and half burnt boards, white iron chairs held vigil over the ocean. Mitre made her way there and found her seat.

The morning was an ocean rich fog. Closer to the waves, gulls and sandpipers plagued crabs and clams. Far away and cresting the waves, the sun broke through the clouds. The mist hung just enough for Mitre to see the sun’s outline and face.

Mitre cooed as the sun winked at her, hiding behind clouds, playing a game. At first the old woman was confused. She scanned the horizon but the sun could not be found.

Again the sun peeked and hid from her. Mitre jumped and clapped wrinkling hands. Comprehension began to mask her face. She understood.

The sun stretched its arms across the ocean’s expanse to hold her. Somewhere inside, the chaos of her thoughts found order. There was a memory of being held in someone’s arms.

She left her chair and started towards the water. The gentle waves gave no crest to stop her. She left the sand and splashed into the water, hands outstretched to grasp her ancient lover’s arms.

The sun waited, not moving. Mitre fought the waist deep water, the cold numbing and the sun embracing. Breathing was difficult. She stopped and winced as her chest spasmed.

“Mother! Come back!”

MindMaster Case File 455: The UnResponsive Male

She opened my office door and the room temperature went up ten degrees. She wore a wide brimmed blue fedora that slipped down, covering her face slightly and it was the only loose thing she wore. She was shaped like an hourglass and it was only a few minutes past the hour. Her fedora matched her eyes and there was a cool shower of blond hair framing her northern european features. I noticed this even though I could hear my mother telling me it was impolite to stare.

The lady in the fedora said, “May I come in?”

I was going to comment that some of her all ready had but my tongue was too busy falling out the side of my mouth to form words. “Ungh-nghe,” I said.
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The Boy in the Giant – Artwork by LadySparrowhawk

I’m blessed to have Casey Wilkinson, aka Lady Sparrowhawk, a gifted artist as a friend. She provided the artwork for this story.

Enjoy!

Once upon a time, when a small, magical child lived in a magical woods, a horrible thing happened. Someone left the child outside in the cold, rainy, wet damp of dawn. It doesn’t matter if this happened once or a thousand times. When you are a child, even once is enough.

It so happened, as the child grew into a boy, that others came by who were blind to the child and the boy and splattered mud as they passed. The mud covered the growing boy, its coldness reminding him of being abandoned in the cold, damp dawn.

The child grew into a clever boy. He kept his eyes open and watched the flowers spreading their petals to let in the morning sun, spiders spinning delicate webs stronger than the strongest steel, and squirrels and ants busying themselves gathering winter’s harvest.

Over time the boy fell in love with the world around him and decided that no matter what happened to him, he could learn from it. Quickly the boy’s wisdom grew as he watched and studied and quietly observed until he became quieter and wiser than most in the Woods.

But while he grew, there was a mud caked child inside, a child the wise boy knew nothing of, crying in the cold, damp dawn. The boy lived with the ache of the child inside so long it became like a cloak which no one else could see and which was more real to the growing boy than anything else in his world. The boy sat and watched the mud that caked around him as others splashed and noticed it hardened as it dried. The child gave the boy an idea.

“What would happen if I took some mud and fashioned a cloak around myself?” As the mud hardened he could make the cloak stronger and harder. Eventually the cloak would keep out the cold and the rain and protect the boy and child from pain.
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