I submitted two pieces for consideration to Moss Piglet:
While there’s an abundance of well-known tales starring A-lister heroes, seldom are stories that follow up-and-comers appreciated by the literary public. Take, for example, Prince Charming’s cousin’s latest exploit:
Prince Moribund, exhausted from dragging his rented steed, a rickets-ridden swaybacked nagi, up the grassy knoll, fought to catch his breath. Ahead lay his goal: THE TOWER OF (mild) INCONVENIENCE! What could be generously called its architectural style meant it less rose and more stumbled upwards through the surrounding scraggly brush. Each story precariously and inukshukly rested on the one below, held in place only with crusty moss, dying ivy, abundant guano, and the willful ignorance of gravity.
Within the ramshackle structure, stuck behind an obstinate door, a fair lady … a damsel in distress … an asthmatic supercentenarian ineffectually kicked the unmoving portal while shouting shockingly imaginative imprecations, interspersed with wet hacking coughs, loud expectorations, and long drags on greasily-smoking evilly-smelling stale cigarillos.
“Never fear, My Lady!”, gasped the prince. “I come bearing penetrating oil to battle the rusty hinges which bedevil thee!” As Imagination began contemplating the traditional rewards for his derring do, it was interrupted by increasingly loud Memory with a reminder that the needed oil was in a saddle bag he’d left at the foot of the hill in an effort to lighten his mount’s load. “No lube, no entry”, it chastised.
The sun, having completely lost interest in the now-delayed rescue, sullenly collapsed below the horizon like a grounded teenager, leaving the prince enshrouded in darkness. And, a few minutes later, drenched, courtesy of a raincloud errantii.
As he bravely rolled over in his rusty armour in what would end up being a failed attempt to find a less uncomfortable sleeping position, he thought of the dangers to come on the morrow (immediately following the retrieval of the rescue supplies and the preparation and consumption of a hearty lunchiii):
- slippery steps,
- spiders that would be in their webs laying-in-wait (and thankfully staying-in-wait because…ewww - they’re yucky), and
- splinters.
But those trials would have to wait until the sun deigned to emerge from its hidey-holeiv. And after the horse, which had been left untethered overnight and spooked by the rumbling snoring emanating from the Princess’ bedchamber, was retrieved from a distant thicket of raspberriesvi. And after updating the Perform A Perilous Rescue checklist in his cousin’s best-seller Be Charming - How To Be a Hero in 17 Easy Steps - currently ensconced in the same saddlebag as the oil.
iHorse rental provided by Sam’s Quality Horse Rentals, located next to Sam’s Quality Glue and Adhesives.
iiIt’s not just humans that have knights errant. Environmental effects can also seek out adventures, even if they look very different from human ones.
iiiMeals purchased at Sam’s Quality Sausages and Charcuterie.
ivIt didn’t care to stay on a regular schedule. Morning and all the dreadful “rise and shine” business could wait until it was good and ready and had had sufficient caffeine to suffer through another trying day.v
vYou put on a sunny disposition day after day regardless of how you’re feeling and see if you don’t end up just as cynical.
viHe’d put his life savings down as a deposit for the horse. It’d be a financial disaster not to return it.
Dreamscape
Swirling maelstrom, unsettled, uncertain, fills my mind with vortices, possibilities, infinities. Limbs and tendrils anchored, rooted, with all roads wending through the trunk highway, thick with vitalizing life. I hang passions and goals like ornaments with a degree of solemnity dependent on how deeply each is desired. Uncertain and hesitant movement evolves to more confident flowing up this branching or that. A future sought, ripening fruit, fertilizing seeds of unfolding labyrinthian dreamscapes.
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