No Power in the ‘Verse Can Stop this Leo, Part 3 of 3

Part 1
Part 2

Tara wasn’t dead and she didn’t know why. Her body felt uncannily rigid. She tried flexing her legs, but nothing happened. She wanted to look down at her paws, but her face refused to turn away from the sky. She wiggled her paws and tasted something rich and delicious. With her paws. She tried making sense of paws that could taste, but kept getting distracted by the sun. She just couldn’t turn away from it. The bright and warmth tasted so good on her skin.

After following the ups and downs of the sun for many dawns and dusks, Tara’s head turned to fluff. She liked the fluffy feeling. It was light and freeing and promising.

“Mommy look, a dandelion!”

The sound of the two-legged young pulled Tara out of her latest sun trance. She readied herself for the screaming and the stench of fear to overwhelm her senses. But nothing happened.

“It’s so pretty. Can I make a wish, Mommy? Please!”

“Sure,” the two-legged mother said. “Just don’t rip the poor thing out of the ground. Get on your knees to make your wish.”

The two-legged young wrapped a not so gentle paw around Tara’s body, and said, “I wish all the big kitties grow fat and happy, and that my Mommy finds the bad man who hurt their mommy, and that my Mommy can put the bad man in a cage forever and ever. I wish, I wish, I wish.”

With eyes closed and heart open, the child blew her belief-full breath into Tara. And every seed, of the flower that had once been a lioness, soared into the wind, roaring: So be it!

detail from a photo by Christian Papaux, on Unsplash

- this concludes (and perhaps also begins) Tara’s story.
- the title echoes a favorite quote from Firefly: “No power in the ‘verse can stop me!”
- for Poets and Storytellers United--Writers’ Pantry #72: Oh, I Will Walk 500 Miles…

Luna Dwelling Races Might Get Better Odds in Mercury

I close the book while chanting the last few words aloud (spoilers!) for me and for the ghosts of reading past: “races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.” I let the words leap back and forth from page to tongue to brain, and I wonder if the pronouncement is only true for earthly fictions; or, if maybe, plots about Luna dwelling races get better odds in Mercury.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a time machine.

When I was thirteen, this book (my favorite of all books) took me to prose full of floating fishes and blind leeches (that mistook a wrinkled back for a wall). On this day, decades after fishes and leeches, we went on our umptieth trip and ended up on a page where “Human beings are not born once and for all... life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” No wonder humanity is always screaming and pushing, pushing, pushing… for better (one hopes).

- as suggested in the piece, the quotations are bits from Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, a book that always transports me to interesting pages.

- for Poets and Storytellers United (Weekly Scribblings #30: Writing as a Metaphor for Living). Write new poetry or prose which includes 3 or more of the following words: allusion, conflict, edit, fiction, grammar, mood, pace, plot, poetry, prose, punctuation, rhythm, and stanza. I went with fiction, plot, and prose.

 the beginning of a reading journal project (which did not quite survive *cough*)

You Are Easy to Love

“You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” —Annie Dillard

The world is growing darker. Fate is showing teeth, and what used to be a smile is starting to look a lot like a sneer. Pain and Uncertainty are weaving a dread-kissed shroud around everything—all our souls see, all our breastbones feel… seems to reach us through the taint of hurt. These days, it’s hard to love the world and even harder not to renounce all hope. But it’s so easy to love (and care for) you always.

on your birthday, give

your Self the gift of knowing

how much you matter

the wee notes…

- when I first became seriously ill, I used to feel wretched every time I thought about how difficult my illness was on loved ones who had to spend so much of their time helping me through it. Who wants to be a burden, right? I remember thanking my Piano Man over and over… And I remember him telling me that helping me made him feel better (I didn’t always believe him). Then, someone I love became seriously ill. And all I can think about is that I (and everyone who loves her) would do anything to make her life easier, to remind her how much she matters. Today is her birthday, and I wish her strength, health, smiles (and wings).  

- linked to Poets and Storytellers United (Weekly Scribblings #16: Re-Verse) and to the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads’ prompt for April 22^nd: Poets of April

- and as always, stay safe.

Rebirth, by Patricia Ariel