Flash Fiction: Psychic Kitty

My entry for The Fairy Ring Writing Contest over at Yearning For Wonderland. Because I could never pass up a chance to write about fairies, right?

Psychic Kitty

“Hey dude, you ever wonder what your cat’s looking at?” asked Amy.

Lil took a sip of wine, “You think my cat’s schizo?”

“Or what if he sees things we don’t? Cats' eyes are always focusing on 'imaginary' stuff. Even chasing it. What if he’s seeing things on another level?”

“What like, ghosts?” Lil looked at her innocent grey tom.

“Nah, a cat wouldn’t chase ghosts around –”

“Maybe the ghosts of mice.”

“Mice don’t get ghosts.”

“Look who’s suddenly an expert on the supernatural,” Lil snorted, “Please, what’s my cat seeing? Bunnies from parallel dimensions?”

“I’m thinking more like fairies.”

“I’m thinking you need to get your head examined.”

“Why not?" said Amy, "Animals have better instincts than humans… what about those goats who know when earthquakes are coming?”

“Well, since you’ve brought up the irrefutable scientific evidence of the goats who know when earthquakes are coming, I guess I have to submit to your premise.”

“You can get all sarcastic, missy!” Amy grinned, “But life’s full of weird shit.”

“The weirdest shit this cat’s ever done is somehow convince himself that I enjoy seeing dead birds on my doorstep in the mornings,” Lil scooped up the tom and looked into his green eyes, “Are you psychic, my fluff? Are you a psychic kitty?”

“Well, obviously he’s not gonna admit to it…” said Amy cheekily. 

The cat had decided he’d had enough of this patronizing cuddle-fest and squirmed out of Lil’s lap.

He strutted outside into the pale light of the new moon, raising himself up on two legs which quickly became straighter, more humanoid, as he effortlessly morphed into his true form: a proud faerie prince with a plush grey fur coat.

Smirking, he decided it was a good night to hex some sparrows. 

(Words: 306. Doh!)

Here are the contest details, and other entries!

Blog Salad (now with added cats!)

You know how a Chef's salad is just leftovers mixed with mayo? Well, here's scraps of unposted bloggery, mixed with mayo. Blog mayo, that is: pictures of my cat.

WHAT?!

A Quick Midnight Post

Okay, for realsies, how hard is it to find a line-by-line, amateurish-looking translation of a seemingly un-mind-blowing section of Beowulf online?

Impossible, apparently!

And now, on a totally separate note, I don't think I'll be going to my Medieval class tomorrow, because I've spent the last gajillion hours procrastinating and I'm too grumpy to translate this thing myself.

[Note: I'm pretty sure I didn't cheat on my Medieval Lit homework.... but I probably did. Just the once.]


You're Making A Scene

Quote of the day:

Maybe for once, someone will call me "Sir" without adding, "you're making a scene."
-Homer Simpson

I've never had someone call me Sir, not even on the phone. Usually when I answer the phone, the caller asks if my mommy or daddy is home. While you'd think I'd be a Miss, nobody calls me that either. Maybe South Africans don't say Miss or maybe I just don't look like one. What I do get now and then is Ma'am, usually by women older than I am who happen to be shop assistants.

I'm a shop assistant.

At least I would be if I had a shop.

[I wonder if this was going anywhere? To the shops, perhaps?]

More mayo.

 Portrait of the Artist as a Series of Pixels

I had a dream that I went back to Wits for Masters in Renaissance Poetry.

I'm pretty sure that qualifies as a nightmare. (For me, at least. After four years of studying it, I still fucking struggle to spell "Renaissance" right the first time.)

I've been thinking about graphic novels. Specifically, that graphic novels continue to be more widely published and read. Web comics are a huge contributor to the upwardly mobile trajectory of the medium (thus being taken a lot more "seriously" than, say, in the 80's). But there is comparatively sparse academic coverage of graphic novels as literature rather than simply an aspect of pop culture. We study movies as literature, so why not graphic novels?

I've just gotten hold of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, The Invisible Art and I'm really impressed with the depth of thought put into it. Also, it's a treatise on comics made in comic form - how freakin' cute is that?

Not as cute as this.

 Do you have scraps of half-written blog posts, stories and unsent tweets lying around? I'm so bad at finishing stuff. Would a novel-length story salad be too postmodern an attempt? It could be a comment on the short attention span of this media-soaked society. And everybody loves pictures of cats!

Have you met Lexi?

Darling reader, I could give you a long explanation of how my life is far too busy and orgasmically* wonderful for me to blog, but that would be a lie. I’ve been less busy and possibly less orgasmic than your average senior citizen, and this blog has once again come to the edge of death because I suck at life.

But! I have made a new resolution! Call it a Nearly End Of Winter resolution or a Post-Bronchitis resolution, but I’ve made one and here it is: just because I suck at life doesn’t mean I have to suck at blogging. Most people whose blogs I enjoy suck at life anyway (except for you, because if you do blog I’m sure you’re amazing and I marvel at your ability to keep your orgasmically busy life at bay long enough to document it.)

So what do the pro-active, successful bloggers of the world blog about? I don’t know, but I have a cat** so… here’s a picture of my cat! 

Her name is Lexi and she's adorable. And whenever I run out of ideas I’m going to post pictures of her*** so this blog will never almost-die again! Look at me, with my flawless plan. It’s almost as if I don’t suck at life.

What are you doing in that shoebox, Lexi? You’re not a shoe, you’re a cat!

Of course, I’ll talk about other stuff too. Because there’s thin YET INCREDIBLY DISTINCT line between me and this girl:



And that line is that she’s trolling, and my devotion to cats (at least, my cat) is disturbingly genuine.

*Spellcheck assures me that I mean ‘orgasmic ally’ here. I think I’ve just found the name of my superhero sidekick. Climax would be the main superhero of course. And aren’t sidekicks supposed to have more cumbersome and less impressive names which tie in thematically to the main hero? There you go.

**a common symptom of sucking at life

***because she’s fluffy