The bricks are coming up

There's a little park downtown, brick walkways, a fountain, grassy landscaping. It takes up half a block.

There are partial metal arches, maybe ten feet high, black steel, intentionally left behind from whatever structure was there before. Because this town likes its history and we leave things like this behind.

Beneath one of these arches, the bricks are coming up. Every few months, half a dozen bricks are out of place. Loose and misaligned, so you can see the dry dirt beneath.

Then these are repaired. We walk over them, thinking nothing of it.

A few months later, the bricks are coming loose again. Same bricks. Always beneath this arch.

And I can't help thinking: something is trying to come through.

This was originally posted on Twitter on 1/23/19.

The crown felt light in his hands

He stepped over stone rubble and looked around. The smoke had cleared; the horses came back. But he was alone.

The crown felt light in his hands, maybe because he was leaving.

Let someone else restore this village.

No more need for a king.

This was originally posted to Twitter on 2/26/2019 as a submission to Fairy Tale Review.

Magic runs under this town

They told us magic runs under this town like groundwater. We noticed at first, and then it didn’t matter.

Crops never failed; invaders ignored us; injuries healed.

Magic was all we needed. We don’t eat, don’t work, don’t sleep.

No need.

This was originally posted to Twitter on 2/26/2019 as a submission to Fairy Tale Review.

Lucid every night

He tells her about his dreams, how he's lucid every night. He can control almost everything. He has a rewind button but can't figure out how to use it on monsters.

He wakes up with night terrors and has to verify what's real. She talks him through the test: count your fingers, look at the calendar, check the room. Everything looks right, doesn't it? Just work through the test.

Some nights it gets better. He doesn't always remember his dreams, and not remembering is a relief. It means he can take a break from fighting monsters. He doesn't worry about the test...or what failing means.

This was originally posted to Twitter on 4/9/2019 as a submission to MythicPicnicTweetStory.

After the connection breaks

I can tell only after the connection breaks, because that’s when I realize what happened. That’s when I know I’ve been talking to him inside my head again.

It starts the same: a normal day but in the afternoon I feel floaty. Then like an antenna, receiving signal. A dial twists somewhere between us, our thoughts align, and we’re on the same frequency. Everything I think is automatically in his head.

Everything he says becomes my memory. We go back to jokes we used to tell; hide our sadness from each other; pretend we don’t notice. We know how to do this now, but in some ways, we never learn.

This was originally posted to Twitter on 1/8/2019 as a submission to MythicPicnicTweetStory.